White Christmas Themed DIY Decorations

Every year we like to decorate our room for Christmas. This year, we've been quite busy so we decided to go really simple. And even though we made most of the decorations this year, it was really easy.

25 Unique Things to Do During Christmas

There're lots of fun Christmas "bucket lists" out there with many of the traditional things to do on them... go see the lights, go sledding, bake sugar cookies, etc. I love doing all those things, but I thought that it would be fun to share 25 unique, not-so-run-of-the-mill things to do at Christmas. So let's dive right in!

Paleontologist Fun

Whew! It's been a while since I posted on here, hasn't it? 

To be honest, I was kind of struggling for a while with what to write. I had ideas, but I kept wondering if it was really that interesting to others. But sometimes a little break is nice and you come back refreshed and revitalized--and that's the way I feel about this blog right now. Super excited to get back into posting, even if they're short little things like this one is going to be. :) The style of my posts might be a little different now, but...I'm not going to tell you what exactly I mean by that. You'll just have to wait and see. ;)

What We Made: Our Picnic Sewing Projects

Hello!

As Victoria promised, here is another post! :D

It wasn't until us girls were putting away our summer clothes and getting out our winter clothes that we remembered that we had promised to post about our summer picnic sewing projects. So, we snapped a few pictures and now I'm here to tell you about them. ;) (please excuse the wrinkles)

Week of Pictures Six-- And then Spring Came

Howdy! I'm here with my long overdo week of pictures. :) 

I'm feeling pretty excited with summer coming on! We actually broke records here in Shibetsu for hottest April-- it got to 77F here this week, which is crazy! Our summers are always mild compared to many places, so it came as a surprise to us all. :P 

What We Made: Yarn Scarves

 The first time we made this style of scarf was with our second cousins when we were back in the States on furlough. Actually, it's the same ones we made the Morse Code Necklaces with! You can see what those scarves looked like in our new Simply Sisters pictures post.

For something fun to do together with our girl friends during Abigail's birthday sleepover, we decided to make some with them.

A Bibliophage's Mugs

Howdy, friends!

I thought I would show you today some mugs I did last week. 

Let's look in the cupboard. There's my mugs! Or actually, some of them. I have two more you can't really see, behind these three. 

Days of January, Abigail style :)

Konnichiwa!
I hope you are having a wonderful Sunday and beautiful one as well. :) The sun is starting to stay out a little longer now....



A couple mornings ago, it was all misty outside and looked quite cold. So, I opened up the window to snap a few pictures.

"Thankful"--Brother's handiwork

By request from various readers, we will be showcasing our brothers "Thankful" projects. :) I think they all did a great job, and were very creative! 

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

I hope you've had a lovely Thanksgiving!

Project MK Matching skirts!

This post is picture heavy! You are forewarned. :)

Back in June, Abigail and I were working on sewing matching skirts for our Mk friends. We are the "younger set"-- pretty much growing up a lot of our lives together. Abigail was the youngest MK girl for the longest time, until one of the missionary families had a girl three years back. So, we decided to make her a skirt too, since it's fun to sew small things. ;)
We had a system--I measured, did the maths, cut, and sewed up most of the skirts, and Abigail hemmed and did the ruffles (that were on only some of them, for added length), because I sort of dislike hemming circle skirts and doing ruffles. :D But then, I discovered a trick to make hemming circle skirts easier, so I did some of the hems as well, to help speed things up.
This was the sewing process for us! I'm sorry the first picture is fuzzy-- the picture was clear, but the collage app I used was being cantankerous this morning, lol.



We wore them for part of the Missionary Summer Picnic day, and had fun doing a photo shoot!




Left to Right-- KT, Me, KL, G.W., H.M, S.M., and Abigail <3 ....I don't know why but I had so much trouble balancing on the rounded side of the bridge right then...lol!








We had fun meeting a young Japanese girl, who enjoyed hanging out with us.






















Do you see the fly on my arm? For some reason, it cracks me up really bad. lol.


The littlest girl and I ;)








We had a lot of fun making them and we were pleased how they turned out. ;) It was really easy making our own half circle skirt patterns and it was quick to sew up.
I hope you enjoyed seeing them. Have a lovely day!! <3
Victoria

Days of Summer

Summer. Rain. Green. Watermelon.




1. Storming out our bedroom window. Sitting cozy at my desk.
2. Reflections. And another storm.
3. Our new favorite recipe for amazing chocolate chewy cookies. ;) make them with chocolate chips, plain, or with coconut and m'n'm's. ;)
4. Jollof. Yum. It's a dish from Ghana, I believe it was. I enjoy making things from around the world. Jollof is easy and deliciously different. But it's for a cooler rainy night...it's got a nice warm spicy flavor, and it stays hot in the bowl. And the chicken is so tender and flavorful! :)
5. Another cookie! What a surprise....not! Lol. Scrumptious and healthy is this cookie...studded with dried fruit, oatmeal, and black chocolate. Oh yum.
6. Dark chocolate whole wheat muffin. Very heavy, but a great snack if you're really hungry. :)
7. Another storm coming. Over one of our neighborhood temple/shrines.... That's the temple.
8. Double rainbow around the sun! It was amazing and gorgeous.
9. Feathery evergreen and our gold summer sunsets.
10. The two sisters, taking pictures of each other. Lol
11. Parmesan herb popcorn. It was so yummy. We had it with sandwiches a week or so back and had a picnic outside our house in a tent we set up.
12. Our rolling hills. Green, it's so green here!
13. The birthday present I made for my mum. <3
14. Rain on our van's sunroof.
15. First watermelon of the year! It was so delightful.
16. A project Abigail and I have been working on...this is the smallest version of seven skirts we've made/are making, all matching. ;) maybe a post later about us two Minks girls skirts? Who knows. :)

....We don't have a three month vacation during the summer like most American folks, (we have a three week one coming up) but that doesn't mean we can't enjoy all things summer!

I hope you are having a lovely summer as well. Let me know in the comments your favorite thing about summer!

Mine would definitely be ice cream and the water...whether it's the ocean, the river, the city fountains you can play in, water balloons, water guns, waterfalls, or summer storms... I love them all! :)

See you around!
Victoria <3