Quiet Book



Brittany thought I should make a quiet book for little boy, so I thought, if I was making one, why not make four?
Doesn't everyone just love a cute quiet book to take to church? I had fun looking on-line and getting ideas.   This project has already taken me a  little over a month to create but I want our grandchildren to enjoy this special grandma & Brittany made books  for years . . .who knows, maybe for generations! 
Here are our pages:
This is the back page...it's a tic tac toe game but with various sports balls (some of the books have basket balls and footballs - love these foam pre-decorated balls) I commented to Mike that this activity is a little old for our grandsons but Mike thought our children could play it to keep themselves entertained.

This funny guy has different eyes, a set of glasses, various noses and mustaches, and varous crazy smiles, lips and whatever I could come up with. The bow tie was Brittany's idea. I like his fake fur hair.

Inside the barn are five animal finger puppets. The page zips up so the critters won't fall out.
On the right, is an aquarium where the fish can swim by sliding across the page and the seahorse swims up and down ...I used a clear sheet protector and foam fish, shells bubbles foam coral, sand paper for the bottom of the aquarium and a shinny fabric for the water effect. (My very own idea...I wish the photo had of turned out better...it's so easy to play with.

The car on the right has button-on wheels and a button-on sun. The window was made with a clear sheet protector. The house with a little car can be driven around on the road.

My robots have pipe cleaner legs and arms so that they can be taken off the page and played with.
The bodies and heads are interchangeable.
The monster page has a place for a pad of paper and pencil or pen. The noses are pom poms and the monsters have googly eyes. The little white monster is very soft...he's made from chenille yarn.  He's a mini stuffed creature that can be removed and played with.

I found silver ribbon for the blade part of the ice skate.  When I saw this idea, I loved that it was different and not a shoe...hopefully children are still learning to tie...are they?
The mitten has soft red fabric on it's cuff and soft warm fleece for the hand to slide into. I wish I had of made this a little bigger, my hand doesn't fit into it.

The snowman with pipe cleaner arms has accessories like hats and scarves in the brown bucket -type pocket. 
The grass page has varous things hiding in the grass like a dragonfly button, two little flannel kittens, a heart, a key and whatever I could find that was little. I love the embroidered felt butterfly coming out of the grass.  Brittany used all her sewing skills to attach the items that are hiding! Can you see the black feather?



Stained Glass



After thinking about adding a stained glass window to our entry for 25 years, I finally designed this window.  The window took weeks to cut out and then time to solder it together and paint the patina onto the solder. Last night I got two of the panels in place and then had to ask for help from Mike to get the other three to stay. This morning when I looked into the entry, I saw the colored glass illuminated from the natural light.  I'm glad I took the time to make this. I can see things I'd change but for now, this project is done once I add a little more silicone to the edges of the glass. (The silicone is holding the glass in place).

WARNING...If you come visit, please don't slam my front door! I'm not sure how secure the glass truely is.
Opps, I just noticed that one of my ship plates is crooked...I must fix that tonight.

Sigtuna; second oldest town in Sweden

Grandpa carried me all over the place.

In front of Saint Mary's, a really, really old church...

Grandpa found a feather for me. It tickled me.

Viking inscriptions, this little guy seems to know what they are saying, too bad he can't say the words...yet.

Stockholm Half Marathon

Mike at 22k notice the palace in the background.

Entertaining our grandson while Grandpa runs the half marathon...at a swan fountain.

Grandpa proudly holding his grandson after the race..."hum, let me taste that metal Grandpa".

The bridge packed with runners...13,560 runners participated in this race. WOW!

Traditional Felt Christmas Stockings

In my spare time and while traveling, I listened to Amy's suggestion to make extra Christmas stockings for future family members...hopefully, they'll each like their special, one of a kind CANDRIAN traditional felt stocking.

Sock Puppets

Sock puppets and Sunbeams are a perfect match. Sunday's lesson was on birds and insects. I made a sock puppet for each child and let the children act out the story of the pioneers and how the seagulls ate the crickets (the white and grey socks became seagulls). I also told the story of wicked King Ahab and how the prophet Elijah was told to hide and the ravens feed Elijah bread and meat by the brook day and night (the black socks were the ravens). The stripped socks became caterpillers with a lot of little pom pom legs!  For directions on making these sock puppets go to http://mikejoycandrian.blogspot.com/2013/04/sew-busy-puppet-making.html

So, whenever you have mismatched socks, or socks that no one will wear anymore and your children are not living at home and you decide to clean out their drawers... why not make sock puppets? My Mom use to make these for her little children a long time ago. For more tips on making these go to: http://www.daniellesplace.com/HTML/puppets.html

(Mike modeling the raven puppet).

Yes, birds have tongues. Did you know that they have 5 bones in their tongues to crunch nuts, seeds and insects?

Some birds have a tongue like a straw...guess which kind of bird has that kind of tongue.

Lorene Park, Portland, Oregon

Last Sunday, before we boarded our plane to fly back home to Utah, Mike drove me by my old neighborhood. The brick pillar is the first sign which indicated where to turn into my old childhood neighborhood; off of Glisan onto 108th Avenue in Portland, Oregon. This pillar is where the children from my neighborhood lined-up to catch the bus for school, we'd have races to the pillars and other games were played around the pillar. The neighborhood looked like it had shrunk. Is that possible or are my memories bigger than life? The old house had changed so much, it didn't look like my home. I shed a few tears. Good thing Mike understood how I was feeling. What are the signs you think of when you think about the home you grew-up in?

My parents moved into Lorene Park in 1954, the year my older sister was born. I remember Mom stating that the neighborhood use to be a peach orchard.