A Letter

Dear Snow,

I love you, I really do. It wouldn't be a proper winter without enough wet, sticky snow to build a snowman; without sledding down the hill; without snowballs. But sometimes, you're a menace. What were you thinking? First you came down, then the snow plows cleaned, then... you came again! And faster, thicker, longer than before. As the sky began to darken, you have turned from magic to monster. And on the day of my birthday celebration? I repeat: what were you thinking?

Thankfully, just one friend was stuck in her driveway and the rest battled through icy winds and traffic and an ever-growing thick white sheet that seems to have covered every single street and sidewalk. Cookie decorating was fun--complete with lots of jokes about bad baking, and abstract art-- but it just wasn't the same without her.

Remember how this happened last year? And the year before that? And the year before that? And-- well, you get the picture. But we really need to talk. Our friendship is hanging by a thread. You're so dramatic. I just can't deal with you sometimes! And when we fight, it's always me that has to apologize to you because you're such a sore loser. I just wish that we could be closer. But whenever I want to hang out, you overdo everything. Then when I ask you to go away you give me the cold shoulder. Ugh!

You're beautiful and fun. But please, control yourself! You're so clingy. Could we sit down and talk? Whenever you're available, preferably after winter break begins.

Sincerely,
Anya

p.s. and if you really want to work things out before then... give our school a snow day!!

Snowing~

Anya's Top 10 Things She Loves About....

WINTER!

Yes, it's snowing already. Yikes. (Also, somebody broke my snow globe. *Looks around house and glares* the music stand broke in two... grr.) Winter, winter, winter!!

10. Pretty Christmas ornaments.
9. The wrapping paper that goes on sale (!!)
8. Candy canes.
7. Going shopping at Whole Foods for cookie ingredients and eating all the free samples for stuff.
6. Michaels sales!
5. The crunching sound that snow makes under your boots.
4. When you wake up in the morning and there's this ethereal silence and you know it has snowed, and you look out the window and you're right: everything is so quiet and still and it feels like the world has stopped just to stare at how gorgeous everything looks, like a little frosted village.
3. Frost patterns on the windows.
2.  Snow at night (well, not driving in it...) but when you can see it under the streetlight and it's so pretty!
1. ...My birthday, which is on Monday!

I've begun my crafts spree and bought some decorations for my village. I'm going into this completely blind... I have no idea what I'm making, I'll decide later. I want to see what happens if I just kind of build. Like, what will it look like? Will it be better than planning every detail? Once I finish crafting, I'll begin the engineering part with the pulleys and wind-ups and et cetera. Look at these sparkly things! I saw them and couldn't help myself... only $0.39, too.


And, since my birthday fiesta is tomorrow... I bought some cookie decorating supplies: frosting, sprinkles, etc. Fingers crossed that it goes well. I'm excited...and nostalgic. One of the girls who is coming has been my best friend since Kindergarten. Just this Friday, I heard her give a speech to the school. *Sigh* she's grown so much! Of course, I'm shorter than her, so I'm not quite one to talk. 

Also, I have somewhere around 680 cranes. I'm planning to string some tonight (120 of them... *sigh*) but I have an audiobook to listen to while I do it. I don't enjoy stringing. On the other hand, when I feel like I want to stab my eyes out with the needle (...exaggeration) I think about how I have to study for my math test (ew, imaginary numbers in quadratic functions! YUCK!) and appreciate.

Off to stringing. Happy winter (although not officially)!!

DIY Snow Globe!

Materials Needed: Jar, distilled water, glitter, glue
Extras: Pictures (in that case laminator also), clay, oven, baby oil, dish scrubber
Time: About 15-30 minutes.

Snow, snow. How beautiful; that is, until it turns into the gray/ icky/ brownish/ "Mother-of-God-what-is-this"-inducing expression/ thing we call slush. But where there's a will, there's (almost) always a way. We can preserve our beautiful snowy memories...in a snow globe!

1) Find a jar. I used a salsa jar because I liked its size.

2) *Old Spice Voice* Crafters...Look at your jar. Now look at the ornaments you're going to put in them. Now back in the jar. Does it fit? Choose wisely!

3) Take the label off. If this seems impossible, use the thing that you do dishes with (probably.) No, not a dishwasher... that brush thing that has bristles! If you don't have one, never fear. If this works, a toothbrush (not yours, although this may be the perfect time to get back at that one sibling you never liked) or a sponge will probably worked. Possibly even the toilet bowl cleaner.

3.5) *EXTRA* If you don't have ornaments, I suggest using clay! The more handmade/diy, the better :) For this, I made a music stand and some music, baked it in the oven for 20 minutes at 350ºF (along with some marbles--another project) and completed #4. You can also laminate pictures, etc.

4) Hot glue the feet/base of the ornaments/clay onto the underside of the lid. (AKA, not the top of the lid... flip it over!!) Give it some time to dry. While waiting, rummage in your cabinets for baby oil OR glycerine.

5) Don't have baby oil or glycerine? Never fear! It is a brave new world in which we have this handy thing called distilled water! If you have a small amount of baby oil, don't use it. After about 20 extra minutes of experimenting with ratios, I found out that it must be all baby oil or all water. (Since I don't own glycerine, I don't actually know about the necessary ratios.) Otherwise, your glitter clumps and falls in a decidedly most ungraceful, un-snow-like way. All baby oil/glycerine does is slow down the snow anyway. Fill the jar with distilled (tap) water/baby oil/glycerine.

6) Glitter...glitter...glitter. Pour a small lump in. Sometimes, your glitter will stick to the surfaces of the jar so add more than you think you'll need. You can stir if you want.

7) Carefully stick your ornament in. It will be upside down--basically, you are just screwing the lid onto the jar. Don't worry; trust your hot glue job...it will be fine. Whether you want to hot glue the lid to the jar or not is up to you. I'm waiting a bit to glue mine just in case there are any mistakes that I need to fix (amount of glitter, baby oil, ornament's glue etc.)

8) Turn your jar over. Shake. Admire. Happy crafting, all!