Balsa Christmas Trees

Happy Monday! How was your weekend? Did you get your tree? We had a disappointing, but funny, experience at a local tree “farm”. In more uplifting news, I was excited to realize that we’re almost done with the Christmas shopping! Unbelievable, right? Of course, there’s still a bit of Christmas crafting to do, but I’m feeling confident that it will get done. As a result, I had time to work on some of the decorations that have been on my list. First up ~ some super simple and quick Christmas trees for our mantel.

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As I mentioned in my Elving post a couple of weeks ago, browsing Pinterest provided the inspiration for many of my Christmas decorations this year, including these simple Christmas trees. It started when I found an image from this post. I liked the simplicity of those trees and that they were made using balsa wood (no power tools or hard cutting required). I wasn’t as excited about how they were put together – mainly using glue to hold the pieces together. Having also come across this wooden tree post, I knew there was an easier way to build the same tree. And really, between those two posts, you have all the information you need for this project, but I’m happy to share my process photos below. And again I want to stress how quick these trees were to make – with all of the materials on hand, it took me less than an hour and a half to make the five trees from first cut to last dash of glitter!

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Materials & Tools

  • balsa wood
  • Mod Podge
  • glitter
  • Exacto knife
  • ruler
  • cutting mat or board

About the wood : You can find balsa wood at many crafts stores, but not all (some Joann’s and some Michael’s carry it, but not all). If you’ve never worked with it, balsa wood is extremely soft and very easy to cut with an exacto or craft knife. It comes is a variety of thicknesses and widths, and there is no strict rules as to what you should buy for this project.  I picked up two 36” long and 1/8” thick balsa boards; one was 3” wide and the other was 4” wide.

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Process

  • Cut two isosceles triangles of the same size. I found that it was easy to do this without using a pen or pencil. Just mark the height of your triangle with a small cut, noting with a poke of your knife where the middle point of the board is width-wise. For example, the tree I’m cutting in the photo above is going to be 5” tall on the 3” wide board. The middle top point of the triangle is at the 31” mark on the ruler above. To cut the sides of the triangle, just place your ruler on the board, so that the ruler’s edge is at a diagonal from one of the bottom triangle points to the top middle point (as I did in the photo above). Make a cut along the ruler, and then follow this same process to cut the other side of the triangle.

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  • Following the image above, cut the slits that will be used to fit your triangles together. You want to cut a slit in each triangle that is as wide as the width of your wood (1/8” in my case). One piece will have a slit that runs from the top middle of the triangle halfway down the height of the tree. The other triangle will have a slit that runs from the bottom middle of the triangle halfway up the height of the tree.

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  • Put your tree together! Placing the triangles perpendicular to each other, slide the piece with the bottom cut down over the piece with the top cut. You’ll produce a free-standing tree that looks like the photo above.

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  • Decorate your tree! I put a layer of Mod Podge on the upper portion of my trees, and then sprinkled iridescent and gold glitters over the surface. Do what you want: you could leave your trees natural, add glitter, or paint!

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  • Repeat the process making trees of different heights. From the 3” wide board I made two trees that are 6” high and one that is 5” high. From the 4” board I made two 8” high trees.

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I used these trees for simple forest scene on the mantel ~ pairing them with a cute little wooden tree from Michael’s and a couple of old glass trees that were once candy dishes (they have an opening on the bottom, but without their lids, they’re just glass trees). In addition to the trees, I added a few beeswax candles that were leftover from our wedding. You can read about how we made the candles (choosing your wick is key) and cut the green bottles here and here.

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It’s so much fun to see the trees sparkle in the candlelight and to see their shadows on the wall. Calder mentioned that they also look like mountain peaks, which I think is really true when they are grouped together creating overlapping shadows!

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Two Bits

Each Friday we share some tidbits from our week.  We want to break down these internet barriers and invite you into our lives and we’re hoping you’ll do the same.  You are welcome to share a bit of your week or day in the comments, or if they’re better represented by a photo, tag us on instagram @liveseasoned

Sarah here:

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I started the week in Florida hanging out with my childhood best friend. We basically had a sleepover for ten days straight, complete with giggling, crafting and lots of catching up. The weather there was amazzzzzing – eighty degrees amazing. So nice and warm that we even went for a couple runs, something I don’t do too often.

I also bought my first pair of grown up running shoes! By grown up, I mean I didn’t pick them based on color. I went to Fit2Run, a great store, where they tested my motion mechanics, my arch height, and where I apply the most pressure when I stand and run.  It was an eye opening experience and I feel like I walked ran away with the most comfortable shoes on the planet, at least for my feet.  Now running is actually comfortable instead of painful. Fingers crossed that it stays that way 🙂 The friend I was staying with is actually running a half marathon tomorrow, so good luck and wishes to her!

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Even though I had the best time catching up, it was nice to come home and hug my pets and bf.  On Tuesday we picked out a tree (bigger than last year, yipee!), bought another string of lights and decorated for the holidays.  How do you like winter Frankenstein?  I bought him at Michaels for $4 during Halloween, but I love him too much to pack him away until next year.  He’s going to be like those geese that you put different outfits on for each season.. just wait until you see Easter F-stein!

Katie here:

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Like Sarah, I started the week in one location, California, and ended it in another, Colorado… the funny thing is, as a kid whenever I heard the word California, I imagined sunshine and beaches, instead we had snow! And whenever I heard Colorado, of course I imagined the snowy rockies, but we came home to 50 degree days. We had such a great time sledding and playing in the snow with Alex, but I was happy to come home to our “warm” city. I feel like the rest of the week was spent falling back into our routine and chipping away at some of my ambitious Christmas crafting plans. Our house is currently filled with the scent of cloves and oranges, and I decided that it’s never too late to try to put together a simple play teepee for Christmas morning (although my scheme is for something even simpler with less cutting and sewing). Am I crazy? Wish me luck!

Seasoned View Vol. 9

Each month we share our Seasoned View.  Snapshots of nature taken by the Seasoned sisters. Find last month’s here and past month’s here.

Happy December!  If you are in the northern hemisphere these photos will look familiar. Snow, snow and more snow.  If you happen to be in the southern hemisphere, your summer is nearing and these photos might give you a little relief from the heat! Looking at years past, I’d say I’m pretty successful at skipping out on winters.  It was hard for me to round up these snowy pictures because I seem to be hiding out somewhere warm during December.  This year I’m embracing the cold (well, minus last week when I soaked in the eighty degree temperatures that Florida had to offer..) by wearing lots of knit hats and wool socks.  You can find me drinking tea whenever I’m awake and if it is a work from home day I will most certainly be wearing my fuzzy robe over my clothes 🙂 How do you stay warm and cheery during the winter?

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You can upload one or all of these photos to use as your desktop background or even as phone and tablet wallpapers.  Simply click on the download link below each photo and save the image.  Enjoy!

liveseasoned_winter14_seasonedview-1Click here for Frozen

 

liveseasoned_winter14_seasonedview-1-4Click here to Come In

liveseasoned_winter14_seasonedview-1-5Click here for Griswold Family Christmas

liveseasoned_winter14_seasonedview-1-3Click here for Candy Castle

liveseasoned_winter14_seasonedview-1-2Click here for Evergreen

 

liveseasoned_winter14_seasonedview-1-7Click here for Deutschland

liveseasoned_winter14_seasonedview-1-8Click here for Drive By

liveseasoned_winter14_seasonedview-1-6Click here for Replacements

 

 

 

Welcome December!

On the first Wednesday of each month we like to pause and take a look at what’s going on in the world around us, with a particular focus on animal activity, celestial events, and our farmers’ fields.

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Earth and Sky:

The sky is a flurry of activity this month. Dust off your telescope and bundle up because there is a lot to see.  This Friday (December 5th) I’m hoping to light a campfire and gaze up at the Cold Moon also known as the Long Nights Moon.  It rises during sunset and sets around sunrise on Saturday morning.  This is the only night all month when the moon is in the sky all night long; the other days, the moon is present, at least for a bit, in the daytime sky.

  •  Also on Friday, the full moon passes a bit north of Aldebaran, the red giant star, and the Hyades star cluster making for an amazing conjunction.  A little bit about Aldebaran: It’s the red eye of Taurus the bull and it’s also 66 light-years away.  If you’re familiar with Taurus you know that the rest of the face is made of the V-shaped Hyades cluster.  The glare of the nearly full moon will block your view of Hyades, but you should be able to see the cluster with a pair of binoculars.  The moon will glide by the Hyades cluster over the course of a few hours on Friday evening making it easy to witness the moon’s motion across our sky.
  • If you have access to a telescope, now’s the time to use it.  On Saturday evening (December 6) you can see the sky’s most famous and apparently the best example of a supernova remnant.  Find the moon, hold your arm out straight, pointing at the moon and now make a fist.  Crab Nebula should be about 4 degrees above the moon, which is a little less than the width of your fist.  Crab Nebula is about 7,000 light-years away and shines only faintly. According to National Geographic, Crab Nebula was first seen in the sky by Chinese astronomers during 1054 A.D. when it exploded.
  • The Geminid meteor shower peaks on the evening of the 13th and early morning of the 14th.  The last quarter moon will interfere a tad, but you should still see some action.  Each of the meteors can be traced back to Gemini, which rises in the northeast late at night.  The best meteors will be visible about ninety degrees away from Gemini.
  • I hope you kept your telescope handy. Shortly after midnight on December 15th, the shadows of both lo and Europa will fall simultaneously on Jupiter.  The event lasts for about fifty minutes at approximately 1:12 – 2:02 a.m. Good luck!
  • If you’re an early riser, you’ll see a pleasant sight on Friday, December 19th. Saturn returns to its station as a morning star sitting close to the waning crescent moon just before sunrise.  

Of course these aren’t the only sky events going on this month, but it’s an exciting list to start with.

Winter is not my ideal time to visit the farmers market, but I do try to make an effort to go several times a month.  Mostly I just feel bad for the frozen farmers, but I also need to eat veggies too and what better place to purchase them, am I right? I was considering signing up for a winter farm share, but I never ended up sealing the deal. Did you catch any of Katie’s posts or pics about her  CSA this season? So envious! Even though it’s a lot colder here in North Carolina than it was at this time last month, there is a lot in season. I spotted beets, turnips, broccoli, cauliflower, pumpkin, winter squash and oriental veggies at my market. There were also a bunch of collards, kale, mustard greens, lettuce, and spinach among other fall and winter veggies. Need I mention that it is the best place to buy handmade wreaths and other holiday greenery?!

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 Earth Days and Events:

Speaking of holidays, along with Bodhi, Festivus, Kwanza, Christmas and Hanukkah, there are also a couple earth holidays this month.  December 5th is a big day for sky events, but also for our soil!  The World Soil Day campaign aims to connect people with soils in order to raise awareness about their critical importance in our lives.  If you are a gardener you know that much is obvious, but many might not see the important connection.  Soil is neglected by many.  We pollute the water, air and environment, which all equates to poor soil quality.  Without proper care for our soils, it turns full circle and we neglect the overall quality of our food, water, biodiversity and overall quality of life. So speak about soil on December 5th!

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On December 11 the world celebrates International Mountain Day.  The United Nations General Assembly founded the day in order to encourage the international community to highlight the importance of sustainable mountain development.  I’m sure we have all viewed a mountain fondly, maybe hiked up one or even lived on one so we know the importance of taking care of that sacred space.  This years theme for International Mountain Day is farming.  According to the FAO, mountain farming is predominantly family farming and has been a model for sustainable for development for centuries.  I had the opportunity to work with Jamaican farmers on disaster preparedness and most of my work took place in the Blue Mountains.  I hadn’t known about this holiday until an hour ago, but now I’m going to explore options for spreading the word and awareness about the importance of sustainable mountain development.  This year provides an occasion to discuss how family farming in mountain regions is undergoing rapid transformation due to economic globalization, growing populations, and urbanization.

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I feel like the Autumn Equinox was just yesterday, but alas the winter solstice takes place on the 21st.  Solstice comes from the Latin words “sol” which means “sun” and “sistere” which means “to stand still.” So what does this day mean in terms of the sun?  The sun is the farthest from the equatorial place, which causes longer days and nights. The sun reaches its southernmost position in the sky, and begins moving northward again.  If you are in the Northern Hemisphere, the December solstice marks the longest night, but if you are in the Southern Hemisphere it marks the longest day. I love the winter solstice because it means the days start growing longer again! Just typing this paragraph is making me smile and lifting the weight of the winter darkness off my shoulders.

While I couldn’t nail down too many compelling migration stories for this December Welcome post, it got me thinking that as humans, we do a lot of moving during this month.  We flock to stores, tree farms, holiday parties, family homes and even go on vacations.  Personally, I’ve done some of my favorite traveling during the month of December whether it was sunning myself near the Andaman Sea or freezing my buns off in Germany, the cheer and relaxation of the end of the calendar year was always present in the air.  Here are a few quick traveling suggestions for the month of December:

Antarctica is buzzing with activity right now.  The seabirds are courting and mating and the penguins chicks are starting to hatch.  The days are twenty hours long, which means more time to spot penguins feeding their tiny chicks!  I always said that if I ever went on a cruise it would be to Antarctica and after reading Where’d You Go Bernadette, by Maria Semple, I am very tempted.  The feeling of seeing a landscape like nothing I’ve ever experienced before lights a fire in my belly. One day people, one day.

Guatemala has a few intriguing festivals in December.  On December 7th you can help the Guatemalans burn the devil. In local traditions, the devil lurks in the corners of homes, beneath beds and among garbage. Each year, as a prelude to Christmas, homes are cleaned, rubbish is collected, an effigy of the devil is thrown on top, and it’s all set aflame. From the 13-21st the highland city of Chichicastenango (Chichi) celebrates its patron saint with a week of typical festivities like parades, traditional dances, fireworks. On St Thomas’ Day (Dec 21) wooden poles as high as 30m are raised in the plaza beside the Iglesia de Santo Tomás and the dance of the palo volador (flying pole) begins.  It sounds absolutely terrifying to me, but as I understand it, two ropes hang from the top of each pole and the dancers ascend in pairs, scaling the poles on wooden steps and tying the ropes to their bodies. Then they leap, swirling around the pole at high speed, the ropes unravelling as they go, lowering them to the ground. Some hang onto the rope with their hands, and others tie it around their ankles. That doesn’t sound like something I’m capable of doing without peeing my pants, but I would love to witness it!

Last, but surely not least, Europe has all kinds of amazing Christmas markets taking place this month.  Katie and I had a chance to visit the Christkindlesmarkts of Germany and they were AMAZING. Each and every one was awe-inspiring and it really put the joy and wonder back into Christmas.  As an adult, I think it’s easy to overlook or take for granted the magical feeling of the season – all the giving, cheer and pure love that is flowing around, but after visiting the historic markets and experiencing the culture and tradition my wonderment was recharged.  It is almost like the medieval markets simplified (in the best way) my holiday season.  I’m finding it a little hard to explain right now so you may just have to visit the markets yourself.  Kate and I plan on reliving our week of Christkindlesmarkt experiences in a blog post later this month so that you can get a better feel for the adventure and maybe plan your own for next year!

Personally, as I welcome December I try to make a concerted effort to simplify and shed for the coming year.  I can easily get caught up in buying in excess because an item is cheap or has immediate appeal, but I try to keep a handle on it.  With all consuming I try to remember that the product used energy to be made and shipped to my city and that it will also take energy to dispose of it. Along with the season, what are you welcoming this December?

Ingredient of the Season : Oranges

Every season we like to pick one ingredient and find a variety of ways to love it and use it. You can find our complete ingredient archive here.

We’re decided that the orange, that zesty winter fruit, was the perfect choice as our ingredient of the season. As with past seasons, you can expect a slew of orange posts. The fruit will be a highlighted ingredient in our baking and candy making. We’ll use them around the house. And, of course, we have a few orange crafts up our sleeves; in fact, if you want to get a head start, you could make some dried orange garland!

We grew up ordering cases of oranges from our high school band’s fundraiser that would arrive around this time every year. As a result, we have fond memories of making our mom’s orangeade recipe (that she got from her mom), and it gave us our first education into the wide variety of oranges (note – use the hamlins for juicing, not the navels!). Having piles of oranges around the house at this time of year is such a tradition for us that we can’t think of a better ingredient to brighten our senses and the long, dark winter than oranges, and we’re excited to kick things off with a little profile of the fruit.

History

There are no known oranges growing naturally in the wild. It is believed that the species originated somewhere in Asia, possibly China or India, and that they were first cultivated in China in 2500BC. The sweet orange was not known in Europe until the 14 or 15 hundreds, having been brought to the Mediterranean region by Italian and Portuguese merchants. The orange then made its way to the Western Hemisphere with Spanish explorers in the late 1400s, and had spread across the US from California to Florida by the 1800s.

The word orange derives from a Sanskrit word for the fruit, nāraṅga. In English, and many other languages, the beginning “n” was dropped, and it is believed this happened when the word was translated into French, where the n may have sounded like it was part of the indefinite article preceding the word. For example, une norenge would have been the correct spelling, but would have sounded similar to une orenge. And you may have already guessed this by now, but the color orange was named after the fruit (something I’ve wondered when looking through my crayola 64 pack!).

Biology

Orange typically refers to the sweet orange, not bitter oranges or mandarins. The orange tree is an evergreen, flowering tree that grows primarily in the warmer climates of the tropics and subtropics, requiring a lot of sunshine and water to thrive.

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One interesting fact about all citrus trees (oranges, grapefruits, lemons, limes, etc.) is that they appear to be interfertile, this means that they can interbreed, producing many hybrids. Due to this interfertility, it is difficult to keep track of the historical breedings that produced many of the varieties of oranges that are available today. It is believed that oranges are a hybrid between pomelos and mandarins. Since oranges are a hybrid, there are challenges to breeding the fruit. If you grew a plant from seed, it may be infertile or produce a fruit that is different from its parent plant. As a result, most propagation is done through grafting, creating clones of the parent tree.

Since the fruit often produces multiple seeds, is fleshy and soft, and derives from a single ovary, it is actually considered a modified berry! The fruit only ripen while on the tree (as opposed to avocados and bananas), but it is not unusual for the orange rind to remain partially green even on fully-ripe fruit. Recognizing that a green rind is unappealing to many consumers, ethylene gas, a common plant hormone, is often used to turn the rind of commercial fruit orange before they are sold. And knowing that the fruit will not ripen off the tree, there are laws in California, Florida, Arizona, and Texas that forbid the picking of unripe citrus for human consumption!

Varieties

There are many varieties of oranges, but some of the most common (at least in the States) are:

  • Hamlin : A small, light-colored, juicy orange that’s perfect for juicing because it’s seedless. In season from October through December.
  • Navel : A very popular variety. They are easy to recognize because a second fruit will start to grow at one end of the orange, creating a belly-button-like bump (similar to our navel, get it?). They are less juicy than other varieties, but having a thick skin that is easy to peel, making them a great snacking orange. In season from November through April.
  • Valencia : Excellent for eating and juicing. A late season variety that ripens from March through June, making it a popular variety when most other orange trees are not in season.
  • Blood Oranges : A natural mutation gives these oranges their red color, which comes from the production of class of pigments call anthocyanin. They were first discovered in Italy, but are now grown world-wide.

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Do you have any favorite orange recipes, crafts, or uses? Fond memories of knowing that there would be an orange at the bottom of your stocking every Christmas? Or hoping to start a new tradition of Christmas morning mimosas? Let us know, we would love to hear!

Orange tree with blossom image from here. Orange color square from here. Indian River label from here. Indian River bushel graphic from here. Blood orange image from here. Navel orange from here.  Black and white orange picker and boy from the LOC.

 

DIY Advent Calendar

 

 

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It’s time guys! You can finally start singing Christmas carols and hanging holiday wreaths!  I spent this past week with my dearest friend who is also on the ‘no Christmas cheer until Thanksgiving is here’ train so it wasn’t until Saturday night that I crafted this little advent calendar. It is the sweetest little addition to a bookshelf or mantle.  There is nothing more childlike than counting down the days until Christmas, but really, if we didn’t count them they would just fly right by.  Advent calendars remind me to crank up the Christmas tunes, send out those glittery cards and craft gifts for my friends and family.

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This sweet miniature advent calendar is easy to make and pretty perfect for the wee ones to create. No exacto knives or blowtorches involved here.  The fun doesn’t end with the making of this little advent chest either, then you must fill it with tiny treasures and on Christmas eve you have to unscramble the secret picture!  Put on a Christmas record pandora and pour yourself some eggnog mudslides.

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Supplies:

  • 24 mini match boxes
  • Tacky glue
  • Paint brushes
  • Paints
  • Ribbon
  • Card stock or construction paper

Steps:

  • Glue 8 matchboxes together vertically. Repeat two times so that you have 3 tall stacks each with 8 matchboxes each. Glue the three stacks together side-by-side like shown.
  • Once the chest is securely glued, about 15 minutes, remove all the matches from the boxes and set aside for another project or that horrid moment when your power goes out while you are cooking dinner or washing your hair.
  • Paint a holiday design on the chest.  I choose to paint a reindeer. Some other ideas are a tree, an ornament, a candy cane, a toy soldier, santa or maybe a kitty wearing a santa hat (I wish I had that kind of skill). Allow the design to dry completely.
  • Remove each drawer and randomly number them 1-24. You can use acrylic paint or a marker.
  • Attach a small ribbon loop to the bottom of each drawer on the numbered side.  Simply squeeze a dab of glue, press one end of the ribbon onto it and then squeeze another dab of glue and press the other end onto it forming a loop.  Allow each drawer to dry completely.
  • Place the drawers back into the chest. You can place them in order or randomly, either way the painted design on the back should be scrambled.
  • Finally, cut a piece of card stock or paper to cover the top and sides of the advent calendar.  I cut a strip of red card stock and dabbed a few dots of white paint to make some snowflake inspired swirls.
  • Fill the drawers with little candies, notes, event tickets or even jewelry.
  • As each day passes, open the drawers and put them in backwards so the painted design side is now facing forward.  On Christmas even you’ll be left with a mini puzzle picture to unscramble, good luck!

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Think you’ll give this quick Christmas craft a try? I had a bunch of fun creating this advent calendar because it is cheap and disposable. There wasn’t a ton of pressure to paint the perfect reindeer or perfectly align the $1 match boxes, it was merely a little project to jumpstart my holiday crafting sessions and an excuse to eat a few peanut butter M&Ms every day until Christmas. Cheers!