House Art Journal

As I work to complete my Christmas shopping, I have been thinking over what makes a good Christmas gift.  As I mentioned last year, we do three gifts per child (plus a stocking).  And to some extent, I try to do as my friend Montse does: one toy, one book, one piece of clothing.  But I give some leeway: I tend to get two toys for the boys instead of clothing, unless it's really cool clothing, like a hobbit cloak. (More on that later...)  But beyond these parameters (and readers of this page know how much I delight in parameters), what other qualities transform something from a bargain piece of clothing to a bit of magic in a box known as a Christmas gift?  Along with my ruminations, I'll include links to some gifts our family has enjoyed in the past, to share the joy with you. Weightiness.   The first virtue of a gift, for me, is its quality: it must please the eye and hand, and that generally means quality.  For some reason, I can't...

It is with great pleasure that I announce that my favorite dollhouse dolls in the entire world, Nova Natural's Evi dolls, are now available as dressable dolls ! For years my children have been playing with these dolls, made of wool and cotton by a fair-trade labor cooperative, which are available in various fairy-tale characters, including knights and princesses. But my girls kept trying to change the clothes on the dolls, which are sewn on the bodies. I asked Nova Natural if they would consider carrying dressable dolls, and this Christmas season, they have them at last! Click here to see pictures of their dollhouse family which come with removeable modern clothing. I ordered the father and mother dolls, and I decided to surprise my middle daughter this Christmas by dressing up these dolls as Paul Fester and Rachel Durham from my Fairy Tale Novel The Midnight Dancers ! (A caveat: The Midnight Dancers is "PG" (parental guidance suggested), but my husband read it al...

For excellent fiddling, I highly recommend this CD by our friends, The Woodhouse Band .  I've  posted about them before : their music has enlivened quite a few of our house parties with the flawlessly executed yet homespun sounds of fiddle, banjo, and guitar.  During the chilly days of late fall, set this music spinning on your CD player, and soon your children will be Irish-jigging and twirling around the room!  A better cure for winter cabin fever you won't find. The Woodhouse Band is Michael Randolph and his five children, each of whom are talented string musicians.  Michael has carefully crafted this CD over the years, and their first recording is an excellent display of their gifts.   Repeated playings hasn't dulled my enthusiasm for this little CD.  For a "homemade" Christmas gift from a Catholic home, consider The Woodhouse Band .  Available locally in Fron...

  While I'm sharing about activities that reside on top of my refridgerator, I thought share about another favorite educational activity: clay land forms. Years ago I made a set with clay and disposable plastic containers. But this fall, I acquired this sweet little set from  Michael Olaf Montessori: earth-toned waterproof clay and eight little pie pans are matched with cards so that little students can see that an island is land with water all around it, and a lake is land with water all around it.  I keep the materials in a storage bin with a washcloth and tiny water pitcher. The child can mold islands, pennisulas, and isthmuses of any shape she chooses, and then pour a little bit of water into the wee pie pan to see the relationship between land and water.  The earth-toned plasticine clay is superior to salt dough in that it sheds water easily and never dries out.  And the matched black pie pans are sturdy beneath the pushing and...

Ever since I visited a Montessori classroom, I have been using this method to enable my small children to paint pictures as often as possible with as little trouble for me, and without a permanently messy table or corner.  I keep individual colors of watercolor paint, cut-up rectangles of paper, a small brush and a bottle cap on a small tray on top of the refridgerator. When my children need something to do, I take it down and let them paint.  The key to low mess is keeping the amounts of paint and water small.  Like the Montessori teacher suggested, I cut up plastic strips of watercolors from the store into individual colors so that small children can focus on one task: using the brush correctly.  I show them how to 'tickle' the paint gently with the brush with the very end of the bristles in order to make a painting.  Older children can have more colors so that they can experiment with mixing colors (what do yellow and blue make when yo...

We just visited a friend on our way home while on a trip, and I couldn't resist capturing this beautiful view of the autumn colors.  It strikes me how welcoming it is to have a chair or two on your front porch, inviting friends to sit and talk.

Just a few chicken eggs collected by my daughter from our chicken, in a bowl made in pottery class by another daughter. I love the combination of greens and browns with the purity of white, so restful. And I also love how home-grown eggs can be different sizes. Just a snippet of our daily life around Shirefeld.

Our family was recently saddened by a miscarriage. The baby was only about a month or so along, but of course, it was still sad. Fortunately, we have been supported by so many friends. Today I was amazed to receive this beautiful flower bouquet from a group of friends, so lovely that I had to display it on my dresser and post a picture. The delicate pink roses remind me of the new life so recently lost, but the butterfly on the top brings to mind the eternal life where we will hopefully someday meet again. We christened the little baby Timothy, and it is comforting to think that he is with Joshua and the other baby we miscarried, Ann. Many thanks to all of you who prayed for us and grieved with us. When even a miscarriage is memorialized in such a kind manner, it makes sorrow easier to bear. Thank you.

When we were preparing for a family wedding in July, I was doing a lot of sewing for my girls, and came across this pretty rayon-wool one-button-on-the-pocket gathered skirt in a thrift store. I decided to cut it into a skirt for my youngest girl. I cut the gathered waistband off the skirt at the correct length for a little-girl skirt but wasn't sure what to do with the beautifully-patterned bottom of the skirt, so I put it aside. Next I had to cut the gathered waistband to the correct width for my toddler girl's tummy. I decided to cut it off at the pocket so that she could have a pocket in her skirt. (Note: I wouldn't do this again: the pocket's really too large for her to really use!) When I was finished, I had one width of skirt about 8" across. Not sure what to do with it, I decided to fold it in half to see if I could make a bodice for a dress. Here it is below. Notice that the gathered top is so much more narrow than the full bottom. (Click on any photo t...

Autumn breezes swept over our land this morning, scattering leaves from trees and pulling our younger children away from homeschool to the outdoors. And I, trusting nature to be a wise educator of her own, let them go. Among their adventuring, they overturned our picnic table, and we realized (perhaps due to our nightly sojourns with the Horatio Hornblower movies) how much it resembled a boat. In short order I had temporarily erected a wooden pole as a mast, a sail was procured, and the children set sail across a sea of leaf-strewn lawn.

Above is a picture of my new favorite earrings, which I bought from a very neat jewelry-maker, Susan Myers . I met Susan when she lived in Front Royal, Virginia. Despite a birth defect that left her with hands half the size of a normal person's, she creates beautiful jewelry with only five fingers. Recently, Susan began a website to sell her creations online, and I'd like to help her spread the word. As she mentions on her website, she can customize almost any design: I asked her for a pair of these red heart earrings, and she made a pair just for me. Check out www.specialhandsjewelry.webs.com and if you like what you see, pass on the link to your friends!

Happy Birthday Blessed Mother! I thought I would honor her on her birthday by belatedly posting about new saint images by Sophie Cayless . Among the Little Saints of the Summer she has painted are St. Maximiliain Kolbe , who had a great devotion to Our Lady. She also has images of St. Clare , St. Rose of Lima , and St. John Vianney that can be bought as greeting cards or put on t-shirts. Stay tuned for the Little Saints of Fall, which should be coming soon!

For many years, one source of despondency for me has been the plethora of shoddy Catholic statues. While prints of the Old Masters are always there to liven my devotional life, it saddens me to pray before a statue of Mary with features more reminiscent of Barbie than Our Lady. And it seems that every Catholic store stocks the same cookie-cutter pieces: even faint originality can only be had for a price over a hundred dollars! As a patron of Catholic artists, I yearn for original beauty in three dimensions: alas, it seems so difficult to find. It was with wonder and delight that I discovered Fatima Statues and the Duke Tran family at the Catholic Marketing Network Trade Show this year. This Vietnamese family has made it their mission to craft hand-carved statues of Christ, Our Lady, and St. Joseph from hardened driftwood. Their craftsmanship is exquisite, and their price is amazingly affordable. I paid a mere $32 for this 8" statue of the Mother and Child. ( A similar one is ava...

I meant to post this picture back in July on Joshua 's birthday, but alas, computer problems intervened, which have only now been rectified. On my son's birthday, my friend Anna brought over a bouquet of wildflowers and this lovely cake decorated by her little girl Angelica with strawberries and paper symbols of the Resurrection: eggs and butterflies and birds and a lovely cross. It was a sweet remembrance of my son, and a wonderful way to celebrate his third birthday in Heaven. Thank you so much, Anna! Many times people are unsure of what to do for a friend who is grieving the loss of a child or loved one. But often a simple gift or card as a token of remembrance on an anniversary or holiday brings so much comfort. Let your friend know that you remember her sorrow, and are grieving with her. A little can do so much. If you are looking for ways to comfort those who grieve, consider this list of kind things that people did for us after Joshua died, which helped us. Peace...

Three years ago today, my little son Joshua left this world for the next one. I still miss him so much. I was moved when my brother and sister mailed me these photos of Joshua's baptism , taken by a relative during a time when I didn't own a camera. It was a gift to remember that day. Thank you so much for your prayers.

My hobby is collecting china, specifically "restaurantware," plates and cups of a sturdier build used to the bang and clatter of daily use in a restaurant. I love these hefty cups: they rarely break, even when dropped, and barely chip. And I love the vintage patterns of red stripe or green stripe. So I was doubly delighted to discover these coffee cups with red chintz patterns on them! They match beautifully with a red and white set of plates and saucers I already owned (this is why I only collect in a few colors!). So I've been enjoying this sprightly addition to my pantry this summer.

Since our May Mary altar turned out so wonderfully, I could not resist making a Sacred Heart altar for June. Although this is not my favorite picture of Our Lord's Sacred Heart, I have a sentimental attachment to it, since it was given to our family by our late former pastor, Father Bill Ruhl, when we first moved to Front Royal and consecrated our family home to the Sacred Heart. It seemed only fitting to have our "family statues" all present on the altar this month, along with mulberry branches and trailing vines. "I am the Vine: you are the branches," He tells us. "Remain in Me and you will bear much fruit, fruit that will last." May God bless you and your family this month!

Ironically, as a novelist, I rarely read fiction any more. I'm not sure why. I know I find it hard to read fiction and write fiction at the same time. Perhaps I'm turning into my father, who has a voracious appetite for books on history, theology, psychology, sociology, and politics, but rarely samples fiction. When I was young, I read every story I could get my hands on. Now my bedside table has a history of the American Revolution, a book of essays on culture, Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict XVI, and other nonfiction. But this summer, it now features the novels of Edna Ferber. I came to Ferber late towards the end of my fiction-reading period, and I don't rightly know when I first read SoBig . Early in my marriage, I had a copy that looks exactly like this one pictured above: who knows where I found it? I have a taste for old books, regardless of their contents, and I started this one, and was hooked on Ferber's lush writing style and her portraits of humanity, ne...

In our ongoing saga of creating Shirefeld Farm, we bought runner ducks earlier this spring in shades of black, brown, blue, and fawn. This is my first close acquaintence with ducks, and I have to admit I never realized quite how funny they are! A flock of ducks has achieved the closest thing to a "mind meld" I have yet seen: the flock acts as one: eating, swimming, marching, running -- and my, see how they run! For days my toddlers liked nothing better than to chase them around and around the play yard where the ducks were ensconced -- no matter how we tried to dissuade the children. The fact is, ducks are funny, and even funnier when they run, quacking, in an orderly mob that scurries and swerves in unison. Now they have found a quieter existence at our pond: where they rule the pool with dictatorial unity. Yet another proof (if we needed it) that God has a sense of humor.

For years I've been a fan of Mary Billingsley's paintings of little shrines, but I only discovered that I could share her art through her website recently. Mary creates shrines in honor of our Lord using materials a child would find: dolls, small toys, flowers from the field, postcards, household odds and ends, found objects. Once she has built and decorated a shrine in her studio, she sits down and paints it in lovely watercolor gouache. Years ago I visited her New England studio and witnessed this loving and reverent work in process. Above is one of my favorite shrines, which I post in honor of Our Lord's Ascension. I found out that at long last a publisher has agreed to be publishing a collection of her shrines in honor of the Rosary: please consult her site for details. In the meantime, gather your children and visit some very special shrines: perhaps they will be inspired to create some of their own.