A couple of years ago, I purchased some tweezers from Kikkerland which quickly became my favorite!  I thought that I was going to give them away as a stocking stuffer to a guitar player I happen to know (my son), but I forgot about them.  When I found them, I decided to keep them for myself and I was so happy with these little things! They gripped really well with finely honed, slanted ends and after using them, I couldn't use any other tweezers.  Then, about 2 weeks ago, I lost them.  I don't know how or where I put them, but I miss them terribly and I've had to put up with less wonderful tweezers since then.  My husband has been surprised how much I have bemoaned the loss of these tweezers.  They are out of stock on Kikkerland, but they do have some other designs that I am going to send for.  
      This experience brought to mind the fact that sometimes the needs of women are very different from the needs of men!  My husband probably only would think about using tweezers if he were to get a splinter in his finger, whereas I use them almost daily! 
      Out of curiosity, I asked my girls what things they would consider to be essential to them, and what they would feel lost without.  Here is a list of what we came up with:

     I wrote this post in 2018 after my granddaughter was born.  Now she is almost 4 and there have been 2 more grandchildren born.  Unfortunately, those 2 grandchildren were only able to be with us on this earth for a very short time.  While they were here, I fell deeply in love with them, as I have each of my grandchildren.  Being separated from them for a time has been so difficult and watching my daughter and her family mourn their loss makes it even harder.   Thankfully, because of the hope we have in Jesus Christ, we know that our family is eternal and that He can heal our hearts and that we will one day all be together again.  As a grandmother, I look so forward to having ​​all of my grandchildren around me and on my lap once again.  I love them all so much and I miss them when we are apart.  Here is the post expressing some of the things that I adore about being a grandma.  At the end, I will add photos of numbers 11 and 12, Elodie and Henry.

     I mentioned on a post earlier this week that I became a grandmother for the 10th time!  That is her right there, beautiful little Amelia!  Since the 9th of September is Grandparent's Day, I thought today's Friday Faves should have a special twist in honor of that and that I will share what I love about being a grandmother.  If you are a grandmother, be sure to share what you love about it in the comments below.  I also got some great ideas from some other grandmas I know!  As you read, I will show you photos of my beautiful grandchildren! 

     My family is my treasure and these grandchildren are so precious to me.  My husband and I are so blessed with this family of ours!  Be sure to tell the grandparents in your life what a blessing they are to you and enjoy those grandchildren of your own!  They get big so fast!  

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Originally posted by 3 Winks Design March 24, 2017
       I was recently rereading this post from 5 years ago and I found the messages so timely for today!  I decided to repost it in advance of Women's History Month so that you can take advantage of some of the wise quotes and ideas contained herein. (If I do say so myself!)  If you are interested in more Women's History resources, be sure to check out our  informative Women's History Coloring Pages in our Etsy Shop! 

                Wow! It is Women's Month, so we thought that today for Friday Faves we would offer up who our favorite Women throughout history are.  What a difficult decision this has been! Every time I thought about it, I discovered another woman who deserved my consideration.  Some that I thought of right away as a possible choice, after I studied more about them, left me feeling disillusioned at times and confused.  I had to remind myself that no one is perfect and although we put people on a pedestal, they are human, after all, with human weaknesses, but they are still capable of doing wonderful things.  And, no matter how wonderful a person is, they will always have detractors.  Look at Jesus! He had a bunch of detractors and he WAS perfect! So, I finally came to a decision!  But, before I tell you our choices, think about it yourself.

     I don't know if you are like me, but after I get all of the trappings of Christmas taken down and put away, I still have a pile of Christmas cards to deal with.  Many of them are so beautiful, I hate to throw them away, and in the spirit of living a little greener, I like to try to recycle them.  So, today, we will share some of our favorite ways!  If you have any ideas to add, please let us know, we are always looking for new ideas! 

1.    For years, one of my favorite things to do with the Christmas Cards we receive is to make gift tags for next year.  It is fun to cut out the cute motifs and the handmade cards are especially cute to use on packages.  Just remember to put them in a place where you will find them next Christmas! 

2.     Of course, if we receive photo cards of family and loved ones, I like to put them in a photo album.  It is fun to see how the families have grown year after year. 

3.   One year, on Everyday Reading, I found this really cute banner idea.  Janssen used the photo cards she received to make a Valentine Banner.  It was so cute.  Unfortunately, I couldn't bring myself to cut the photo cards, but there were a lot of really cute cards that I used instead. I used a thicker version of baker's twine to make the banner. 

I used two different sizes of heart cookie cutters to cut out the shapes. 

4.   A really awesome gift for young kids next Christmas, or a way to add to the Spirit of Christmas around the house,  would be a book using the pictures from the cards.  One year I made a Christmas ABC Book using Christmas Cards.  It can be tricky coming up with a picture for every letter, but my friend had a poem that she shared with me to help me out.  Unfortunately for this post, I gave that book away.  But I got to thinking that it would be really cool to use the song "C is for the Christ Child" by Jim Reeves as the text for the book.  If you have enough Christmas cards, you can make more than one!  I put together a free printable of ideas for making this book. 

Here is the PDF file to make printing easier: 

    It would be awesome to include the CD of the song with the book as well! 
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     So, hopefully you can find a way to recycle those Christmas cards and get the last vestiges of Christmas put away.  And, won't it be great knowing that you have a gift for the little ones, gift tags to use when wrapping and something to decorate with for Valentine's Day!  Now that is thinking ahead! 

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