Luminous....

Tessie has finally gone off the deep end....I caught her trying to turn the Boa Constrictor into a mouse ladder this morning. It didn't work. All seven times....Even when she showed him what they looked like. He is having none of it.

It seems that she wants the Christmas decorations in place NOW!

I talked her out of the snake spell and agreed to get back to work on the decorations....As soon as the laundry is done and the house is clean enough for the witches to come Wednesday.

She did nag until I did one decorating job.

She wants luminarias in front of the cottages. It is a Mexican tradition to put candles in paper bags with sand in the bottom to weight them. It is to light the path to the door.

Tessie's theory is that it will make it easier for Santa do deliver all those presents that she has on her list.

I used plain old brown paper lunch bags....I did cut them down a little.... 1/12 to be exact. Here's the pattern.

I drew it out on an index card. That makes it easy, because the lines are 1/4" apart. The bags are 7/8" tall, 1/2" wide, and 1/4" deep from front to back.

I cut the pattern out and traced it onto a couple of the big bags, taking advantage of the top edge of their bag for the top edge of mine.

I then cut the bags out, folded them over a metal ruler to get sharp edges and glued each of them together. I punched a hole in the back at the bottom, large enough for the grain of wheat bulbs to fit.

The last bunch of lights that I have in a battery pack is a group of ten on individual wires. They would be hard to use on a tree, but are ideal for the luminarias.

I cut tiny holes in the batting that I am using for snow. The battery pack takes two AA batteries and has a slide switch. I placed that in the center beside where Tessie is standing and fished the lights up through the holes.

I bent the wires at right angles so that the flame would be upright in the sacks. The lights are low temp, so I am not worried about fire.


Tessie is enamoured with the glow and I have the rest of the day to clean house. I may have to change the batteries, but other than that, no problems. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Back to the real world. Laundry is waiting.

See you tomorrow.