Celebrating Martinmas

Yesterday we celebrated Martinmas or St. Martin's day :)

I wanted to replace last year's paper mache leaf lanterns with some pretty new star shaped ones so we spent the morning cutting out our cardboard stars, gluing in yellow vellum paper to create the star shaped windows and adding wire handles so that we would be able to carry them on our lantern walk in the evening. They turned out beautifully and were perfect to go along with the special story I told them of needing a little home to keep Autumn's spark safely within during the dark and cold months :)

As it grew dark and we had finished our dinner I had each of the children bring their lantern so I could place a bit of spark (LED candles) in each of their lanterns and off we went through the dark. It was pouring rain outside so we weren't able to go outdoors this year but instead we turned off all of the lights in the house and made our way from one end to the other a few times singing our lantern songs *grin*. So much fun!

We made a special recording of the song we used this year so that we could look back next year and I thought it would be nice to share it along with the words with all of you as well :) The original German song is called "Ich geh mit meiner Laterne" and this is an English version of it. (You will have to click through to my blog to see it if you are reading this via email)

I go outside with my lantern, my lantern goes with me
Above the stars are shining bright, down here on Earth shine we.
The cock does crow, the cat meows, la bimmel, la bammel, la boom.
‘Neath heaven’s dome till we go home, la bimmel, la bammel, la boom.

I go outside with my lantern, my lantern goes with me
Above the stars are shining bright, down here on Earth shine we.
So shine your light through the still dark night, la bimmel, la bammel, la boom
‘Neath heaven’s dome till we go home, la bimmel, la bammel, la boom.

As I looked for the tune to sing it to I actually came across quite a few versions but really liked this one and you can even find a video that shows the sheet music to go along with it here :) The other song that we sang was "Glimmer Lantern Glimmer" and you can hear it in a video here.

 The sunlight fast is dwindling,
My little lamp needs kindling.
Its beam shines far in darkest night,
Dear Lantern, guard me with your light.

Happy Martinmas!

Rosina

Yarn Along & Almond Star Cookie Recipe

A post of my current read and what is cast on my needles ~ Inspired by Ginny over at {Small Things}



I finally cast on one of the leg warmers for my daughter this week but with all of the cookie making and holiday fun going on around here these days I didn't get very far *grin*. I have started a new book as well. The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton. I'm only about 60 pages in but it is quite mysterious! The young child stow away, a grandmother full of secrets and a deed to a house an ocean away left to a very suprised granddaughter... how intriguing :)



Since my knitting was rather dull this week I thought that I would share my recipe for Almond Stars. These are one of our favorite recipes! They are little crunchy, sweet, one bite delights *grin*.

You will need:

3 egg whites

1 1/4 cups sugar

1 pkg. vanilla sugar (I use Dr. Oetker 9 gram pkg)

2 tsp. cinnamon

3 1/2 cups of ground almonds

icing sugar

Beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Add your sugar and vanilla sugar and beat until stiff peaks form. Set aside 1/4 cup of your egg mixture. You will use this later to brush the tops of your stars with for a little glaze :) Now fold the cinnamon and ground almonds into the remaining egg.

Roll out your dough 1/4 inch thick on a counter that you have heavily dusted with icing sugar and cut out stars rinsing your cookie cutter in hot water frequently to keep it from getting gummy. This dough is quite sticky when you first start but as you ball it up each time to re-roll for new stars you will find it will get much firmer and easier to work with. It is definitely worth the work though!

Spread a little bit of your reserved egg white on each of the stars and bake in a pre-heated oven at 300 degrees Fahrenheit for about 20 minutes. Store in an airtight container :)

My star cookie cutter is roughly an inch and a half wide and I got around 150 of these little guys this afternoon out of one batch of dough. They won't last long though *grin*.

Hope you like them :)

Hugs,

Rosina

Cinnamon Christmas Stars

We're kicking the holiday season off with some fun crafting :) I had ran across some twig stars on flickr and thought that it would be fun to make some with the kids but instead of using twigs we used cinnamon sticks so that we could have a little bit of christmas scented aromatherapy *grin*.

We headed outdoors after breakfast to cut some fresh cedar branches and collect any miniature pine cones we could find that the squirrels hadn't already striped and hidden away for winter. We were lucky to find a few out by the chicken coop and I had some star anise, bells and red berries from last Christmas still in the craft cupboard for gussying up our stars :)

To keep things moving quickly so the younger two wouldn't loose interest by waiting for glue to dry I pulled out my trusty hot glue gun *grin*. I swear everyone should own one of those! LOL. We had our cinnamon stars assembled in not time and were ready to add our greenery :)

They each took turns picking out which pinecones, bells and such they wanted to use and I helped them glue everything on to their stars. We even made a couple of extras to share with my mom and friends :)

They smell awesome! We have five of them hanging all along our big picture window in the family room and they have scented the whole area. Now we just need a garland to go with them :)

Looking for more crafty ideas or inspiration? Pop over to Natural Suburbia's Creative Friday and see what others are up to :)

Hugs,
Rosina