Precious Gift from Best Friend Ellie—Mouth Blown Glass Nativity

What is this season all about?

The Third Sunday of Advent is coming and all this leads up to CHRISTMAS the birth of our PRINCE OF PEACE.

Like to share with you a display of a beautiful nativity scene.

My dear friend Ellie gave it to me, the year we had our 25th wedding anniversary.

She for years volunteered at a Dutch 'Wereld Winkel' or Fair Trade shop.

Mouth blown glass with strokes of silver to mark hands, wings and halos. 

Baby Jesus in his manger... with an oxen to the left.

This is art work from the Andes.

Mary with her silver lined halo and the angel with silver lined wings and halo, besides their hands and some brush strokes of silver on the garment. Air bubbles are still visible...

I've placed it on a silk brocade tablecloth that Pieter did bring home from China when he went with the People to People Citizen Ambassador Program. 

See more info about the Ambassador Program at: {Silk Embroidered Birds from China Trip}.

That is a treasure of course and even more so, since Pieter got to see how they do make such silk brocade.

It is a handmade tradition of more than 2,000 years and originally only was for the emperor.

Watch this short video → Chinese brocade (Hello China #85)

Silk Brocade; fit for our PRINCE OF PEACE

Our Permanent Resident Angels & Cross Stitch for Christmas

Just reposting this 2011 post...

On November 9, I did already write about Our Living Room ANGELS - CHERUBS that have taken up permanent residence, not only for the Christmas season. All our ANGELS - CHERUBS are the REAL thing, made out of special wood and hand carved in South Tyrol, Italy. So here they are shown once more to you as they sure belong to the Christmas season.

The golden wreath we added for the Christmas season...

Quite an angelic population on our mantle... They are our Permanent Residents!

From Bad/Münstereifel, Germany I did bring this pure linen cross stitched Christmas bow back home.

The edging of the linen band is done in gold and the hand embroidered cross stitching also used gold for the stars as well as for some contrast stitching.

Hard to capture on photo.

I've just finished a scan from this bow & stars cross stitch pattern, for those of you that are interested in it.

Look for it below and feel free to print it out.

My German friend Marlene, did bring me a second one when she and her husband Egon did visit us after their tour through Mexico.

They are hung each year in the living room from the doorknobs of the oak wall unit.

This is the scan and I put it as a larger size. The width of the linen band is 7 cm or 2.8"

The entire cross stitch pattern is 11 cm long or 4.3" so you can determine the thread count accordingly.

If you love it as much as I did at first sight, okay - here is the pattern for you.

Just a small Christmas gift from me—to my loyal readers!

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Obviously many visitors loved this... 11,044 views.

Related links:

{6 Antique & Vintage Italian Angels, Cherubs Putti} previous post by me
{Our Living Room ANGELS - CHERUBS} previous post by me
{Our Living Room} previous post by me
{5 Angels - Putti from Italy & Germany} previous post by me

Will You be KISSING under the Mistletoe?

 YEP, being Old World Americans we did do this tradition! 

Of course, Pieter and I HAVE KISSED each other under the MISTLETOE as a Christmas Tradition!

HAVE YOU?!