How to have a flame in St. Hils without burning the church down.......

Hiya All!
Just thought you would all be interested to know that I have had "fun" this afternoon.  You see.........as it is Advent Sunday next Sunday I was keen to have one of our "children" given the responsibility of lighting the first candle on our candelabra  Most churches have an Advent candelabra in the shape of a wreath with four candles and one higher/taller in the middle.  Each of the four candles represents a Sunday in Advent so every Sunday sees the next candle lit until the middle candle is lit on Christmas day to signify the birth of Christ.

I have to confess we do NOT have a proper Advent candelabra.  However we do have one which fortunately has five candles although in a straight line.  We have to thank Stockton Miniatures in the USA for this candelabra and many other of our pieces of church furniture which are all made out of black walnut.  We particularly love our altar as Mark Stockton has carved "In remembrance of me" along the front.  We would NEVER cover those beautifully carved words up.  All our altar cloths are made by me.  They are VERY simple as I use a linen band which is just the right width for the altar and then embroider a hardanager cross on each side.  This way it leaves the words at the front of the altar exposed .......just as we want!

I STILL use an old gif animator programme from Ulead as it works well.  See below how Ambrose is doing holding the candle lighter/snuffer (again from Stockton Miniatures!) as he tries to light the first candle on our candelabra...........(note that sadly the animation does not work on this blog......boo.............sorry about that folks but check it out next week when it is "in situ" on St. Hils.......it WILL work then!)

I think he is doing quite well don't you?..........AND we won't have a fire in the church either!  I do enjoy a spot of digital trickery.  A couple of years ago I enabled my butterfly from Tinytails Miniatures to "fly" across to a floral display after Alice brought it into church.  WHAT did we do before we had digital photography?  I can only imagine the pain I would have had taking endless photos using film.........waiting for the joy of them to be developed............................and the pain of having to discard so many with the prospect of not even one being suitable for a new storyline.  I think I will go as far as to say............WITHOUT digital photography St. Hils may never have happened!  I took my first St. Hils photos with a Kyacera 4meg digital compact camera.  The photos were fine although they always had a bit of a red hue to them.  When you check out some of our older pages (take a few links from our Parish Records page) you will see what I mean.  However I have "corrected" many of them so that the red hue is not so noticeable although, sadly, some photos really don't lend themselves so well to such correction.  I subsequently bought a Canon Ixus 750 which served me pretty well up to this year.  The only problem I had with it was...........getting it to focus on the doll/s in question successfully.  Too often it would decide that the wall at the BACK was the subject.........arghhhhhhh.............or some piece of furniture.  I often felt like tearing my hair out!

I bought the Ixus 980 in August whilst we visited my parents in law because it does so much better.  It has as near a manual control that any digital compact camera can ever have.  It is so brillaint I can have a very long shutter speed and have the focus JUST where I want it.  It even takes a credible photo with no flash in very low evening light.  Enough of my eulogising over my new gadget!

Ah.........where WAS I?  Oh yes - back to my Advent Sunday ideas for next week............
Esther too has been busy.  I have always used the most usual and traditional colour of purple for both our altar and stoles for the clergy during Advent.  However this year I decided to have a change.  You see..........some churches choose to use blue. Blue is also a "colour of Christmas" and represents royalty and therefore the birth of a king!  How appropriate!  So Esther has made the church a new altar cloth with a blue hardanager cross and here she is inspecting her handywork in situ on the altar...............  Dear Bardsley, the bishop's dog, is hiding under the altar..................bet he has had a sneaky little snooze whilst nobody has been looking!

Oops........................another wander into fantasy land.........................................and no, Esther did NOT really make that cloth.....I did, as I said earlier!  I have to confess I have such a stock of craft stuff.....linens.....aida........silks.........cotton threads.....silk threads.....................craft cards......double sided cards.............................tissue papers..................card of various colours........wools for crochet/knitting.....YOU name it - I have it!
My stock of craft and embroidery materials often provides unexpected solutions.......................during August I was actually working on my Advent Calendar and I needed to turn three of my boys into kings for a pose.......................and I had NO idea what to use.  I played with various materials at my disposal with no luck....until I found that, some years back, I had bought some beautiful gold crepe paper!  I cannot even remember buying it let alone having it.  As they say..............amazing what discoveries you find in your own house.  You will all have to check out the Advent Calendar day by day during December though to see my "three kings" pose.....................but I have to say I am very chuffed with it needless to say..........

Anyway - check out St. Hils home page by the end of this week to see how St. Hils marks the arrival of Advent and, indeed, the church's New Year................

Till the next time
PS: We had a "feast" in Marks and Spencers on Friday.....so much so I overdosed and purchased FOUR packets of apple and custard doughnuts - two in each which works perfectly for me and Andrew.......yummy!  And now time for our Sunday evening traditional of ...........egg on toast!