Simple Christmas Candy Cane Countdown

I always have grand plans of making a fancy advent calendar to help my girls look forward to Christmas, but then reality sets in and nothing gets done.  This year, I just set my sights way, way lower and actually got something done! 

To make this, I used:

• Red felt, cut 5” x 26”
• White felt, cut 3” x 24”
• Red ribbon 24” long
• Candy Canes
• Gift Tags

Basically, I sewed the ribbon down the center of the white felt, and then sewed the white felt to the red felt every inch, making little pockets for each candy cane. 

If you want to make the days more meaningful as you go along, add gift tags to the candy canes with activities, scriptures, or other notes and tie them on with ribbon.  There are SO many free printable gift tags out there, but I used some tag stickers on red cardstock for some of mine too.

I know I am looking forward to stirring my hot chocolate with one of these candy canes every night!  Yummy!

How to: Make a Penguin Ornament from a Pecan

If you bought a bag of nuts to make the little mice ornaments, odds are you’ll have a handful of whole, shelled pecans in the mix.  They are the perfect size and shape to make little penguin ornaments!  These are a lot easier than the mice, if you have patience for paint to dry!

You need:

• Pecans, whole with shells
• Black and White craft paint
• Yellow or orange felt
• Colored felt for scarves
• Paint brush
• Glue Gun and Glue Sticks
• Scissors
• Ribbon for ornament loop hanger

Since this was pretty simple, I just took a photo to show the evolution of this little pecan Penguin ornament:

1.  Wash and dry your pecans

2.  Paint half of the shell white

3.  Paint the rest of the shell black, making a “widow’s peak” in the front, and add two black dots for eyes

4.  Cut one small triangle and a heart from your yellow felt, and then a strip 1/4” thick from your colored felt.  Attach the triangle for the nose, the heart for the feet, and glue on the colored strip as a scarf, fringing the ends with scissors if you like.  Hot glue your ribbon loop to the back of the penguin.

Basically, the easiest little ornament craft ever!  An assembly line keeps things moving along while you are waiting for the paint to dry, and before you know it, you have a whole pile of these little guys waiting to be given as neighbor, teacher, or grandparent gifts.  Enjoy!

Make A Hazelnut Mouse Ornament!

Back when I was a kid, I remember making little nut mice with my siblings and my mom as a Christmas craft.  I have a terrible memory, so to have something stick with me meant that it was worth remembering!  I wanted to re-create that memory with my little girls, so we made our own Hazelnut mice ornaments, and you can too!

You need:

• Mixed Nuts, containing Whole, shelled walnuts and Hazelnuts
• Scrap fabric
• Polyester stuffing (tip: those cheap bed pillows at Walmart- under $3- are awesome for stuffing!)
• Glue Gun, Glue sticks
• Fine Point Sharpie Pen
• Brown Felt (not pictured)
• Brown Embroidery Floss or Yarn (not pictured either)

The first thing you are going to do is break the walnut in half, trying to preserve the shell as best as you can.  I first gave it a whack along the seam, and then pried it apart with a butter knife.  It doesn’t have to be perfect!

Next, pull out the actual nut and replace it with a tiny wad of polyester stuffing so it is nice and fluffy.

Glue a short piece of brown floss or yarn to one end of the walnut half, and then glue a small piece of fabric loosely over the top of the stuffing and floss piece.  This is the little mouse tail!

On a Hazelnut, draw a little sleepy mouse face.  Cut out little round ears from the felt, and make a loop with the floss or yarn for hanging the ornament.

Glue the hazelnut head to the walnut and the fabric so it looks like the little head is poking out of the covers.  Glue on the ears, and finally the loop.

After your glue dries, hang your little nut mouse on your tree!  Then make several more- I think we made 5 in one sitting, and with two little kids helping (not with the hot glue!), that is actually very productive.

These cute little guys can be given as gifts, too!  You can personalize them even more by writing on the walnut shell whose little hands helped out.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you try these cute ornaments!

Faux Bois Embroidery Hoop Ornament

As part of the SEW portion of the Holiday Craft, Bake, Sew Along over at Skip to my Lou, I’ve worked up this little modern rustic ornament, complete with faux bois free motion stitching and a reindeer silhouette. If you want to make one (and it took probably 30 minutes to make) head on over and take a gander!

There are many more great tutorials already there, and more on the way!  Plus, find baking and crafting ideas on the sister websites, According to Kelly and A Southern Fairytale.

I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend- now there is only one month until Christmas!  Yikes!

Happy Thanksgiving!

One year ago on Thanksgiving, I had one bite of mashed potatoes too many and my water broke right there at the dinner table (totally awkward), and had a baby girl in my arms within a few hours!  That will probably be the memory attached to Thanksgiving for the rest of my life, but I wouldn’t have it any other way :)

See this photo?  We all totally scrambled outside to take a family photo in between my contractions… hence the looks on Mike’s and my face… “hurry hurry, take the picture!!”

My little Turkey! She still keeps her tongue out like that.  So funny!

So, even though it isn’t her birthday quite yet, I’m remembering the Thanksgiving I gave birth to our sweet little girl.  She is the happiest baby I have EVER come across- what a blessing, especially with the 3-year-old sister I’m currently battling on every little thing :). 

I hope your Thanksgiving day is full of family, memories, and good food!

Vinyl Santa Plate Christmas Decoration

Recently I came home from thrifting with several white porcelain plates just begging to be vinyl’ed up.  One got a little Halloween lift, and this pretty scalloped one recently underwent a transformation thanks to some silver vinyl and my Silhouette machine!  I bought the silver vinyl last year with the intent on making this project, but as most projects of mine go, it took a year to actually do it. And my husband thinks I just hoard things… in reality, I just am slow to getting to everything! That, and I didn’t have a pretty stand for my plates yet (this one is from Rod Works).

I like how sophisticated this Santa is. Kind of vintage looking, very happy and clean.  It took a while for me to weed the vinyl, but I’m so please with the outcome.  SO happy with it.

This lovely Santa plate resides in my china cabinet, which never sees the light of day so I took it down to take some photos.  Some day I’ll have more than one window!!  Anyway, the SANTA glitter word was from the dollar section at Target.  I think they have a Ho Ho Ho too, in red and gold- go look and see!

If you want your own, you can buy it at House of Smiths in Shelley’s shop. 

DIY Snow Globe

Here’s a Christmas craft you can do in less than 15 minutes!  Even your kids can do this one; they’ll love the glitter part of it, I’m sure!

To make this craft, you need:

• Small figurine
• Wide-mouthed glass jar
• Strong adhesive
• Glitter
• Water
• (optional) Spray paint for lid

First, remove any paper or markings on your glass jar.  Use hot soapy water and let it soak, and it should come off easily if it was glued to the glass.

I spray-painted my lid, but then in the end decided to wrap a ribbon around the bottom.  Either way works!

After your lid is prepped, it is time to glue the figurine to the center of your lid.  Super glue, hot glue, or E-6000 are good glues for this project because they are waterproof.

Glue the figuring to the center of your lid.  I got my cute little nativity figurine at Rod Works in Gilbert.  It was only a few bucks, and now I want more!  Rod Works is on the corner of Higley and Ray in South Gilbert, for all you interested locals.

Once the glue has dried, fill your jar with water and sprinkle in a teaspoon of glitter, or more if you like!  Screw the lid on tightly!

Flip your jar over and make sure the water isn’t coming out.  On my first turn, I got glittery water all over myself… so I filled up more water and just screwed it on tighter the second time around :)

Then I wrapped a ribbon around the bottom for a little more color, and I was done!  I have it sitting next to a vinyl decoration I made using some scrap wood, wood stain, and my Silhouette SD.

Christmas Bells Hanging Decor

Yes, Christmas decorations are going up at my house.  Slowly, because we still have Thanksgiving to get to first, but since we have lots of family coming to town we wanted to get a head start on Christmas decorating.

When I was at Target recently, I saw these awesome glittery bells in their Dollar deal section.  I grabbed some and knew just what to do with them!  A few more accessories from the dollar section, a wooden dowel, and some ribbon made it just what I hoped it would be!

To make this, I used:

(3/4”) 6-foot dowel (Home Depot)

5 Glitter Bells

Variation of Ornaments; I had balls, stars, and snowflakes.

Ribbon! I ended up using super thin ribbon, but thick ribbons would be pretty too; I just didn’t want to obscure the view from my kitchen to the family room and outside.

Hook Hangers (Home Depot)

Red Washi Tape or Red Spray paint and painters tape

First, I cut lengths of ribbon for the ornaments and bells.  I wanted to red bells the longest, then the silver bells, and then the ornaments hung at all different lengths.

I painted the dowel white, and then used my red washi tape I found at Target to wrap the dowel so it looked like a candy cane. If you start taping the dowel with your tape at an angle, it easily goes on in a candy cane sort of way.  If you don’t have red tape, tape the dowel with painters tape and then spray paint it all red.  Remove the painters tape when it is dry and you have the same effect!  I thought this would be fun with PVC and Red Duct tape for a front yard decoration… if I had a front yard.

Next, it is time to work on the hanging decorations.

I tied one end to the bells and ornaments with a good, tight knot.

Next, I tied the other ends of the ribbon to the dowel, trying to space the ornaments and bells evenly. 

Tie two more ribbons to the dowel, one near each end, to hook onto the hooks you’ve screwed into the ceiling and hold the whole thing up.

Trim any excess ribbon, and enjoy!

This glittery collection hangs on the soffit over my kitchen sink between my kitchen and the family room.  It is high enough not to get in the way of even my husband, and my baby loves to sit on the ground and stare at it, and will try taking swipes at it while we walk past on the way to her room for her naptime.  Sometimes I’ll even let her touch it ;)

It is sooooo pretty!!!

And every time I walk past, I think of the children’s song “Christmas Bells.” I end up humming it most of my day, which puts me more in the holiday spirit.

Don’t worry, I had a little turkey activity with my girls the other day, so we haven’t completely forgotten Thanksgiving ;) 

Guitar Strip Quilt

Oh, this quilt.  What a saga.

 

I only had a little bit of that guitar print (Michael Miller), but it was calling out to me to be used in a quilt for this fair.  So I started picking fabrics from my collection that would go with it and compliment it, and it came together beautifully.  Perfectly for a little boy!  It looked AWESOME and I knew it would sell, either at the fair, or in my shop.  I put folded it and put it on my table next to my sewing stuff to get binding in the morning.  Unfortunately and unbeknownst to me, someone soon put a highlighter on it… uncapped.

In the morning when I went to work on it again, I saw a good 2” circle of neon yellow highlighter right in the middle of one of the chevron strips on the front.  GAH!!  I researched and discovered that highlighter is water-based, and should come out with a little soap and a lot of water.  Yay!  So, first I put binding on, and then  as I ran water directly over the spot, it was coming out, easily.  The water was bright yellow, but the stain was washing away from the chevron print.  After I it was gone, I turned the quilt over to make sure it had all come out.

That 2” spot had grown to be at least a foot wide, and left little yellow drip babies all over.

Bright yellow.

All over the back.

And it wouldn’t wash out anymore like it did on the front!  (in case you are wondering, the front chevron is Riley Blake, the back is Moda) I was panicked.  All that time!  Material!  MONEY!

So I worked on it some more, and some more, and some more.  I used baking soda, hydrogen peroxide, water and soap… nothing was working at all!  So, I put some Dawn dish soap on it, and for good measure, some shampoo.

VOILA!

No more yellow.

However, the dish soap left little blue spots on it, very subtly, but they were still there, even after two more washes.  And since this poor quilt had been washed so many times already (though it was now super soft and cuddly and made me want to wash all my quilts before I had them on display for people to see), I decided to call it good.  The blue would fade a little more after each wash, so eventually it will be gone.  After asking several opinions (where most people couldn’t even see the blue), I decided to have it at the craft fair, but to discount it.  And it sold, like I knew it would, despite the little flaws.  It was crazy. 

That highlighter is now in some landfill, somewhere.

Well, that’s all the quilts I had!  WHEW!  I did make up this quick hand-painted sign for our booth, and I thought it was kind of cute so I wanted to share.  I was going to do vinyl, but I’m so cheap I couldn’t get myself to do that, so I opted for hand drawing, and hand painting, the sign to look something like chalk board art.  Granted, it is blue on a white background, but it got the message across! 

After doing this, I realized how awesome this sort of thing could be in my home, if I used rulers/grids and a paint pen instead of a regular paint brush.  I haven’t seen a chisel-style paint pen yet, but that would be awesome.  I must try it again with a real chalkboard background!

Have a great Veterans Day Weekend! Thanks to our armed forces for helping our country maintain its liberty, safety, and pride.