Homemade Ornament Party

Last weekend Alaina and I held a little ornament making party. A few of her friends were invited, one of my good friends came to help so it was like a girls craft day with the addition of one little boy. Chase loves to paint - so painting ornaments with a group of girls didn't phase him one bit.

I set out silver trays filled with craft supplies for each ornament, jars of paint brushes, a muffin tin filled with small tubs of paint and buckets of glitter and glue. I put down lots of newspaper to cover the table incase of spilled paint (which happened more than once) oh but what fun we had and what an incredible mess we created!

{Alaina's ornaments - the kids got a tiny bit carried away with the puff paint and glitter!}

We made my cinnamon cutout ornaments decorated with white puff paint and glitter, mini frosted cupcakes and large frosted/glittered cupcakes, Clay lollipop ornaments (the idea came from Creature Comforts blog - I altered the ornaments a little by using a glue gun and thinner clay) and beaded candy canes.

I could really see this becoming a yearly tradition for us. What's amazing is that the kids stay entertained for over 6 hours creating their own ornaments. Needless to say, I was wiped out but the homemade ornament party was a huge hit!

be-gifted

The little elves around here have been busy wrapping up gifts this week! I always choose a color combination to wrap my gifts and for this grouping it was red-pink-yellow-silver and kraft. It's an interesting combination but I kind of like it!

I still need to wrap the kids' gifts, it's going to be a very gift-wrapping week!

Candy Holiday Shadow Box ~ Crate Paper

So last week sometime, Christine and I were on the phone discussing projects that we could do together for the Crate Paper blog. We thought about making ornaments and then the idea of a Christmas shadow box was brought up and we just had to decide on how large to make the boxes. Because I think good things come in small packages, the smaller the box - the better. Christine mentioned using Jello Boxes for our project which meant a shallower box.... but I'm always up for a challenge!

After a couple of "rass-a-frassa's & who's idea was this again?" My shadow box came together really quickly. I completed it - from start to finish- in one evening even while being distracted by the Home Alone 2 movie that the littles were watching for the 879th time this month. ;)

The outside of my box is covered with Crate's Peppermint Collection Papers. I painted the inside of the box a warm shimmering gold color.

I used a crop-a-dile to punch a hole through the back of the box, just big enough to fit a light through. The gold paint on the inside gives my little box scene a warm glow.

I'm not sure how I did it but I managed to fit 8 pieces of Peppermint chipboard into this little box. To make them secure, I covered the bottom of the box with white modeling clay. This way, I just pushed in each of the chipboard pieces into the clay and they stayed put! To cover the clay, I used a hot glue gun, some sparkly "snow" and a few pearls for added texture.

If you visit the Crate Paper blog you'll get to see Christine's box too and she even created a tutorial to help you in creating your own mini box! I think this project would also be alot of fun to create with kids.... especially over that long Winter break that's fast approaching! I have all sorts of projects to post this week. Christmas is just around the corner!

Holiday Snowflakes- photo tutorial

In my house everything has the possibility to be transformed into something else! I'm pretty confident that given enough time, I can find a second use for just about anything. Neck ties are sewn into necklaces, t-shirts make really cute scrapbook flowers and coffee filters are perfect for holiday snowflakes!

Alaina and I love to use coffee filters, they're already round and super light weight so when we created a garland with them, they almost appeared to floating in the window-sill!

I photographed the steps for making one last week!

Hope you are doing something fun this weekend! I have a little crafty get-together with friends planned for tomorrow but first I think a wee bit of scrapbooking may be in order for today! happy Saturday!

Doily Envelope- Tutorial

Here's the tutorial! I made a much smaller envelope this time and it's the perfect size to tuck a gift card into. Pretty appropriate for this time of year! With just a couple of supplies and a few steps - you can whip one up in no time - let's get started!

the supply list:


1 round doily
thread and needle
giftcard
button

Step 1. Place the gift card in the middle of the doily as a measuring guide. (You'll want the doily, when folded up at the bottom, to cover about 3/4 of the giftcard.) Cut the bottom of the doily off.

Step 2. Fold the bottom of the doily up covering most of the giftcard and cut the edge of the doily, leaving about a 1/4 inch of doily on either edge.

Step 3. The edges of the doily are going to be sewn, because the doily that I'm using is a loosely crocheted pattern, I used a pin to hold the edge together. The pin will help stop the doily from shifting too much during the sewing process!

Step 4. Sew the edge of the doily. I went back and forth, about 3 times, sewing down the edge of the doily and then back up again to make sure I had sewn the edge completely closed.

Step 5. Repeat steps 2-4 with the opposite side of the doily.

Step 6. Using a needle and thread, sew a button onto the top front of the doily.

* To crease the edges of the doily use a hot iron and press along the edges. Just be careful to not touch the iron to the button!

The size of your envelope will depend on the doily size but I have to admit that the smaller envelope was my fav. It makes giving a gift card this holiday season a little more exciting!

it's Halloween time!

If you've followed my blog for awhile, you probably have a good idea that Halloween is my favorite and my best! I don't know why I find it so appealing, maybe the colors? I do like bright colors mixed with black and white! There's also the candy, the dressing up part, the overall excitement that goes hand in hand with the holiday.

and I also love how anxious my kids are about going trick-or-treating. Alaina's been practicing each evening at our own house. She always starts the same way too "Mom, let's pretend I'm a tricker-or-treater!" and then she goes on to ring our doorbell. :) While my kids are young, I think the holiday is just as exciting for me as it is for them.

Our front yard is already for the 31st! I'll take you on a walk through out it. First, while wandering the aisles of Target I found this amazing black foil chandelier (for only $5. score!) and while it wasn't meant for outside, it ended up being perfect for the front entry. It's shimmering in the sunlight and then reflects the twinkly orange/pink lights at night.

I turned our fountain off for the moment and filled it with strands of little twinkly lights. The glow at night is perfectly spooky, and then just for fun, I perched the crow atop of the fountain. For about the first week, I kept doing a double take every time I walked past the front window and glanced out. :) That crow looks surprisingly real!

and because it's my house, skeletons have to wear pink flowers in their..... hair? on their heads. :)

Chase and I were out thrifting 2 weeks ago in an older part of town and came across someones collection of Empire Plastic lawn ornaments. I picked up 2 small pumpkin figurines, but left behind some larger ones... that I ended up kicking myself over once I got home! Since the wiring for the pumpkins looked like it was still from the 60's I replaced the lights with new lighting kits from Home Depot. I never thought I would be one to own any of those vintage plastic lights, until now! They are really pretty at night!

a couple more photos of decor details

I have 5 pumpkins waiting to be carved on Sunday!

I had this candy garland in mind last year as something I wanted to make for Halloween. It's made from toilet paper rolls (I feel silly for even saying it), plastic cups and pom-pom or poof-balls as they are often referred to as in our house. For the longer candies, I rolled fabric around and used pinking shears to cut the end fabric off. The small round candies were made by cutting the end off of a plastic cup and gluing a paper circle into it, and finally I wrapped each one in black tulle and used sewing thread to tie off the ends.

I couldn't decide on a good place to hang the garland and decided to just be content with draping the entire 9ft. of candy on the courtyard gate. It's cute but I still think the gate needs a "Happy Halloween" sign to hang right in the center.

lastly I haven't added anything new to the inside decor except for a couple of new ornaments for one of the Halloween trees. :) I'll fill each of the little pumpkins with candy-corn this weekend. We have some extra kids coming to visit us this weekend!

thanks for touring my front courtyard!! It's now time to turn on all of the outside lights. :)