The Small Stuff

I talked recently about wanting to get my hands on some tiny toys and such- I'm still on the hunt. I need quite a bit so I expect it will take a while. This is the sort of thing I was talking about size wize.... (Oh and I think I have enough rabbits :-))

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Daily December Days 1-8

Finally got my Daily December album up to date! I scored a mini photo printer on trade me super cheap in the weekend and while the quality isn't the best the convenience is fantastic!! Here are the first 8 days of our month so far...

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Challenge Day 8: Appreciate!

Day 8's crafting was digital I wrote a poem for my Starbucks Barista's to go with the bag of pressies I was dropping off to them....not Chistmassy but for Christmas....

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Challenge Day 7: Paper and Tags

My Starbucks Christmas gifts are now all wrapped and ready to go. I used plain gold paper and a black sharpie marker to make the paper show my appreciation! :-) I inked the tags with Tim Holtz Distress Ink: Fired Brick and Pine Needles spritzed them with water and then stamped a Basic Grey stamp with black Staz-on. Inked the edges with TH Vintage photo wrote the names with a sharpie and called them done.

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Challenge Day 6; Wreath

I was lead by Julie FFB who often serves up some great inspiration on her blog to this little piece of inspiration which is made by this talented Chickadee! Our wreath at home was mine before I ever met Les or had the kid twinkles in my eyes I overhauled it a little last year but it was a bit like flogging a dead something! So inspired I made this....

1. I cut the top you can see here down the sides into two pieces.
2. Stitched the top of the back onto the bottom of the front.
3. Brought a $10 wreath base from Spotlight.
4. Asked the love of my life to use some of his amazing adhesive stash to cover the wreath in batting.
5. Carefully draped my length of fabric around the wreath.
6. Pinned the open end in place to ensure a good overlap under my button's- it was quite long enough so I cut a little salvage off and placed it behind the buttons so you can't see the white.
7. Then I pulled the pieces together and carefully hand stitched it up.
   

I am really pleased with the end result....

Although I'm not sure if it's 100% done I may add some metal, fabric or paper flowers (or some combo of all 3) at some point in the future. Something like this....



If you want more wreath inspiration check out these!

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Challenge Day 5: Not quite Christmas

No time for Christmas Crafting yesterday although I did a little on my Daily December as I am a little behind. But I did do some other creating as I had a wedding to go to.... Card made with stamps by Technique Tuesday and Tim Holtz Distress ink and Kaisercraft patterned paper. Voucher on PhotoshopCS3 sorry no credits as I was in a bit of a hurry. Font is Black Jack my fave at the moment.

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Challenge Day 4 Family Christmas Cards

I do write Christmas Cards every year it's something that's super important to me and generally I send out around about 70 of them. I don't make them myself though because the time and expense involved is prohibitive except for the ones that go to our closest family....

(Bet I'm the only one who makes a Christmas Card in Chiefs colours!!)

While I was at it I made a thank-you card for Merenia's St John's instructor...

And a birthday card for Will... love these wee Sassa Monsters!

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365 Week 48

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Challenge Day 3: Beaded Monograms

If you know me, then you know I have something of an addiction to Starbucks. I am a regular at my local, they know my name and they know just how I like my frap. I really appreciate their smiling faces and their friendly service. And that's why last year and this year I put in the effort to make them a each little something to say thanks! This year I have done beaded monograms for their trees.

Each is between 10-15cm tall and no two are alike. They take a little time but it's not as bad as you may think. The hardest are the letters like F where you have to use two pieces of wire and bind them together (curse you Frances!).



These will all be individually wrapped in some homemade wrapping I have planned with a special tag.... and I think I have a poem coming on as well.

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Challenge Day 2: Balls

I made one these balls for Ehren C and one for Miss Tiny (I just gave Wendy the stickers so when T gets named she can stick the name on), one for Noah (a Starbucks barista baby) and had one left over so this one goes to Clay who lives down the other end of the 'Right of Way' it also doubles as one of my R.A.K's for the season. :-)

The balls are glass from Spotlight.

Stamped with Staz-on.

I sprayed vellum spray inside and then put Doodlebug Sugar Coating Glitter in and swirled it around .

Thickers for the name and a ribbon to finish it off. Quick, easy, sweet and fast.... that's how I like it!

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Challenge Day 1: Rosette Decoration

It's only once it gets dark that you realise your photo is weird!!! Because then it's too late to take another one. This is my effort for day 1 of Paula's 24 days of Christmas Creating Challenge. I've been wanting to try my hand at rosettes for a while it is both harder and easier than I thought.
This one is made with three different Basic Grey papers, some pearl beads a droplet 'crystal' one black brad, foam tape and some nice thread for hanging. And obviously I used a couple of scallop punches.

The easy part is that they are quick and simply to make. The hard part is that there needs to be a width to length ratio and you need to accurately fold it in half. Mine is at all accurate and I went through a trial and error process with the l x w ratio. The length on the green one was way to long for the width of my paper so I needed to keep trimming sections off. On the one below the length was too short so my concertinas are a bit too spread and my middle very bunched!

That said I like this one and hope to do another with the same paper and actually finish it with some sort of centrepiece! I downloaded the paper from a site with sheet music for Christmas carols each carol had a sweet old fashioned picture to match! You can find them here.

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I Love Lisa V

Once again Lisa Volrath is doing her awesome Christmas Printables Countdown at Two Ten Studios. Check it out it's like a grown-up advent calendar a treat everyday till Christmas!

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Internet Christmas Eye Candy! Yum!

I started this list a while back and obviously didn't get much past Martha and Etsy...still there's some good ideas here to either try and replicate or adjust and bounce off...

Button Snowman Cards

Button Ornaments

Ribbon and Bow Accessory

Click-and-Print Ornaments

Holiday Card Ornaments

Button Wreath Ornament

Three-Dimensional Doily Ornament

Beaded Ornaments: Letters and Stars

Gumdrop Pops

Paper Evergreens

Holiday Gift Tags

Crepe Paper Stocking

Doily Tin

Paper-Plate Angels

Skinny Christmas Tree

Button Decoration

Owl Ornament

Fun Stockings

Christmas Pudding (I love these!!)

Tags and Cards (Super simple)

More Felt Decorations

Felt Wreath

More Felt Decorations

Retro Magnets (I might be able to hook you up with some vintage Christmas pictures! Let me know).

My Favourite of the Felt Ornaments

More Stockings love the red and white.

Blocks cool for the mantle

Sweet little Doe Ornament

Fabric Tree you could do the same thing with paper!

More funky trees once again think stiff paper cones and these are super easy.

Felt Gingerbread Houses

Beyond my skill set but super sweet: Bird, Chick and Rabbit

Some cute felt to wear or copy the concept for paper piecing on a card.

Love this esty seller awesome paper goods including Tags

Gorgeous Pimp Stitch Houses

Cute Girls

A whole month worth of ideas.

If country-folksy is your thing.

Love the Santa (couldn't make it) but the owls hmmmmm!

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Mini Muffin Tin Advent Calendars

A little while back I made these with 7 kids aged; 23 months, 4, 5, 9, 11 and 12 years old. Obviously working with the 2 youngest was fairly labour intensive but the others were fairly self sufficient.
Before I sat down with the kids I gathered a complete set of supplies and tools and pre-cut the magnets and base papers. I assigned each child a set of 6 numbers (so we covered them all from 1-24). I also covered the magnets in double sided tape and provided each child with their own strip of foam tape squares. I restricted the colours to green, red, white/cream and black so that the magnets would co-ordinate. The hardest parts surrounded the fact that we had more people than scissors and corner rounders.
If I did it again I would;

1. Talk to the bigger kids about contrasting colours.
2. Get them to gather all supplies for each magnet first and lay them out to they can consider spacing and balance.
3. Have a few more premade examples for them to look at.

Supplies; Magnetic sheets plain or self adhesive, 24 cup (or 2 x 12 cup) mini muffin pan, double sided tape, a selection of co-ordinating plain and patterned papers, a selection of number stickers (or you could use stamps), Christmas themed embellishments, buttons, bling and brads etc, foam tape, glue and/or glue dots.

Tools; Ruler, scissors, craft knife, pen, corner rounder, shape punches (various we used heart, star, circles and scalloped circles).

Other; List of numbers from 1-24, cross each number off as you complete the magnets.

Instructions;

1. Measure muffin cup width to ascertain size for magnet squares.
2. Cut magnetic sheets into 24 squares as per measurement in step 1. Nb you could also cut circles if you had a suitable punch or machine die.
3. If using plain magnetic sheet apply doubled sided tape ensuring you go to edges on two opposing sides.
4. Cut squares of plan and patterned paper slightly larger than your magnets.
5. Apply to magnet with double sided tape.
6. Turn over and trim excess paper from edges of magnet.
7. Round corners with corner rounder.
8. Select numbers and embelishments and lay out on magnet. Consider mounting numbers and/or embellishments on punched paper shapes.
9. Use appropriate adhesive to apply embellisments to magnets. (cross off numbers as you go so you don't double up).
   
10. Decide how you will display your advent tin(s). Now is the time to add any ribbon an if need be drill holes in your tin if you plan to hang it.
    
11. Add the contents to you muffin cups (see below).
    
12. Put magnets on muffin tins, you can place them in order or mix them up for a bit of fun.
13. Display!
    

These magnets were made by Brody, Alyssa, Hunter and Alex...

And these by Kieran, Merenia, Will and myself...

In the end we turned ours around mixed up the numbers and strung them up with a ribbon.

Of course we filled them with lollies first...

We added two lollies for each of the kids in our house but you could have a bunch of fun holiday activities printed on strips of paper for your family to do each day (stories, baking, decorating, card writing, visit to Santa etc), or a fortune, a compiment, pieces of an appropriate puzzle, non food treats like pre-inked stamps or some stickers, tiny christmas decorations, or a bible verse if you are that way inclined. Or you could mount some circle punched family photos in each so once you have taken the magnets off you have a funky family picture frame.
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Holidays in Hand Prompts

If you are interested in the Holidays in Hand Prompts for journaling your Christmas then you should check my other blog; Down the Right of Way from tomorrow on. I'll be trying to post something new everyday.

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Christmas is Coming

I'm getting ramped up for Christmas! I didn't think I'd have my cards done by the first but thanks to a few late nights and an awesome husband they are basically ready to go! This year I am doing a Daily December album once again. I am taking part in Paula's create-each-day challenge. And I am doing a course called 'Holidays in Hand' at Jessica Sprague which is designed to make you be a bit more organised and take some time to slow down and appreciate the season. Each day has a prompt card that looks like this...


As you may be able to see there is a space to add something to 'make' and 'do' each day. I have put together a list of ideas and thought it might be handy to share here. We're certainly not going to do everything on the list- apart from anything some are quite similar. The two lists can cross over as well as any of the 'make food' items which are actually on the do list could go on the 'make' list. And look out for a post with links to some cool decorations on the net in the next few days. Anyway here's the list.... feel free to add to it in the comments.

Do…. emphasize "doing" more than "getting" or "buying."

1. Make your favorite treat together (and eat an extra one for me ;)
2. Have a fondue night! chocolate and cheese dipped goodies.
3. Make a yummy drink - try hot cider, wassail, egg nog, and talk about your favourite events of this past year.
4. Special Hot and Iced chocolate drinks drink under lit tree.
5. Make a “holiday flavor” of milkshake: peppermint, pumpkin pie, egg nog, gingerbread.
6. Have breakfast for dinner
7. Bake and take gifts to neighbours.
8. Eat dinner by candlelight.
9. Make homemade apple pie.
10. Have a Cookie party. For the kids have the cookies made ahead of time and let them decorate. My adult friends and I have gotten together to bake at my house together on a Saturday--have lunch while we work and then split up the cookies to take home.
11. Have a mixed up dinner where you write the name of each item on a piece of paper and you have to eat them in the order in which you open the papers. (i.e. bread, milk, fork, carrots, pasta, cookies are all written on separate pieces of paper. Each person has their own pile of these papers and eats their dinner in whatever order they open them.
12. Eat breakfast for dinner
13. Have a picnic in the living room (or outside, if the weather's right)
14. Go out somewhere special for dinner
15. Go visit a local light display or just check out the neighbourhood houses
16. Go for a walk, or look out your largest window at the stars together
17. Go visit a place you’ve been meaning to go together: a museum, a walking trail, beach…
18. Go for a walk around your home town and take turns taking photos so you can see everyone's perspective on things.
19. Go visit some of the spectacular holiday decorations in your town - these might be a town square, the mall, main street, or a private home
20. Go see Disney's A Christmas Carol at the movies.
21. Go have a visit and/or photo with Santa.
22. Go to the library and pick out books about Christmas. Read them together.
23. Read from your favorite holiday story
24. Buy a new Christmas storybook and read it before bed
25. Read the true story of Christmas or read any story by the tree with only tree lights on.
26. Look at scrapbooks together .
27. Watch a Christmas movie with popcorn
28. Watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” together
29. Watch a holiday movie by candlelight (polar express)
30. Watch some of past Christmas family videos.
31. Gather around the computer (or plug your computer into your TV) and play a slide show of photos through the year.
32. Do a child-led photo shoot of each other have everyone take turns to take pic as well as using the timer or remote.
33. Watch for Santa on the Norad satellite website on Christmas eve
34. Impromptu dance party to Christmas music or karaoke
35. Sing a holiday song before bed
36. Play your favorite Christmas song (don't be afraid to sing it at the top of your lungs!)
37. Play board or card games.
38. Pop popcorn and play a board game together, while listening to holiday music.
39. Do a puzzle together.
40. Give each other massages.
41. Give each other a 2-minute hand massage.
42. Play sword fight with the leftover wrapping paper tubes.
43. Camp out under the Christmas tree. Get sleeping bags, read stories and drink something yummy and sleep one night under the lights of the tree.
44. Write some Mad Libs (If you don’t know what that is check out this one or google it!)
45. Write a thank-you letter to Santa to leave on Christmas Eve.
46. Get some blank pages and crayons and let your kids write and illustrate their own Christmas story
47. Write a list of 5 things you are each grateful for
48. Write down your 5 best memories from the past year
49. Slip a little note of holiday love into a backpack, laptop case, lunchbox, or set it on a pillow
50. Write a note to each member in the family to tell them how special they are and what you love about them. Leave them in their stockings.
51. Send someone a letter anonymously.
52. Write a holiday letter to include in your cards, and include statements or quotes from each family member
53. Get in touch--call, write a letter, email, send a card--with a friend or relative whom you haven't heard from in a long time.
54. Draw and send postcards to cousins
55. Have a video chat with a friend or family member who is far away
56. Share your favorite holiday memory with each other
57. Share the story of the best present you ever received
58. Ask a stranger about their favorite Christmas memory or thing to do. Just thought it would be a fun twist. You could modify this to something like ask your best friend or grandparent.
59. Make a short questionnaire and interview everyone on video
60. Do a video taped interview with everyone in the family. You could ask…. -How old are you?
-What do you want to be when you grow up?
-What was your favorite memory about this past year?
-What is on your Christmas list?
61. Videotape a short interview of your children’s thoughts about Christmas
62. Adopt a new tradition
63. Send your holiday cards together
64. Put up the Christmas tree, or add an ornament to it
65. Decorate cut outs of trees or snowmen
66. Put a Christmas Cracker in each stocking.
67. Wrap a toy and take it to a charity Christmas tree
68. Do a Random Act of kindness.
69. Update the decoration album.
70. Put together a box of items to donate and take your child with you to donate them. Ask them if they would like to contribute something that they have outgrown. find toys in playroom to donate (makes room for presents come at Christmas! AND gives me a better idea of what kids do/not like now. AND teaches them about giving AND reminds them that stuff is NOT meant to be hoarded/ is not permanent)
72. Gain an appreciation for holiday celebration by researching some of the world's holiday traditions
73. Plan your next family holiday (even if it's in 2012 or beyond )

Make:
1. Make a holiday-related video (sing songs, do puppets, act out something) - this can be a two night production, with practicing one night and filming or performance the next night.
2. Make Christmas cards to send.
3. Make a Christmas or thank-you card for Santa.
4. Make thank-you cards for teachers.
5. Make blank cards to give as gifts.
6. Make postcards for the Overseas Family
7. Draw a holiday picture and send it to a relative (of the child’s choice).
8. Make handmade/computer generated stationery
9. Make custom tags and labels for gift esp. food gifts.
10. Make custom gift boxes or Money envelopes or cards for money gifts.
11. Make our own wrapping paper with stamps and pens.
12. Make Ornaments, either for your home or as small gifts
13. Make gumdrop wreath.
14. Cut out paper snowflakes together
15. Make a Finnish Star together (www.acherryontop.com/article?a=5021)
16. Make Button decorations.
17. Trace hands on paper for tree ornament.
18. Make birdseed ornaments and hang outside.
19. Make a wreath with a thrifted jersey
20. A house (or 2) for a holiday village scene
21. Get an unfinished wood tray from a craft store and decorate it together with a Christmas theme.
22. Pre-make a mini album to document this years Christmas day.
23. Make an album to contain the Christmas letter you send each year.
24. Make a Daily December album
25. A Christmas Mini book which outlines some family tradition around the holidays.
26. Start a holiday memory book. Quote your child and ask them what their favorite thing they had done (so far) was for the holidays. Record what they asked for from Santa. Take a picture of them for that year with their Santa gift.
27. Make our own holiday card game. Eg Christmas decoration Snap.
28. Make the cookie recipe in a jar kit.
29. Make Sweets to eat or gift.
30. Bake cookies/cake for teachers/friends/family/ or a Random Act of Kindness. (eg stained glass biscuits)
31. Make gingerbread houses together
32. Make Christmas Blog headers or website decorations.
33. Print out a Holiday Coloring Page and color it.

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Couldn't resist

This is a quick page from Paislee Press, don't often do QP's but sometimes you come across the perfect one for the perfect task!
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