Scrap bits

Totally making these!

I am hosting Christmas dinner this year.

For 14 people.

In my new (smaller) house.  

Not sure where everyone will fit, but I will figure it out. It's going to be a great start of a new tradition- new house-new life.

I was thinking about trying something different with my usual (boring) mashed potatoes, and saw this at Pioneer Woman Cooks.  It's make ahead (perfect!), and fancy. Totally NOT low fat, but looks yummy.

Full recipie with step by step photos is here.

If I remember, I will take a photo of mine... see if they look as good as these!

Happy Holidays!

I want to wish everyone out there a very happy holiday season!

See you next year!

 

Easy Christmas tree decorations

Here is a really easy and fast tutorial for paper covered Christmas trees. I made these to decorate my table for the craft show I was in a couple of weeks ago. These would be great to make with the kids as well.

You will need:

styrofoam cones in various sizes

hot glue gun

cardstock and/or patterned paper in colors of your choice

scissors

optional trim to decorate your tree

Cut your paper into strips. Mine are approx 1 or 1.5 inches wide, but there is no rule here. 

Then cut snips into the strips, and curl them up slightly with the dull edge of your scissors. here is a close up shot of the curled paper on the cone so you can see what I mean.

 
Starting at the bottom, hot glue the strip around the cone. Continue upwards till the cone is covered. To finish the top, roll a piece of paper into a cone shape and glue to the top.

At this point you can add ribbon or trim to finish the tree if you want.

You can use christmas colored paper or go all white and cream- I think that would look cool. I also tried using torn strips of muslin and I really liked how this one turned out.

I think these took me 15 minutes each. Really easy and fast.

If you try them I would love to know how they turn out!

Christmas Craft show this Thursday!

Hey there! Here is where I am going to be on Thursday. I have a table here, so if you are local to Mississauga, Ontario pop by and say hi!

Valentine's craft idea

I love this idea from The Long Thread (which is a fantastic craft blog for whatever you like to craft). Check out the post here for the free printable downloads and instructions. J and I will make this weekend for her grade 2 class of 22 kids- we have enough bits and pieces of crayons around this house, that's for sure!

R does not think they are "cool" enough to hand out to grade 4's.  What he actually said when I asked if he wanted to do these with us was "No WAAY Mom! I am NOT handing those out!!" . So I think we will just do Valentine pencils with a greeting attached.  Cool enough I hope!

Christmas countdown calendar

 
  

The countdown calendar I made. We put it up on Dec 1st-more shots in my photo album one the left side under "holiday".

This is the second year we used this calendar. The tags have various Christmas activities for each day.  I'm sure the activites will evolve as the kids get older. For now some of the tags are;

-candlelit dinner in our jammies

-drive around and look at Christmas lights

-chocolate fondue for dessert

-family Wii tournament

-have hot chocolate with all the trimmings

-put sprinkles on EVERYTHING we eat today

Let me know if you would like to get a complete list and I would be happy to provide it for you!

Christmas Decor

I have a thing about decorating for Christmas; I wont do it before December. So for the last 2 days I have been working on getting the Christmas stuff up.  It's a love/hate thing!  It takes a couple of days to put up, then one short month later takes another couple of days to take down. But.  It sure looks beautiful (and sparkley, as my daughter says) when it's done.  And it really does help to put me in the Christmas mood!

I designed this grid for a hybrid scrapbook page.

The blue wreath is one I made from regular package bows. The plaid ball in the center I made by tearing strips of material and gluing it to a styrofoam ball and adding twine. The tree in the bottom left was made with scrapbook paper, cut into strips then frayed and glued layer by layer around a Christmas tree styrofoam shape.

Now if I could just spend the rest of December making crafts.... ahhh.  One can dream, right? 

Daily December update

Here are a bunch of photos of what my Daily December album looks like.  Yes, today is December 1st, and NO i do not have day one done yet.... I see myself doing a couple of days at once- but that's ok.  Most of the time consuming stuff has already been done.

 
I ended up painting on the whole front of the canvas album, and i like how it turned out. The tree on the front was a mask that I sprayed on with glimmer mist, then filled in with pieces of paper and sealed with gel medium.

 
I did what Ali Edwards did with the rings and tied scrap pieces of ribbon around the outside.

..and some shots of the inside pages.

 
Let me know what you think!  I am looking forward to filling it up with Christmas memories!

Handmade Christmas...

Cool!  I love this! Anything handmade is awesome, and at Christmas time there are so many great ideas out there!  I think I will make this with the kids. Nice teacher gift?  Check out the tutorial by Lindsay.

I {heart} the internet!  More crafty ideas and links to follow!
  

working on my Daily December

This year I am doing a Daily December album.  This album will cover every day in December leading up to Chrismas (or all the way thru to New Years if you want) The idea is to have all the pages PRE-MADE before December 1st comes around. Then all you have to do is take a photo-a-day, print it at home and add it to the album. Learn more at Ali Edwards' blog, and to see her awesome album.

 I am using the same album she is, but instead of covering it with fabric, I have gessoed the front of the canvas album and I am doing a mixed media painting on it.... we will see how it goes!  Photos are of the gesso layer. Just messy on to the ribbon trim- not sure what i will do there?  More photos to follow, as the album progresses.