Tshirt Vinyl Extravaganza

We had a T-shirt making party the week before Christmas.  This wasn't all of them, but a few with images from our favorite comedy group and a "Snowman" shirt for Mark.  

Hope everyone liked them and that glitter vinyl is pretty amazing.  Brooke will have to let me know how it holds up in the wash.  Love my Silhouette!

Moss Covered Letters and a Ward Christmas Party

 Our ward has fantastic Christmas parties, almost exclusively due to the vision of one very talented lady.  Luckily for all of us, she loves to do this kind of thing and I know everyone looks forward to it each year.  Luckily for me, I was asked to help with a portion of the decorations; a sign for the theme of our party.  The whole evening was based on the book "The Tale of Three Trees".  

I was planning on doing something with forest green cardstock and maybe some gold glitter, but at the last second I stumbled across THIS idea from Uncommon Designs.  I knew that's what we needed to do!

 I printed out each letter on copy paper and then cut them out to make stencils.  I traced each stencil onto cardboard to give the moss some sturdiness.  Last, I traced the cardboard letters onto the back of the moss sheets, cut out the moss, and hot glued it to the cardboard.  Lots of tracing and cutting, but well worth it, I love the way it turned out.  I had 20+ letters to make, each letter was about 10.5 inches tall, so buying the nice wood ones from the craft store was not in the budget.  The cardboard worked great and is a nice alternative if you need more than just a few letters.  

I used coupons to buy the moss sheets (from Hobby Lobby in the floral section) and just used some cardboard boxes that were in my garage.  The whole project cost me about $23 dollars, with some leftover moss to spare.

 The party was wonderful and I think everyone had a great time.  The food was fabulous and the decorations were amazing.  We had a short presentation for the kids including reading the book together and singing some Christmas songs.  Santa came and passed out candy canes.  The rest of the time was spent stuffing ourselves silly with yummy breakfast foods and talking with friends.  A perfect night...can't wait until next year!

 We had several real Christmas trees donated and then given away to families in need after the party.  The whole room smelled like an evergreen forest....mixed with french toast and bacon.

 Hot Chocolate Stand with all the fixings

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Missionary Tag Christmas Tree

 A few months ago, my Grandma had a brilliant idea for her Christmas tree.  She wanted missionary tag ornaments, one tag for each mission served.  We brainstormed a bit and finally came up with the final project above.  So far, we have 31 missions served on six continents, literally all over the world.  These missionary tags include those who have married into the family, couples missions, and missionary presidency callings.  I think about half of my cousins are still in high school or younger, so we have many more tags to make over the years.  We will keep adding to it and watch it grow.  I loved working on this project and am so grateful that my Grandma asked me to participate.

 Each tag was printed on photo paper and made using Photoshop, measuring about 2.5 by 3.5 inches.  I saved my files, so as new missionaries serve, I just have to edit the text and print more of them out.  I cut each tag and mounted them on some thick cardstock using a thin layer of Modge Podge to adhere and seal the top of the tag.  The silver twine is attached with a dab of hot glue on the back.

 The family's first mission was served in 1899.

Scanned photos of my Grandma's finished tree.  I love how it turned out!  

When I mailed off the tags to my Grandma, I added a gold starburst (seen on the right hand side of the picture above) to represent my aunt, Mary Ann, who passed away unexpectedly this year.  We know that she is serving her own mission now, one that knows no country or city boundaries.  A bittersweet Christmas without her here, but we know she would love this tree.

Fleece Blanets with Binding

I didn't do a lot of handmade Christmas gifts this year, but I did manage to squeeze in these great blankets.  The baseball one is for my new nephew and the blue one is for Austin's autism preschool teacher.  She is always talking about how each child with autism is a lock and if you can find the right "key" they will begin to open up and be able to live more fully in the world around them.  I saw this key fleece fabric and knew it would be perfect for her.

I saw this tutorial HERE and was blown away by such a simple and great idea.  Just take a piece of double printed fleece and sew a fabric binding around the edge!  I rounded the corners and used fabric that I cut on the bias so it was stretchy.  My strips were 3 and 3/4 inches I believe.  Reminder to self:  next time 3.5 inch strips would probably be perfect.  Rounding the corners and making my bias tape probably took about an hour.  Sewing the binding on one side and hand stitching the other side probably took around 4.5 hours.  I love to hand stitch the binding on the back because it gives me an excuse to sit down and watch a movie or two.  They are really fun to make and much faster than a full pieced quilt, give it a try!

Christmas Bread 2012

I hate ironing, so I use my ironing board for holding all of my Christmas poppy seed bread instead.  Can't iron if I wanted to....oh well.

More on the table.  Did over 50 loaves this year.  We have too many teachers, tutors, therapists, coworkers, and friends apparently.  Not complaining really, I love making this bread and giving it away.  It's probably my favorite part of the holidays.

Use some tags from last year and these "Joyeux Noel" ones from HERE.  Thought they were cute.  Merry Christmas, everyone!

BSU Frosted Mugs

I will eventually figure out how to take good shots of frosted glass, sorry.  Made a few of these to give to the men in my life for Christmas.  At least the ones who are BSU fans.  Go Broncos!  Used the same technique as my monogrammed bowls.  So easy and take about 10 minutes from start to finish.

Purses for Christmas

That's right, I made these adorable purses for Christmas.  Or I guess, technically they are "totes", but you know what I mean.  Used the free pattern HERE at I Am Momma, Hear Me Roar.  Great blog and really great step by step instructions.

This one went to my sister in law.

Inside shot with a double pocket.

Made two of this style: one to my mom, the other to my mother in law.

Detail.  I gots to get me some more of this fabric.  And thanks to my lovely gift certificate that I received for Christmas this year....I think I will do just that.

Inside detail with one large pocket.  Need some more of this yellow too.  Love it.

This one to a dear friend.

 

And I made one more for my son's autism preschool teacher.  It was purple and gray, with this same yellow fabric on the inside...and I forgot to take a picture!  I guess I'll just have to make another one so I can show you.  These were really fun to make.  I think I may be slightly addicted.  Oh, and if you invite me to a party or shower in the near future...this will probably be your present, just warning you.

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas.  A couple more small projects from Christmas to show you, coming up.

Christmas Cookies

I signed up to make cookies for my 7 year old's 2nd grade Christmas party.  I tried to make each one a little different and some turned out better than others, but they were all fun to make.

Christmas Baking 2011

Christmas baking is in full swing.

I love this glitter tissue paper I picked up last year.  I think I have enough for Christmas 2012 as well.

There are about 20 teachers and tutors between my three kids that we wanted to give a Christmas goodie to this year.  Then there were the neighbors...and friends...and local family...

These tags from Target work great as the ribbon to tie the gift together and add our Christmas greeting.

The taste testers.  They approved.

Oregon Trail T-shirt

Did you play the "Oregon Trail" in elementary school during your computer lab time?  Well, where I grew up, we did.  It was on the ancient computers that were a black screen with the green text...can't remember what they were called.  I'm starting to feel old now.  Anyway, I was able to recreate the famous "game over" line for my brother on a shirt for Christmas.

Oh... the memories. 

My brother and sister in law are going on a trip for Christmas and thus opened their gifts before they left. Another gift I am able to share without giving it away too early, yeah!

My sister in law's gift will have to wait though...she received a similar gift as my mother and mother in law.  Can't wait to share...8 more days!

Baseball Bracelet

 I figured I could post about the gift we are giving the boys' babysitter.  I am assuming a 13 year old boy isn't going to be checking my blog in the next couple of weeks.

Saw this on Pinterest from I Can Find the Time.  I followed her instructions up until the last couple of steps.  She has some great pictures and explains how to make them on her blog as well.

Start off with a leather baseball.  Cut with an Xacto knife, following the stitching of the ball, cutting just outside on both sides.  I had to double cut to get through the leather.

Peel away the leather and you are left with this.  You can discard the excess leather and string ball thing or give them to your kids to play with...or your cat.

Cut your stitched bracelets into two equal parts.  Each ball makes two bracelets.  Trim up your white leather if needed, just be careful not to cut the red stitching.

Unravel the ends a bit so you have some string to work with and trim the excess leather.

Tie a knot on both ends.

Here's the part that I did differently: I rope braided the excess string, tying off with a knot on each end.

And there you have it.

My 7 year old received the other bracelet and hasn't taken it off in three days.  Loves it.

Tips:  Balls that have a little grime on them are preferred, they look better as opposed to bright, crisp, white leather.

The leather will be stiff at first and want to curl.  Work it with your hands and it will start to lay flat.