Thursday, December 30, 2010

A Crafty Soiree #18

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and are looking forward to a new year, filled with a lot more creativity! I the cold months of January and February are often two of my most productive of the year, seems I spend a lot of time indoors scrapbooking then. Thank you to everyone who came by last week during the busy days leading up to Christmas. In honor of the unofficial kick off of what I hope will be a paper crafting filled winter, here are three projects that all feature paper, my personal favorite craft medium!
Le Chateau des fleurs by Frenchy shared this elegant mini book that's perfect for hanging on the tree.
Find out how to make this fun tree made out of paper scraps at Homework.At Smile Monsters, Jo has figured out a clever and useful way to reuse a drink container.
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Ladies, for being our features this week, we're happy to offer you our special Crafty Soiree Ribbon! It's yours to proudly display! Don't forget to check out today's Crafty Soiree post at Yesterday on Tuesday, we both pick three participants to feature each week so you might have been featured by Malia. But you'll have to visit her to find out!
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Now it's your turn to link up! The linky will be open for a week, so you have plenty of time to join us! Here are some guidelines for our guests:
  • Link up your creative projects! Crafts, Decor, Recipes, Sewing and Organizing tips are are welcome. Kids crafts are welcome too, we want to see how you're encouraging the next generation of artists!
  • Add your links to the specific posts and not your blog's homepage. Please make sure you post is NEW to A Crafty Soiree, it can be from your archives but should not be something you linked up to our soiree before. We've had a few repeats and we'd like to avoid that.
  • Add my Crafty Soiree button above or link back to me in your posts, so others can find us and join in!
  • Please comment on the post linked up in front of you. All partygoers love meeting new friends... don't just stop there...if you see something that catches your fancy-- stop by and say hi!
  • Please consider following the hostesses, me and Malia, we want to get to know our guests
  • Most importantly... enjoy yourself and have fun!

Don't forget, A Crafty Soiree is hosted on two blogs, so when you link up on one your link will automatically show up on the other one too! Please note, by linking up to A Crafty Soiree, you're giving permission to feature your project and photos in the future, with proper credit of course☺



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Friday, December 24, 2010

Merry Christmas

Happy Holidays from Our Family to Yours! We hope you have a wonderful Christmas and the Happiest of New Years!

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Thursday, December 23, 2010

A Crafty Soiree #17

Happy Holidays to all my Crafty Soiree friends!!! It has been such a pleasure getting to know each of you and seeing all your amazing projects! I am looking forward to continuing being inspired by you in the new year!

Today's features are all made with one of my favorite crafting materials, felt! It's the perfect medium for beginning sewing projects, yay for not having to worry about fraying edges:) At The Recke Family you can see this gorgeous centerpiece of rolled felt roses. I love that she also made matching pins as favors for all her guests. In the same post you can see the cutest Melty Snowman Rice Krispy Treats, so fun!
Find out how to make this Christmas Mouse Hoop-La at Fowl Single File. Isn't that little mouse the sweetest?
Each of the holly leaves in the cute banner at The Diary of Daves Wife was hand cut. Aren't they impressive strung together?
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Ladies, for being our features this week, we're happy to offer you our special Crafty Soiree Ribbon! It's yours to proudly display! Don't forget to check out today's Crafty Soiree post at Yesterday on Tuesday, we both pick three participants to feature each week so you might have been featured by Malia. But you'll have to visit her to find out!
Photobucket
Now it's your turn to link up! The linky will be open for a week, so you have plenty of time to join us! Here are some guidelines for our guests:
  • Link up your creative projects! Crafts, Decor, Recipes, Sewing and Organizing tips are are welcome. Kids crafts are welcome too, we want to see how you're encouraging the next generation of artists!
  • Add your links to the specific posts and not your blog's homepage. Please make sure you post is NEW to A Crafty Soiree, it can be from your archives but should not be something you linked up to our soiree before. We've had a few repeats and we'd like to avoid that.
  • Add my Crafty Soiree button above or link back to me in your posts, so others can find us and join in!
  • Please comment on the post linked up in front of you. All partygoers love meeting new friends... don't just stop there...if you see something that catches your fancy-- stop by and say hi!
  • Please consider following the hostesses, me and Malia, we want to get to know our guests
  • Most importantly... enjoy yourself and have fun!

Don't forget, A Crafty Soiree is hosted on two blogs, so when you link up on one your link will automatically show up on the other one too! Please note, by linking up to A Crafty Soiree, you're giving permission to feature your project and photos in the future, with proper credit of course☺



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Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Gingerbread Christmas Train

We finally put together the Gingerbread Train Kit we bought LAST year! ER was very happy to get her hands on all the candy and did a great job working with Daddy on it. Now I just have to make sure we actually make the baking kit we got for this year, well THIS year! It's for making tree shaped cupcakes so I think we'll have to, I don't think the mix will keep until Dec. 2011. I certainly don't want to be eating year old baking mix!

Part of Wordless Wednesday at Five Minutes for Mom, The Angel Forever, Go Graham Go, Two of a Kind Working on a Full House, and Wordful Wednesday at Parenting by Dummies.

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Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Happy Birthday Dave

Happy Birthday to my "Little" Brother aka Uncle Dave

I hope you enjoyed the Taco Bar Dinner we had for you and all your presents! Here's to turning 29, for the first time...for real:)

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Memory Pillow

One of the handmade gifts I am proudest of is this Memory Photo Pillow I just finished for my mom. Don't laugh, but it's actually the most complicated project I've done to date. As some of my readers may remember, last March my maternal Grandma passed away. This is the last good generational photo we took with her, the previous Mother's Day. We're outside in the sunshine and she's wearing her favorite color, pink. I think it's the way she'd want us to remember her.
I printed it out on some computer fabric sheets along with a favorite quote. Then did a super simple design with four strips of beautiful blue fabric that I thought would coordinate well with my mom's great room.
Just so my mom would always know I made it, as if she'd forget:) I used some very special blinged out buttons. She knows how ER and I always like to add something "fancy" to our projects.

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Monday, December 20, 2010

Painted Wrapping Paper

ER helped make our own wrapping paper in just three easy steps. We used ours for the annual photo calendars, I eye balled about how much we'd need to wrap each one and cut five sheets of similar sized paper from a roll of white wrapping paper.
Paint red circles with an empty toilet paper roll. Set aside to dry. We did five sheets all in one go and by the time we finished that last one, the first was ready for step 3.
Now go back over each sheet with green paint and make a circles with a second empty toilet paper roll. Let dry and then they're ready for wrapping up special gifts.
This is a fun craft that's easy to use for any time of the year, just switch out the colors. For birthday presents you could even use the receipient's favorite ones. A solid colored paper works best and you don't have to stop at two paint colors. You can also use stamps, but I like using the empty rolls because I like to try and reuse as much as possible.

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Sunday, December 19, 2010

Tree Card

We needed a card and since it was going to another crafty family, no store bought card would do! This is what we whipped up...the only thing I'd have changed was the ink color for our sentiment. So should've gone with the red ink and embossing powder...gold?! What was I thinking! Anyway, back to our project. I went through my paper scraps and freehanded some triangles on the back. We're working on cutting, can you tell? Practice, practice, practice and this way it's not work, it's having fun with Mommy! Then we did a little crayon resist water color for our sky. The snow is made out of two pieces of white cardstock scraps. It only took a few moments to glue it all down. And there you have it a one of a kind work of art!

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Saturday, December 18, 2010

Stamped Monogram Ornament

We did a little ornament exchange with Valerie and her two daughter's at Frugal Family Fun Blog. We made a Christmas Bell, featuring both their pictures, and also wanted to send along one for each girl.

You know how much I love monograms! When we were browsing Hobby Lobby last week we saw ceramic ones with polka dots and the wheels in my mind started turning. Ours begins with a wooden letter. Drill two holes near the top for hanging. Then paint, we used the girls favorite colors for each of theirs.
After the paint is dry, I let ER use my "Grown Up Stamps" and "Good" inks. She was very excited by that! She carefully stamped little snowflakes onto each letter. I was pretty proud of her work, no smearing and very little rocking of the stamps. That's my girl, crafter in training!
After she stamped I took over and sprinkled each with embossing powder and used my heat tool to emboss each stamped image. That means the image becomes shiny and raised. It helps make it stand out a bit better.
After I added a ribbon for hanging we added a little crafty goodness for each girl. These foam frame kits should be fun for them to make. We put some together ourselves and are using them as extra special name tags. Yeah, I know they're a little big but ER needs that much space to write. The photo space is where our "To" and "From" are going.
Then we packaged them all up with some fancy tissue paper and hand stamped name tags that carry on our snowflake theme for both ornaments. We hope they enjoy their packages from us!

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Friday, December 17, 2010

Christmas "Bell" Ornament

I couldn't let the holiday season go by without a kid made ornament being added to our tree! I let ER's current obsession with Cinderella blue take the lead this time. I think seeing this color palette will always remind me of this time. I've actually made this ornament before, with my kindergarten class one year, using traditional red and green Christmas colors. I like this wintry snow themed one even better! It's pretty simple to make but you do have to allow for drying time. First paint your small clay pot white. Then sponge paint with blue. Let dry. "Paint" pot with Mod Podge and using a pinch and sprinkle technique, add glitter. Let dry and then dab on another layer of Mod Podge. This seals the glitter onto the pot and will prevent too much from falling off as time goes on. Dab as opposed to brush to help keep the maximum amount of glitter on your pot. Let dry throughly.
When the pot is dry, you'll want to embellish. We added ER's school picture, outlined in puffy paint, and some foam stickers. I also added rub-ons very carefully, it was hard to get them to stick over the glitter. Afterward, I smeared on a little more Mod Podge over the saying to keep it from lifting off.

Now it is time to make your ornament a "bell". Make a hanger as shown above. Double knot a short distance above your bell. This will help keep it from coming out of the hole at the top of the "bell", aka the clay pot's drainage hole. Push ribbon through up through hole and then knot again at the top to create a hanger. We added another bow, purely for a decorative touch.
Hanging on the tree the lights twinkle against the glitter. A gentle shake will make your Christmas Bell ornament jingle. Don't forget to write the year on the inside of the bell. We made one for our own tree, both Grandparents, and for our very special ornament exchange with Valerie from Frugal Family Fun Blog. She's got an awesome giveaway going on right now, go to Frugal Family Fun Blog to enter to win an iPad and an assortment of children’s books courtesy of Target!

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Fantabulous Friday!
where the Holiday Leg Warmer's I made are featured today:) and...
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