Christmas Ornaments

This past Christmas I wanted to make our yearly Christmas ornaments. This is the first year Adison is able to enjoy Christmas, not being an infant and she helped me a bit. (Her “helping” was having fun shaking up the bulbs and making all the beads and stuff fall out!) I need another idea for next years ornaments; mom, dad, Adison, and we'll have new baby boy by then!

These were made with just a small glass bulb ornament. I added polypropylene beads (found at local craft store), some colored glass beads and some other little trinkets that would fit. Inside there are presents, candy canes, and a few other little things. Adison's has another bead with a little hand. If you shake them up it's easier to see the colors. I would suggest adding larger beads too if you want them to stand out. I just did not have any at the time I made these.

I wrote our names and the year with a permanent marker and used a different color ribbon to hang each one. I made sure to glue the tops on well so they wouldn’t fall apart while they hung.

Christmas Letters

We made snow flakes to hang with our Christmas Cards, it was a nice little addition! I used the mini clothes pins and painted them Christmas colors. They were the perfect size!

How do you display yours?!

Tree Tip

Here’s a tip! To save room in your storage, you can wrap some rope around the tree as you pack it together. We have very little storage room and when we got this tree, it was in a big bag that took up lots of space. Hopefully this way we’ll be able to save a little, and it will be easier to take down next year row by row! I didn’t have any rope or twine handy..so ours got some unused ribbon that was close by!

Pre-Christmas

I love my wreath! I’ve been wanting a nice big one for a while. I enjoy my little ones too, but for Christmas I wanted a nice one to put on my door!

These bulbs are round, but flat. I cut the picture and rolled it up. Once it was inside I had to use a tool to flatten it out a little, but it turned out great! The second ornament..well, it was actually a toy that I screwed and eye ring into the top of. I wrote my son’s name and 2010. This was his year for Toy Story for sure!!

Baking and making goodies!

      

Truffles and Spumoni cookies among other yummies!

The kids, mostly my son, enjoyed pulling the presents in and out over and over all day long. When my husband told him to open them, he looked at me with a funny look and shook his head and said “nooooo, we don’t open presents till Christmas time!” hehe.

J got his PS3 wheel as a Birthday/Christmas present. He built the little table himself and has been having a blast!

Christmas Traditions

…for this year..and to start in future years! I will likely add more or change things up in the future, but I want to document so I remember them! :)

Leading up to Christmas:

Advent Calendars

Elf on the Shelf

Treat plates delivered to friends (and caroling w/it when the kids are older), a night to go look at Christmas lights and open pj’s that night so they can enjoy them through the Christmas holiday.

Christmas Eve

Chinese dinner! (I forgot my camera though) J’s family tradition, my families was a fish fry w/french fries (Fish and chips..is what the Savior ate) But they have fish and fries at the Chinese Restaurant..so it’s a total WIN WIN!

Christmas Eve watch “Joy to the World” or read Luke 2. Have a Birthday cake and maybe sing Happy Birthday to Jesus while the kids are younger.

Christmas morning:

All go into the Christmas tree together singing “Here we go in to the Christmas Tree, the Christmas Tree, the Christmas Tree. Oh here we go into the Christmas Tree so early Christmas morning!”

IN OUR PAJAMAS!! (Very important.. ‘cause growing up, I always had to be dressed for the day before we got to go down to the tree!)

Cinnamon Rolls!

 

WHAT ARE YOUR TRADITIONS??!!!

Countdown to Christmas!!

My friend and I made these last week! I put a couple pieces of candy..1 for each kid, and an activity for each day inside the little box!

Boxes ordered from papermart.com. In bulk but a great price!

The boxes are 2” square. Cover them with paper a 2”x2” piece of paper and use a paper circle punch to punch out the tab. I used embossing, vinyl and paper for the numbers! and arranged the numbers as you can see…spelling some out, regular numbers, roman numerals and a combination of some! The boxes are able to slide in as drawers to a long box made of cardstock and then covered in contact paper so it will hold up against little kids!

Ideas:

1. Make homemade Hot Cocoa

2. Make Christmas Ornaments

3. Reindeer Candy Canes

4. Play with Little People Nativity and talk about Jesus

5. Gingerbread House

6. Christmas Caroling

7. Make cookies for Santa

8. Wrap Presents

9. Go for a drive to look at Christmas Lights

10. Ring a Bell for Salvation Army

11. Play in the Snow! Snowmen and Snow Angels

12. Make Snow Globes

13. Make Christmas Cards for Grandparents and Great-Grands

14. String Popcorn

15. Make Gift Tags

16. Make Napkin Rings for Christmas Dinner

17. Silverware Stockings

18. Pictures in the Snow

19. Visit Santa at the Mall

20. Make Paper Snowflakes

21. Make gifts

22. (Jesus

23. Watch a Christmas movie

24. read Luke 2

25. Letter to Santa

Holiday Blocks

Front:

Back:

Elf on the Shelf

What are your Family Christmas Traditions?

Here is one we will be starting in our home this year!

Have you heard of the “Elf on the Shelf”? Well, I have actually never read the book, but the idea (as I understand it) is that when the elf is done with his preparations at the north pole, he comes to visit the children, sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and stays for a while. He watches the children each day to see if they are being “Bad or Good” and then each night he comes “alive” and reports to Santa. He quickly returns in time to make some “mischief” around the house and to hide in a different place for the children to find him the next morning!

I am SUPER excited to start this tradition, as my son is 3 now and SOOO excited and into the “being good ‘cause Santa is watching” idea - it’s kinda’ nice, and now I understand what it’s really all about ;) :P.

The following links are a couple places that I read about this idea, and they have the elf story books/and elf dolls for sale ~kind of pricy though if I do say so. In saving some money..I made my own elf! Using a Dollar Store baby, I made some clothes and a cap. Not a professional job, just my guessing, but it turned out okay. I can do a tutorial if anyone wishes. I still want to add some “jingle bells” to the cap and boots! 

Elf on the Shelf

Elf Magic

I know I blew up the picture, but don’t look too close! ;) This Dollar Tree baby doll ($1) has two right hands..lol. I guess they ran out of lefties and just turned a right upside down  :). When they get back in stock, I’ll get a different one…maybe..lol!

My Mom - The Crafter!

So, this is where I get all my craft abilities..not that my crafts are wonderful and fabulous..I just mean the desire, hobby, and enjoyment for doing crafts!

Every time I go home she is working on something else.. usually sewing a quilt, a chair, or whatever else. This year she spent hours making some Christmas tree skirts and stockings for me, my 3 sisters and some of her friends. They were all double sided and so beautiful. This is the one she gave me!

Ornaments and a Blog

- - - - Star Ornaments - - - - - - - - Circle Ornaments - - -











Memory Makers Homemade Christmas ideas

Homemade Christmas

As budget is a little tighter this year, due to being in school and the economy, I have decided to have a homemade Christmas. All my Christmas gifts this year will be homemade. I am really excited because I feel it is a part of sharing myself and my talents which will mean more to me, and hopefully to all the recipients. It cuts out a lot of the hustle and bustle and stress of Christmas shopping, and will help me focus more on the true meaning of Christmas.How to make a glass nativity:

what you need:
Pattern and tape
Contact Paper
Exacto Knife
Acid Etching
Brush
Water to rinse

Tape the pattern on the back and some contact paper on the front. With an exacto knife, cut out the pattern. Put the Acid Etching on and leave it for about 15 minutes. Since the contact paper is sticky and stuck to the glass it prevents the acid etch from spreading where it shouldn't. Rinse it with water, peel off the contact paper and pattern and you are done..well, then you have to cut the block, sand and paint it.

This was an easy project and I love it a lot. My mom is making a lot of these for Christmas gifts. Mom said I could make my own if I wanted to, and I did because I wanted to learn! I got to take it early because I want to display it this year and not have to wait till next.

*Here is a fun blog I am following that has a lot of great craft ideas. She is doing a 30 Days of a Homemade Christmas! If you are doing anything crafty for the holidays, let me know, I would love to see your ideas!

Advent Calendar

A friend asked me if I had any ideas for making an advent calendar. Here are a few ideas I found...This is not my picture, but we had one exactly like this growing up that my mom made. In the numbers below are little ornaments. You take one out each day and hang it on the tree..you could also make little present boxes for the pockets to put under the tree.Here is ours for this year. Actually, I cheated and found this one at Target for $2.50. I love to craft, but when I can find it for cheaper than I can make it, I figure I might as well. It has a little candy cane hooked to a string that we will move each day as we get closer to Christmas. This would be and easy one to make.Her is one I found online. They covered matchboxes and in each is a little activity to do each day. Read the Christmas Story, go caroling, make gift tags, watch a Christmas movie as a family, make Christmas Cards to send out, etc..
And some more ideas with matchboxes.. make ornaments out of them, or you could stack them up and glue them together so they make drawers. Cover or paint them and use them for the same idea!

Eye-Spy Ornaments

You've heard of I - spy bags, well, here's a twist. This is what I worked on tonight at the Get R' Done group. I've been thinking about Christmas gifts lately, but I also wanted to make some personalized Christmas ornaments for us this year.. I know it's a bit early, but now that is out of the way. They were fun to make! I found a variety of buttons with little shapes on them. I got a variety of shapes related to things we have done during the year...
Mine has
a plane - skydiving
a tent - camping
a sewing thimble - crafting
a Statue of Liberty and an American flag for our trip to the east coast
...and a few other things I can't remember at this moment.

J's has very similar to mine, but a pencil and paper for school, and a wrench for working on his car, and no sewing thimble!

G's has
a car - road trips we took this summer
french fries and bananas - he started eating real food this year
a birthday cake with 1 candle - turned 1 this year
...

you get the idea! Now in years to come we can look back and remember all the fun things we did this year! I still need to attach tags to them to tell what to look for.
Can you believe I came up with this one on my own!