Christmas 2012 Awesome Stuff I Made!

 One of my most favorite parts of the holiday season is the opportunities of creating stuff...baking, gifts, ornaments, decor...all sort of fun stuff!

First up...my tree.  Because I have kids and kids come with stuff...I had to trade in my big fat tree for one o those tall skinny ones.  I wasn't sure how I was going to decorate it without it looking VERY clustered.  I have waaay too many ornaments.  Well I finally decided to take inspiration from my woodsy looking star tree topper.  That next week my family and I travel to eastern Iowa for Thanksgiving.  The best thing about travel to the tiny town of Tipton, IA is the AWESOME cute little shops they have lining their main street.  So the day after Thanksgiving...when everyone was watching the big game...I sneaked away to go to the "grocery store".  I am pretty sure my husband knew better.  I hit up Daisy's On The Square.  It was an amazing 30 minutes just wondering around and taking it all in.  I ended up leaving with this really petite grapevine garland....I was REALLY hoping I could make it work on my tree back at home.  I also picked up the adorable grapevine cone tree you can see on the table in one of the pictures below.

 

The grapevine worked great!  I was so pleased with how it looked on the tree once I got it home!  I continued the woodsy look by tucking in some long pine cones that I had collected in winters past. I also found some cute red berry floral picks and stuck those in all over.

I also took inspiration from this burlap tree skirt tutorial over at Done Over Decor.  It came it out really cute and was pretty easy.

 

My next holiday craft was an advent calendar.  There are so so so many options of DIY advent calendars it was hard choosing what I wanted.  I pursued one of the local craft stores here in town for further inspiration.

I found these tiny vinyl numbers from 1 to 30 and my mind just took it from there....I knew I wanted those little favor tins you see with the wedding supplies, but I couldn't find those until I stopped at Hobby Lobby later.  I grabbed a piece of fiber board, a small stack of Christmas paper, and those vinyl numbers and headed out of the store.

I got the tins, spray painted the board, and used my Fiskars scalloped circle punch and cut out all different circles from the Christmas paper stack.  I put the number on the lids of the tins.  Once the board was dry I used epoxy to glue the bottoms of the tins to the board.  and then used simple craft glue to glue the paper inside each tin.  I drilled two holes at the top of the board and strung some ribbon through it.

This year I had Rolos and pretzels in the tins so that my 3 year old had something to each day she checked.  In later years I may get adventurous and make out those cute little activities slips for each day.  There are so many neat possibilities for this!

Baking, Baking, and MORE BAKING!!!!  I loved these cute little ginger bread trees decorated in white royal icing...they were AMAZING with my morning coffee!

 And because my three year old Hayden has been very obsessed with gingerbread men this year...we made several of them too!

 My three year old and I made these Christmas Cheer shakers for all her aunts and grandmas.  I picked up salt & pepper shakers at the Dollar tree (2/$1).  And all sorts of random little Christmas tid-bits at Hobby Lobby and she had a blast filling them!  Again I am not sure where the credit goes for these, my husband's grandmother had recieved one as a gift several years ago and I stole the idea!

 

Here are the finished shakers...I printed the tags and spiced them up with a piece of burlap and a jingle bell...and attached wire for hanging.  The tag reads:  

"At this time when we
feel most blessed,
Holidays can make us
feel real stressed.
When the "bah humbugs"
start coming near,
Just shake yourself up
some Christmas cheer!! "

(Sprinkle on others as needed)

 And as gifts for all my Wino friends I made these adorable Cork Reindeer....There are so many versions of these online I am not sure exactly where I saw it first.  They came out super cute!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Party

Here is a VERY late summary of the Very Hungry Caterpillar party I did for Hayden's and Rylan's  joint birthday party last April.  It was so fun to plan and the party went perfectly!  I will try to give as much info as possible for others out there...because I got so much help and inspiration from so many other bloggers out there!  You can check out my Caterpillar Pinterest Board Here.

Here's in the invite I made!  It turned out super cute...I found the graphics from the Polka-dots & Puppies blog.  She some how created all sorts of caterpillar PNG files free for download.  HERE is a link to her FREE DOWNLOAD.  Or if you would like I am always available to create your custom invite!

 

These sweet little caterpillar barrettes were made by my friend Jen who runs CraftBarn.  They even have TINY little googly eyes!  Each girl got a set of these in their little gift box.

The boys got these necklaces...I got the large beads from this seller on EBAY.  The beads area bout an inch in diameter...though the beads are still in the choking hazard range...they would be much more noticeable if the little one had gotten on in their mouth! No body did so that is good!

I loved how the food table came together!  I found a free downloaded the food labels from the Polka-dots and Puppies blog.  The cute little leave plates came from Oriential Trading Co. as did the lollipops, the table cloths, and the green gift boxes.

For chocolate cake I used brownie bites... it worked better that way since we were already having cup cakes...I guess we could have done chocolate cupcakes...but oh well...My good friend and AWESOME baker Patti at Tis So Sweet Bake Shoppe made the cupcakes for me.

For the Cherry Pie we did little cherry cheesecakes.

I also created the juice box and water bottle labels and cupcake picks...using the PNG graphics I found.  I can create them for you too! Or you can download the graphics linked above...and create them too!

The gift boxes I got super cheap at Oriental Trading and jsut glued a ribbon to them and created a label for them.

Our activities at the party included: reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar book.  Then we created our own Hungry caterpillars from green soda bottles...that I painted the inside of each bottle red days before the party.  I had all the materials from THIS tutorial available.  They came out very very cute...and the kids loved it!  Just have a helper on hand!  After the caterpillars were created we read the book again...with our caterpillars!

Above is the birthday girl...Below is the birthday boy.  I bought the iron on transfers from this Ebay seller and put them on white shirts we already had.  Easy, and cheaper than all the custom shirts you find on Etsy.

Painting With Fruit

Today the kids painted with fruit...it was an awesome little activity.  Even though the pictures look like it was a huge mess...it really wasn't all that messy!

Here is what you need:  

• Fruit--I bought a small bag of frozen whole raspberries and one small frozen bag of whole blueberries.  You want to be sure they are not in syrup or any extra juices. 
• Paper... You could tape down a few pieces to the table covering.  We got this super cool table top paper roll at Christmas it works great for both kiddos working at once!
• I also always have those cheap plastic table covers on hand for projects such as these...you can get them at the Dollar Tree or after Holiday sales!  When the project is over you can just pitch the table cover...or wipe it down and use it again if the mess is not too crazy!
• The last thing that is a necessity is some sort of smock for the kiddos...We have these Bumkins long sleeved bibs that work great for all sorts of messy things...but you could always take a plastic trash bag and make a poncho out of it by cutting holes in it for arms and head Just REALLY watch them with these as they could be a choking or suffocating hazard.  Or you could just strip them down and take baths after...

 

 We talked about the different colors that came from each fruit....

 ...and how we could make straight lines or curvy lines.  We dropped the fruit onto the paper to see what it would do...it made cool SPLAT marks.  We also tried to roll the raspberries to make a bumpy dotted pattern...it worked kind of.  We talked about how the raspberries had seeds in them and the blueberries were smooth inside when we squished them.

 It surprised me that Rylan (20 months old) was way more into painting than Hayden (3.5).  Hayden ate most the time.

But she did wonder what it would be like to paint with an orange...so we tried, but she decided it didn't work as well as the raspberries and blueberries.

 We talked about how the more we squished the fruit, the more juice came out and the darker our "paint" became.

 Hayden eventually got into the painting process...

I am letting the artwork dry and then I will see if there are any frame-able pieces of artwork!

Wine Cork Board

So it has been awhile since I have posted a single thing....that does not mean I have not been creating....I have...but at such a speed that I would rather not take a break to blog about it.  But alas I am here for your viewing, reading, and overall educating pleasure!

I have been blessed by many things in my life...but one of recent is having an awesome group of neighbors.  There are five of us on our street that get together regularly every Friday evening...for "Wine Night".  This sounds much more sophisticated than what is actually it.  Sophisticated or not...it is always fun...and a cheap, safe, wonderful way to spend a Friday night out of the house.  After I put the kids to bed I head down the street with my bottle of wine in hand...

Not long after I joined this group of ladies I started pocketing the corks that accumulated each week.  I knew I could find something great to make of these corks.  I started a board on Pinterest of DIY Wine related crafts.

Well I finally got enough to create something great with them...(with the help of another cork hoarding neighbor...THANKS CHRISTY!!!)

Without further ado here it is my AWESOME Wine Cork Board: 

 The Frame:  I had originally thought I would re-purpose one or even two of those wooden trays that come with Melissa & Doug toys...I could stain it all pretty and such...but none of the trays I had really filled the space I planned on hanging the finished board.  On a side note...if anyone has any great ideas for those wooden trays let me know... I have a crap ton of them and I am not about to throw them away...I KNOW there is a use for them out there somewhere!

So I thought I'd find some sort of frame at my local craft store or something...but then I stumbled upon the clearance section at Kirkland's (a great home decor store).  They had this PERFECT 12 x 12, dark stained frame...with some silly sentiment in it about being a good daughter or something.  IT was $12!  I was sold.  My husband was watching in utter confusion when I came home and pulled out this nice new something or other to hang on the wall and I started tearing it apart.  We have been together long enough that heno longer asks questions.

I took the pretty picture out along with the glass and then put the cardboard backing back in place.  It worked perfectly.

Yeah up close you can totally see negative space between some of the corks...but I don't really care...no one is going to really be standing nose deep in my cork board...well maybe not all that often. Towards the end of the project it became the ultimate game of Tetris for a hot glue loving wino crafter.

Also I was going to add that if you are wanting to do this or any other wine cork craft...I have seen a box of wine corks you can buy at Target for $9.99.  It is in with the other decorative vase fillers.  I, however, prefer to earn my corks...it is more fun that way.  The corks I used are mostly from local wineries.  Because my neighbors always bring out the good stuff...the cheap-O Barefoot corks you see on the board are my contribution.  I am a $6 bottle kind of girl. :)

Soon I will be adding a post of all the handmade Holiday gifts I made this year...included are those super cute wine cork reindeer you see all over Pinterest.  I will link it as soon as I finish that post!