Felt Fun

Here are a few things I've made with felt for the Christmas decorations or presents

Holly Garland - I just drew my own holly leaf onto freezer paper and traced a quarter for the red berries.  Then I sewed it in a chain.  I love the simple, but classic touch it adds to the mirror in the entry way.

Felt fish and fishing pole - pattern and tutorial here.  I made a pole for each of my kids, but I'm not sure how long they will last until they start hitting eachother with them.  So this may be a supervised toy.

Animal masks - I saw this idea and this idea and decided to make my own.  The ones on etsy are adorable, but there was no way I was going to pay over $50 for a few masks I could make out of supplies I already have at home.  These are for my son (except for the pink owl - that's for my daughter).  I thought the owls looked fancier with the embroidering - which took a loooooong time.  I'm not going to post the patterns I made or a tutorial since I this is a knock-off from someone who is selling them. 

Craft Day

When I was younger, my mom would get together with her mom and sisters and have a craft day in December that lasted ALL DAY.  Once I was in college, they decided to let their daughters join in.  So it's been a few years now and our group is growing - my grandma, aunts, mom, sister, and girl cousins and the girls that are married/dating my brothers and boy cousins. 

We get to have fun crafts and eat yummy snacks/goodies all day.  Here are a couple of the crafts that we did - different people in the group teach us how to make a craft, or a food or one year my aunt taught us how to make balloon animals.  It's so much fun to get together and to see how everyone's craft can turn out so differently from eachother.

Winter soap - this was the project I brought for everyone to make - a different version of the Halloween Soap.

2x2 Simple Nativity - my mom taught this one to the group - I'm not sure where she found the idea, but she saw it online and found all the pieces at different stores and put together her own kits for us to make at our craft day.  Everyone painted their different colors or didn't paint them at all and left them natural.  It was fun to see the different styles everyone made out of the same kit.

Reindeer Board

I found an idea online here, and altered it a bit.  I wanted to use vinly for a clean, crisp look.  And I added some phrases to the board so Rudolph stood out a bit more.  **I know I spelled Donner wrong - typo - and I've fixed it but didn't feel like taking another picture**

I kinda lost the mood for blogging for a while and not sure if I'm gonna keep up with this blog much longer, but for now...my mom said she likes seeing the things I've made, so I'll probably just post pictures and links to where I found the tutorials if there were any.

2x4 Snowman

My new favorite blog is Under My Umbrella.  My "to-do" craft list pretty much doubled.  :)

Once I saw this 2x4 snowman, I knew it was destined to make it to the top of my list.  I don't have MDF for the hats like she used in the tutorial, but I have an awesome friend from church who gave me their leftover scrap wood.  So I was able to make the hats out of 2x2's and other scrap pieces.  I had the same polka dot paper she used for the hat, so that was cool.

I had enough 2x4's to make 2 of them, but then I realized I could cut them in half (so they weren't as deep) and end up with 4.  Now the tough part is deciding which one I want to keep and who to give the other 3 to.

But 4 sets of snowmen means lots of blocks to sand and paint.  And when you have a 2 year-old, they aren't snowmen  . . . they're blocks for a wall or tower to build and destroy.

Different way to display the Seasonal Blocks

Back in September, I made a set of the Seasonal Word Blocks.  There are 16 different words to spell with the 7 block set, and the Christmas ones are "snow" or "winter."  But I went to someone's house who had them stacked vertically to spell "snow," and it looked adorable. 

But her's were different colors of letters and paint, and mine didn't look so festive like her's did.  So I added ribbon (which also helped cover up the side letters).  I think mine would look more Christmas-y if the letters where white, oh well.

Christmas Soap Dispenser

Once I saw this idea on Brown Paper Packages a while back, I knew it was going on my ever growing "to-do list"

Christmas Hair Clips

I made a few Christmas hair clips a few weeks back . . .

Korker Bow - a great tutorial found on Pink Tea

Candy Cane - I drew and cut out a candy cane from red felt and then used embroidery floss to add the white stripes.  Then I used red thread to stitch a 2nd red felt candy cane around the edges to the back to give some stability.  And then I glued it to an alligator clip I had covered in ribbon.

Toddler Friendly Christmas Advent

I'm nervous to let my 2 year old have access to the advent calendar I made him last year - since it's not indestructible.  So, I went searching for an advent that he could participate in.  And I found this one.  It's the paper chain idea - but out of fabric/velcro so that you can reuse it from year to year. 

I had a hard time finding Christmas fabrics that had small enough print and matched eachother (but I did buy them in September to make as a possible Super Saturday project - so there was less of a selection then).  Surprisingly, I don't have pinking shears, so I had to borrow my Grandma's.  This was an easy craft to make, but very time consuming - measuring, cutting, ironing the pieces together . . .but the worst was sewing all the velcro on.  24 strips of fabric means 2 pieces of velcro per strip = 48 little squares to sew on.

But my son loves it.  He un-velcros them and then connects them as a long string instead of loops.

Nutter Butter Rudolph

These were a big hit at my family's Christmas Eve get-together last year. All you need is:

• nutter butter cookies
• chocolate chips (eyes)
• red m&m's (nose)
• mini pretzels (antlers)
• frosting

Using the frosting, attach the eyes, nose and antlers to the cookie. I saw the idea in an older issue of a Family Fun magazine

Wooden Accent Words

I bought these letters at Jo-Anns and decorated them with scrapbook paper, ribbon, wooden snowflakes, and fake snow.

This decoration works for December and can stay out into January since it's more "winter" decor and not specific to Christmas.

Christmas Vinyl Plates

I made these plates as presents last year . . .

I cut the vinyl with my Cricut Expression and rubbed it on the plates. For the "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" plate, the tree was just a triangle I drew and then once it was on the plate, I used an exacto knife to cut the lines out.

I was worried it would get messed up and expected to cut another tree out, but surprisingly, it cut smooth and completely straight.

Peppermint Candy Pillow

I made this last year using a tutorial/pattern I found on Jo-Ann.com I didn't take pictures of the process, but I remember that this project drove me crazy, and I almost gave up and threw it away several times.

But I stuck with it and I like the end result. I just remember that the instructions weren't making sense to me so I had to sit there and study and tinker with the fabric for a while. The part I had problems figuring out was that the red is just a solid circle and the white is the spirals sewn on top - and my pieces weren't matching up so I had to tinker with it.

To finish it off, I used netting to wrap it in with ribbon on the ends. I love it now, but last year, I hated it.

Believe Ornament Decoration

I made these last year with my sister. . .We used the flat, round glass ornaments from a craft store. I cut out the snowflake and the letters with my Cricut out of vinyl.

Then we filled the ornaments partially with red and green styrofoam beads. I hung them from my screen door curtain rod with ribbon at different heights to add a different look.

Christmas Advent Mini Muffin Tin

I saw this idea back in September while I was looking for different Super Saturday craft ideas. We didn't end up using this as one of our crafts (it would have taken way too long), but I made one anyway (since I made it in September, I've been dying to post it, but I wanted to wait till it was closer to Christmas).

I bought the mini muffin tin at Wal-Mart for $4.50 and the rest was all stuff I had lying around. Since this is a muffin tin, I'll be putting little candies behind each number for my kid(s) to have as they count down the days.
I did mine a little different than Tami did in her post. I used my Cricut to cut the numbers out on white cardstock and adhered them to the paper - I didn't want that much white and I didn't really like the simple ink printed look.

I cut out the squares of red/green cardstock (and used my corner rounder punch to round the corners) and then cut out circles - sadly, I don't have a circle punch, so I had to cut these out by hand :( Then I mod podged the papers and numbers together. Once that was dry, I added embelishments to random squares with ribbon, brads, eyelets and little paper punched shapes.

Final touch, add the magnet squares to each corner on the back.

Santa's Belly Ornament

I work in the Young Women's group at our church (for the girls 12-18 years old), and this week we had a Christmas Craft Night for our Activity. Each of the leaders came up with a different craft to teach the girls.

Here's mine - Santa's Belly Ornament

To make this, you'll need:

• square glass ornaments
• black paint
• white puffy paint
• strips of red cardstock (mine are about 1/4"x4")

Coil the strips of paper around something thin - I wrapped mine around the end of a paint brush handle.

After making each coil, put them in the ornament - I didn't count how many I coiled, but once you've filled it up, you're good :)

Then, paint a black stripe around the center of the ornament (santa's belt). Once that's dry, use the puffy paint to draw a square (belt buckle) around the belt.

Finish it off with ribbon to hang it up.

Nutter Butter Cookie Creations

I've seen these ghosts on several different blogs. So not really a person to give credit to . . . But I loved making and eating these guys. All you need to make the ghosts is Nutter Butter cookies, almond bark, and mini chocolate chips. Melt the almond bark, dip the cookie in and then put on the eyes and mouth.

Last year for a Christmas party, I made these reindeer - found the idea in a Family Fun Magazine. These guys were a bit easier than the ghosts. All you need is the Nutter Butters, pretzels, choc. chips, red M&Ms and frosting. Dab some frosting on each piece to assemble to the cookie.

Christmas in July

I made these plates last year for my mom, mother-in-law (and myself) for Christmas. But the day after I made mine, my husband bumped it and it shattered . . . so note to self - buy stronger plate holders!

I bought the plates at Target and the Dollar Store. And fiddled around with a few designs on my Cricut Expression and the adhered the vinyl to the plates. Voila! Instant Christmas present - I also covered them with saran wrap and put cookies and other goodies on them when I handed them over as gifts.

On "rockin' around the Christmas tree," I just had the completed triangle for the tree and used an exacto knife to cut out the diagonal lines once I put it on the plate - that was rather easy and kinda fun to do.

**After putting the vinyl on, you can't wash the plates in the sink or dishwasher, so it's good to cover them before putting food on them for a gift. Then they are just decoration.