Day to Day

Handmade Christmas - Day 16

Audrey from France emailed me through her sweet Christmas balls to use in one of the handmade posts (Merci Audrey).

You can find Audrey's blog here and the bauble post here.  But just incase you can't speak French Audrey was kind enough to send through the instructions to me.

Materials required: polystyrene ball, paint (x2 colours), egg shells and varnish (or Mod Podge).

How to: Break the egg shells into little pieces.  Paint the egg shells a nice shade of red.  Paint the polystyrene ball a neutral colour.  Adhere the egg shells onto the ball once everything is dry (use the varnish to do this or Mod Podge) then give the ball a final coat of varnish (or Mod Podge).

They would look so pretty all sitting together in a bowl on the table.

Memory Cards

 

Yesterday I received some lovely gifts from Stampin' Up! in the post.  One of them was an awesome scallop square punch that is due to go on sale this monday (Dec 1st).  I've had an idea to make a set of memory cards for Bella for quite a while now and the punch was perfect to create cute squares for each card.

First I cut out 24 rectangles from chipboard.  They measure 6.5cm X 5cm.  Then I painted each rectangle cream and once they were dry I used a Hero Arts monkey stamp (with a Stazon ink pad) to stamp an image on top of the cards.  Once the ink was dry I coloured in the monkey's stomach using a pink pencil.

 

I then used patterned paper scraps to punch out the scalloped squares adhering them onto the other side of the painted rectangles.  I used Mod Podge for this and then put a layer of the Mod Podge all over both sides of the memory card to give them a nice glossy finish and also to protect them from little fingers.  You could also use a varnish for this if you don't have Mod Podge (it's available from most craft or art stores).

 

An easy and quick craft activity to have on hand - great for a stocking filler, advent calendar or rainy day boredom buster.

I know, I know - three posts in one day - must be a record!

The Christmas books

 

Last year Rich built a bookshelf for James and it nicely housed our selection of Christmas books to read during December.  This week Rich finished one for Bella's room and she was most excited to store the books in it ready for our reading next month.

 

We started the collection a few years ago and every year we buy 2 or 3 books to add to it.  Next year when we buy our books we will finally have 25 books (one for reading every night up and including Christmas day).  It's a lovely little tradition, one that we all look forward to every year.  Last year I had laryngitis and Rich had to do all the reading, which I found really sad as I really wanted to join in the fun.

 

We pack the books away with the Christmas tree high up in a cupboard, so every year when we put up the tree the kids pull out the books and are all excited to work out the reading order for December.  This year James didn't show any interest in the books when they were pulled out (12.75 years so I get that), but hopefully he will still listen to some (maybe all = hopeful Mama) of the stories, we'll see.

 

Bella's favourite one is Santa's Reindeer by Rod Green (added to the collection last year) and James' is A night before Christmas (we have two versions including the Aussie one).

 

So, what are you waiting for - go and buy your first Christmas book (perhaps you already have a collection), it's such a lovely little tradition.  You don't need a bookshelf to store them in - we started off sitting them under the tree in a pile and then this progressed to a small basket, anywhere is fine so long as they are somewhere close by for reading :)  The best bit is snuggling in bed with your kids at bedtime reading and looking through the book together.

Handmade Christmas - Day 15

Feeling hungry?!!  You will be now:

   

This is a fabulous idea by Dee- homemade hot chocolate cones.  YUM!  Super adorable (especially with that gorgeous tag) and how good would a dozen of these look in a basket to hand out to friends and family.

You can find the step by step instructions here.  Thanks very much for sharing Dee and thanks Narelle for sending me through the original link.

Handmade Christmas - Day 14

Today's handmade ideas are from Ellen at 'The Long Thread'.  If you haven't already checked out The Long Thread you must do so as there are some awesome ideas over there on Ellen's site.

First up we have these divine thrifted holiday trees that I'm really in love with:

 

You can find the step by step tutorial here.

Then a little bit more cuteness - these adorable Elf Skittles:

You can make them too - step by step guide here.

Ellen also has a pattern and step by step instructions for this adorable hand puppet:

 

Info is here.

Plus this cool rocket man:

Instructions by Ellen can be found here.

Thanks for sharing these gorgeous ideas Ellen :)

Handmade Christmas - Day 13

 

Aren't they gorgeous!  A big thankyou to Jessica (Lost Button Studio) for kindly sharing her paper star instructions and printable template here.

I think they would look lovely hanging in a garland or perhaps a smaller version to add on Christmas presents as a decoration.

Goodluck with your operation today Rich - we love you :)

Handmade Christmas - Day 12

Today's post is sharing some fabulous tutorials so that you can make your own Christmas cards this year!

 

The first step by step guide is from Petrina showing you how to use cheap cards as a stencil.  So cool!  Here is the link.

 

These three pretty cards are from Sarah and she shares some brief instructions here.   

Sarah also created this awesome decoration and you can find instructions here (along with a funky ATC).

 

Then the lovely Melleny (who has provided so many of the Christmas crafts that I've been sharing on my blog) sent me through these beautiful cards including instructions.

Materials: Kaisercraft Patterned paper: Wish Upon – Shine, Twinkle & Sparkle.  Cards/White cardstock for base, Green cardstock, Brown Cardstock, Buttons, Rhinestones, Kaisercraft Christmas Rubons, Pink Ribbon, Metal stars.

Instructions:

Cut a piece of ‘Shine’ patterned paper 100mm x 145mm. Adhere to card. Cut a piece of Twinkle patterned paper 60mm x 155mm, using a Fiskars water threading punch, punch a boarder along one side.  Adhere to card. Cut a circle from the Sparkle patterned paper. Adhere to card. Cut a tree from green cardstock and a trunk from brown cardstock, adhere to card. Add button to top of the tree. Add rubon and rhinestones to tree. Tie a ribbon in a bow, tie metal star on with string. I have also decorated the envelopes to match.

Art + tree = good stuff

Some pics of my sweetie using water colours the other day after she watched the 'Art' You Tube clip (down a couple of posts).  We had to play it over and over again with the speakers turned up while she sang and painted.

 

 

 

 

Then today after school we had a bit of serious 'tree putting up' happening.  Super early this year, but I was organised with presents to pop underneath and well, it just seemed right to put it up and soak up as much of the festive season that we can within the next month (hooly dooly did you know it's just one month until Christmas today!!)

 

 

There are a couple of new treasures for our small collection this year.  This sweet teeny weeny wooden nativity set that I fell in love with in the Steiner shop and couldn't walk out without.  It's about 10 cm high.  You can pull out all the pieces and sit them out seperately to the main structure, but we kind of like it like this:

 

Two new decorations for the tree.  I'm not big on buying new decorations for the tree as we have lots of handmade ones and we've run out of branches to squeeze them onto, but these couple just yelled 'buy me!'  Seriously, they did Rich :) 

 

The one on the left opens up and the one on the right has a sweet bell inside that jingles - cute hey.

Then a new advent (*cough cough* it just screamed buy me buy me).

 

Have you put up your tree yet? 

Darkroom Door

 

See these gorgeous stamps.  Go here and find out how you can win some really cool prizes!

Handmade Christmas - Day 11

For today's post I'm sharing some pages out of the current issue of Cotton Time (thanks Corrie for the magazine, it's an awesome issue!).

 

 

 

   

 

   

Aren't they sweet?!  I could drool over each issue of Cotton Time forever :)