Deck the Halls Giveaway Winner

I must beg your forgiveness for being so late, but I did draw a winner for the giveaway

{drum roll}

Susie, of Susie's Sunroom!  As soon as I hear back from Susie, the charm packs of Alpine Wonderland will be whisked away through the mail, and the sooner the better, because parting with them won't be easy :)  those prints are even sweeter in person {i'm trying hard to justify buying some for myself, but it just isn't working with my new fabric purchasing strategy.  but thats for another post...}

Thank you to everyone who linked up & grabbed buttons!  You really made Deck the Halls a fun little party :) 

{if you are wondering, I did use the random number generator to pick the winner [number 14], I just haven't got the picture to prove it.  Each link up & comment from a button grabber got an entry, including A Girl in Paradise & The Way I Sew It for writting posts about my giveaway - thanks so much ladies!}

I didn't do as much crafting with my boys as I wanted, but I know we probably wouldn't have done any if I hadn't made the decision to be so intentional this year so I refuse to feel bad about what we didn't do. 

I learned alot through this experience, like how to make a blog button!  And there are a lot of awesome bloggers out there who have been very generous to share their knowledge with the rest of us {you probably already knew that}  I also learned craft kits marked 'easy' usually aren't, and kids don't always cooperate with Mom's plan, or schedule.  We had a couple flops, which I'll spare you all pictures of {I don't want to offend anyone with pictures of bearded Virgin Marys or monobrowed baby Jesuses}  but over all we had a lot of fun Christmas crafting, and I've enjoyed seeing all your festive makes, too :)  thank you to everyone who participated!

Christmas in a nutshell

***You can find my Christmas link party & giveaway Here!***

I found this sweet tutorial a couple weeks ago, and knew right away I wanted to make this one with my sons :)

We had alot of fun just trying to crack the walnuts in half without completely smashing the shells :)

 

When I pulled out my craft supplies, I barely had any white felt.  My first thought was 'Oh no!' but almost immediately I thought 'Who says Baby Jesus wore white?'  Personally, I think orange is his color  :-)

One important lesson I have learned during these crafts - one of each tool isn't enough.  While forced to wait for brothers to finish up, little boys with four extra {googlie}eyes stuck to their foreheads will complain they are bored.

{I see a trip to the craft store in my future}
I will be linking up to these fine linky parties:
Happy Hour Friday; Petals to Picots; Do Something Crafty & Friday Fun Party @ Craftionary

Christmas Onions?

***The Alpine Wonderland giveaway & Christmas decoration linky party can be found here!***

The kids and I made Onion Bulb ornaments for the tree with the double sided scrapbook paper.

Now that the Christmas tree is up, I don't have to take our decorations outside to get photos :)

 

I love the extra fun that having a different print on each side of the paper adds to the decorations :) 



We stapled the ends of our onion bulbs together, because my hole punch was too large for the grommets I had.  We banged a couple up with the hammer {definitely the best part for the boys} but they just fell out. 

Merry Christmas-ing! :)
I'm linking up to Fireflies & Jellybeans and Frogs & Snails & Puppydog Tails

Sunday Stashing - I love the Grinch!

My Black Friday loot came in the mail!  whoo hoo! I snapped up these five How the Grinch Stole Christmas prints plus the panel from the second Grinch collection from Fat Quarter Shop.  These are going to be so much fun to sew with! :)

Oh Deer! is one of those collections that I just love to pieces {except the pink bits.  I don't like pink much}.  For now, these tiny deer prints are all the fabrics I have from this collection.  Maybe I'll stash a few more another day {the dots are fantastic, don't you think?}.  That print on the far right is from Me & My Sister Designs, and the color wasn't anything like I expected!  This photo doesn't show the color accurately - the orange is a little too neon for my tastes.  And the print is a little too beige-ish.  Oh well, that is going to happen sometimes when ordering fabric online :)

These are the two charm packs of Alpine Wonderland I'm giving away, so technically I haven't stashed them, but that doesn't mean I can't admire them while they are here, right? :)

You can find the linky party here!  {along with everything you need to know if you want to make this fabric yours!}  There are some great Christmas decorations linked up already, click on over to add yours!

One more thing I'm super excited about - I made a button! whoo hoo!  Grab it and stick it in your blog sidebar for another chance to win the Alpine Wonderland charm packs :)

*Please leave a comment on the linky party page to let me know you grabbed my button!*  

I'm linking up to Sunday Stash @ Finding Fifth! 

PS - Did you notice my blog header?  {!!!}  I'm so excited to have a header! {I was getting tired of blogging topless}

Deck the Halls with Children

We made our first decorations!  My inspiration was this ornament here {if you get a screen trying to convince you to sign up for Better Homes and Gardens, just click the green button up top that says continue to your page}

 

These are the supplies we used:

 

Glass ball ornaments, paper crimper, paper cutter, & double sided scrapbook paper.  Plus the paper shredder, and chopsticks are helpful if you want to arrange the paper inside the ornament.  Please be careful of fingers, one of mine had a sharpish point inside the rim.

Apparently, scrapbook paper has selvedge edges like fabric {and is just as pretty & fun - must resist the urge to start a new stash!}.  My papers were from two collections - winter tortellini and spinach soup for jillibean soup & Christmas cheer for lilybeedesign.

I had visions of long strips of crimped paper gracefully curled inside the glass balls, but after crimping the paper {I had to cut it in half first} and running it through the paper shredder, it looked like this:

more like confetti, which is lot of fun, too :)  It makes an ornament like the one I showed yesterday:

which is nice, but it isn't what I was trying for, so I made another.  This time I cut long strips of paper with the paper cutter, then crimped them, then squished them into the glass ball:

The boys were split on which they preferred, so they each made the style they wanted, adding their own creative twists {such as adding intact Santa heads}

I have a Christmas decoration linky party going on over here, go check it out!  Have a great weekend!

Deck the Halls with us!

Isn't this fabric great?  Nothing says Christmas like cows in Santa hats, right? haha
{Fabric Traditions, copyright 1993}  I just want to say that this fabric came to me in a swap, that copyright date is no indication of my age  ;)

So, I have decided to Deck the Halls Handmade this year with my kiddos!  We are going to make memories & ornaments, drink hot mulled apple cider, listen to way too much Christmas music, and watch corny old Christmas movies!  If you want to see the start of this conversation, click here

And I'm inviting you all to join us in the fun!  Here is my plan in a nutshell:

1.  My goal is to make 12 types of ornaments with my sons this year.  Some of these may be our own ideas or decorations I made as a child.  I will share how-to's for these.  Others will be ideas I found on the internet, and I'll share the links so you can make your own if you want.

2. My posts will be randomly timed throughout December - it's Christmastime, I plan on keeping this low stress for me.

3.  There is a linky party!  Deck your own halls, then come back here and link up at the bottom of this page!  Ornaments, tree skirts, pillows; if you make something that spreads Christmas cheer through your home it is eligable to be linked up!  The linky will be open through Dec 30th 2012

4.  You can't have a Christmas party without presents, can you?  I have two charm packs of Alpine Wonderland by Riley Blake Designs that will be sent to one {randomly selected} participant.  I wish I could send fabric presents to all of you!  When you link up, be sure to visit other links and comment - like passing around little comment presents! Then everyone can share the Holiday Happy  :)

PS - I'm going to try to make a button this weekend! If I am sucesful, I plan to give an extra entry to the giveaway for those who display it, so check back later!

I did it! I made a button! :)  grab the code from my sidebar and display it on your blog for an entry into the giveaway for the Alpine Woodland charm packs.  Then come back and comment on this post to let me know you did - easy peasy!  {You don't have to be linked to the party to post the button & be entered into the giveaway!}

Thinking about Christmas

I started this post to talk about Christmas ornaments & being deliberate about making memories for my kids, but first I have just got to say that Blogging makes you do some strange things.

I mean, what normal person would be traipsing around outside on a cold morning wearing PJs and slippers in search of the ever-elusive 'natural lighting' to take a picture of a new crafty creation on the shrubbery?  And by a picture I meant many pictures, on all sides trying to find the best lighting.  {I found it! If you wanted to know, it was on the side of the bush closest to the house, forcing me to stand between house and shrub. Of course}

Hmmm, where was I going with this? Right, I remember now ;)

When I was a kid, our church had a family ornament making night each Christmas season.  In the large basement room, the adults would make evergreen Christmas wreaths with advent candles in the middle.  The kids would go from Sunday school room to Sunday school room making different ornaments in each.  I still have some ornaments I made as a child  :)

The Christmas season can get busy so easily, and I don't know about you but when it is all over I can often think of things we didn't find time for that I would have liked to do with my boys.  So this year I have decided to be deliberate about making ornaments with my sons (and doing other Christmassy things, too)

So what does this all have to do with you?
I've decided to take you all along for the Yuletide ride! 
I will be showing our Christmas decorations here on the blog, and I will either share directions or a link to the tutorial we used so you can craft along too if you like.  {you might want to. hint, hint. There will be some bribery Christmas cheer involved!}

My plan was to share our first ornament with you today along with all the details, but a faulty internet connection, a migrane, and the general chaos that follows in the wake of three adorable boys conspired against me today, so I'm going to stop here and invite you all back to my blog tomorrow to see our first ornaments get crafted & find out how a little package of Christmas Cheer might be in your future.  Deal? :)

I'm going to link up with MRL's Holiday TTT which is over at she can quilt today.  Don't worry, I made sure the way is clearly marked for you, just click the pretty blue words and I promise you'll end up at the party ;)

I'm also going to link up to really Random Thursday.  I'm not sure there is truly anything random in this post, but I feel random today, and that counts, right?

That's it for now folks, I'll meet you back here tomorrow! :)