MakingMine

This is another DIY Christmas gift that I completed. I wanted to find a creative way to give gift cards, so I put together gift cards as 4 different seasonal surprises (date night, shopping spree, etc), placed them in fun envelopes corresponding to each season, and packaged it all together with a 2012 calendar.

I used scrapbook paper to make the envelopes. Here’s how it went down….

I then wrote out labels to place on the front of the envelopes, filled them with the gift cards, and placed them throughout the calendar! Here’s the finished package…

My next DIY project was also for little M. She’s a total girlie girl - loves playing dress up in her mom’s scarves and shoes. She’s also quite the fashion diva and is always dressed to the nines (thanks to her stylish mom), so I thought it would be fun to give her a collection of hair bows to complete her signature cutie pie look. She still enjoys pulling hair ties and ribbons out of her hair more than wearing them, but here’s to hoping she decides their worth keeping in her hair for more than 5 minutes :)

This project was another Pinterest find (can’t say enough good things about this site!). You can find the “how to” here!

The instructions say that the bows are too tiny to use a sewing machine. I wholeheartedly disagree. I did 95% of these bows by hand. It took f.o.r.e.v.e.r. I decided to give it a shot with the sewing machine and it was a million times better! I did, however, only use the sewing machine for the first two seams and saved the final side and loop in the middle to do by hand. Still, doing the first two steps on the sewing machine made the whole process go a million times faster!

Another thing to note: I did not secure the back of the cinching loop to the bow itself. I wanted to leave it open so that the metal clip could be taken out. That way, I didn’t have to buy tons of the clips themselves - they can just be interchanged between the different bows. It also gives you the option to slide the bow onto a headband! Clever, right?! :)

Here’s the finished collection…

I had a great time with this project as well. It was fun to pick out cute color combinations and experiment with felt and ribbon. I might even have to make myself a few bows with my leftover scraps - which, by the way, are the same scraps as I used for Hoots the owl! Those fat quarters have definitely served me well!

It’s officially after Christmas, and all the gifts have been opened. Now I get to share all the goodies I’ve been working on for the ones I love :)

First, Hoots the owl for my niece Mahala.

I found this pattern on Pinterest and thought it was absolutely adorable. M’s nursery is animal themed, so I thought this softie would be a cute addition to her collection. Since I’ve hardly dipped a toe in sewing, I didn’t have an arsenal of scraps to turn to for making this project. However, I found a great alternative. At JoAnn Fabrics they sell fat quarters in all sorts of patterns. They are super cheap and were an easy way to get a wide variety of colors and designs for this project (and my next project as well, but more on that later).

The pattern is very straightforward and easy to follow. The only thing I would change is that I would sew on the eyes and beak BEFORE attaching the two sides together. It was really tedious to do this step once the front and back were sewn together.

Here’s my finished result….

I had a great time making Hoots the owl. Everything from picking the fabric to making him perfectly plump with stuffing was more fun knowing that this was a gift for the delightful little M. I hope she enjoys adding Hoots to her family of animal toys! :)

If you can’t tell, I love Christmas! December has been consumed by baking, decorating, crafting, and of course - shopping! I thought I would share a few photos from the alumni shindig J and I hosted this weekend. We had a great time unwinding with all of our friends and meeting some new ones.

The whole bar…

Toasty Snowcaps…

Holly Bites…

Pumpkin Angel Food…

Meat & Cheese / Veggie Platters…

Sweet Treats (on my homemade runner!)…

Yummy holiday drinks…

Jays goodies…

Aren’t Christmas cards just the best? I absolutely love getting mail - especially when photos and yearly letters from family and friends are involved. And no, an email newsletter does not count :)

I decided I needed a new method for displaying these beauties, so I took some heavy red and green string and tied it to either side of the curtain rod in the living room. I then added tiny wooden clothes pins to clip the cards to the line. I think the result is really cute - it keeps all of the people closest to my heart right where I can see them :)

PS - How cute is my niece?! Love her to pieces!

With the Creighton Alumni party coming up, I knew I was going to be baking and displaying an array of goodies this weekend. I decided to add a festive touch to the normal serving platters by making chalkboard signs. I was originally planning on just using plain rectangles for signs, but then I found these awesome wooden ornament cut-outs that would work perfectly with our holiday theme. All that was left was to buy the base colors and chalkboard paint. It was all SO easy - here are my steps…

A couple of things to note:

• I used liquid chalk (shown above) because I have a set that I use for the large chalkboard in our kitchen, but you can use traditional chalk as well. This stuff is amazing though - I highly recommend it!
• Make sure to follow the instructions on the back of your chalk paint can. Mine required at least 2 coats and suggested letting the item dry for 24 hours before use.
• Before writing on your newly painted chalk surface, rub a piece of traditional chalk over the entire surface and then wipe clean with soap and water (I used Windex)

I also ended up threading a piece of ribbon through the hole on the top to complete the “ornament” look and used tiny wooden clothes pins (purchased for a different project) to hold the signs upright as displays (more photos to follow).

This was a fun project that I’m sure will get repeated use throughout the season!

Yesterday I tackled two quick (and easy!) sewing projects using scraps from a couple of recent craft endeavors. I recovered my kitchen chairs a couple of months ago and had some extra fabric, so I made a little runner to place on the table. It’s folded in half in the pictures below, so it can also be used full size when the extra leaves are pulled out…

As a side note, the candle above is the absolute BEST! My mom got it for me from Present Company and I LOVE it! It’s a Wood Wick candle in the Twinkling Mint Cocoa scent. It’s so yummy to burn, but I want it to last all winter!! :)

My second project used to the leftover fabric from my Merry and Bright mat project to make a runner for the basement table. See below…..

Neither are even close to perfect, but I’m having fun learning how to get things done by myself!

I saw a cute idea on Pinterest for framing seasonal words and placing them around the house. I just happened to have 3 matching frames that had never quite made it up on my walls anywhere, so I decided to give it a go. I chose the phrase “Merry and Bright” and used Picnik to create the words because I knew of a few fun fonts on the site that I really liked. I just printed them out, placed them in the frames, and ended up with this….

Simple and cute. But not quite enough (notice that it’s been denoted as a “before”). I decided that I needed to add a pop of color to the display and brainstormed a fun way to achieve this…

Flannel! That’s right. I decided to cover the boring white mats with flannel to incorporate some holiday warmth. This was a Joanna’s own process that would probably make any serious crafter cringe (Scotch tape was involved), but it worked surprisingly well! See below for the steps:

Annnnnnnnnnnnd…….. here’s the final result! I love it! And it goes great with the color scheme of our basement!