Monogram Wreath

Some friends and I have been getting together at our church once a month for a craft night. This month we made these twine wrapped initial/monogram wreaths. Here is how mine turned out:

Pretty fun! I really love how it turned out. If you want to make one too, click here for the tutorial that inspired this activity. To learn how to make felt rosettes, click here.

Initial Wreath

Well, it certainly has been a while! I have missed blogging and my blogging buddies, I hope some of you are still out there!

I decorated a grapevine wreath (that's been hanging on our door plain for a long time!) recently and wanted to share it with you all. All I did was stick some greenery from a couple of our evergreens into the wreath.  For the initial, I cut a letter out of cardboard and out of burlap using a template I made on the computer. Then I glued the burlap letter to the cardboard one to make it sturdy (I painted craft glue onto the cardboard with a paint brush to even it out so it wouldn't gush through the burlap). Once dry, I hot glued a piece of jute to the top of the letter and then tied the letter to the wreath. I made a simple bow out of strips of burlap looped and hot glued together. I added a wire to the back of the bow and tied it to the wreath. Hung the wreath on the front door and all done! Here is the finished product:

I hope everyone is well and you are getting excited for the holidays!

Where Have I Been?

I didn't blog last week....I posted my photos on my Cross Creek Farm blog, but didn't post anything here. Well, here is what I have been working on. This is a tutu and a princess hat I made for my best friend's daughter's 3rd birthday. I love how they turned out! Makes me want a little girl, maybe that's what we are having. Only 5 more months until we find out! But anyway, I made the tutu by cutting pieces of tulle about 6 inches by 20" or so and then knotting them onto a piece if 1/2 inch elastic. The tutorial I used can be found here. For the princess hat, I just found a photo of one that I liked on Etsy and followed this tutorial to help me along. I made a couple adjustments to fit my liking. I added a pair of butterfly wings (I found them on clearance while at Jo-Ann's getting the fabric) to the present. And voila! A cute little fairy princess outfit. I think it was a hit. When Jocelyn opened it, she put the hat on right away. It was so cute!

Christmas Countdown Paper Chain

Today we made a Christmas Countdown Paper Chain. I remember making these when I was little, my sister and I just loved ripping the links off each day.

Supplies needed:
2 pieces each of Red, green & white paper
Scissors
Tape or a stapler
Cut 4 strips, longways, out of each piece of paper, except for one piece, cut out 5 strips. You need 8 strips of 2 colors and 9 strips of the third color to add up to 25 strips (one for each day, December 1-25).

Now all you do is make a loop with one strip and tape (or staple) it closed. Put the next strip through the loop and tape it closed and continue adding loops until all the strips are used up. Easy as pie!

If your little one is too young to cut and tape/staple, you will have to do that part. But this is a great activity for teaching toddlers the colors. I asked Jimmy to hand me each strip by color as I needed it. I rotated them green, red, white, green, red, white, etc.

Help your little one count down to Christmas (starting today) by removing one link from the chain each day. Have fun!

Its December!! Homemade Ornaments

It's the 1st day of December, Christmas is coming fast!! Ack, I need to go shopping!!!

I am so excited, this will be Jimmy's 2nd Christmas, but this is the first year he will actually understand a little better what is going on. I can't wait for him to be able to open presents and see the excitement on his face! I am so excited to do Christmas crafts with him, make cookies and all sorts of things. Yesterday, my lovely friend and very expectant mommy Katie came over with her soon to be 3 year old little girl. We made Christmas ornaments! We used 2 different recipes. One was the salt dough kind that you bake in the oven and the other was a cinnamon dough that smells SOOO good!! Here are some pics of the ones we made with links to the recipes:

Salt Dough Ornaments.

Cinnamon Ornaments

We just rolled out the dough and cut it out with cookie cutters, poking holes in the tops with a straw so they can be strung with ribbon or yarn and hung. Jimmy and I are going to be painting the salt dough ones and I will post some pics when they are done. The cinnamon ornaments smell very good and would be perfect for someone with country or primitive decor. These would make great gifts and/or add-ons to the outside of wrapped gifts. Have fun if you decide to try these and don't be tempted to eat the cinnamon ones! Hubby almost took a bite of one last night but thought, wait, those are a bit TOO strong smelling and then he asked me about them. I told him they had cinnamon, applesauce and GLUE in them and he was like eeeeew, glad I didn't take a bite! lol! Enjoy!

Easter Egg Tree

Since my Oma (Grandma) is full German, my mom passed on a lot of German holiday traditions. One of them was the Easter Egg Tree. She and Oma each made one every year. So this year I decided I would do it. They always used blooming Forsythia or Pussy Willow branches, but since my Forsythias are just getting started, and I don't have a Pussy Willow yet, I had to use Maple. Soo....

Here is my Easter Tree. I was a little late putting it together, but I am so glad it is finished. I wasn't sure which direction I wanted to go as far as design/style for decorating the eggs, so I did a plethora of styles. Maybe next year I will go all in one direction or even paint/dye the entire egg, we'll see.All I did was cut 3 small branches from a big fallen Maple branch, then I tied a ribbon around them to keep them together. I stuck them in in my rectangular vase with river rocks in the bottom and green moss on top.

For the eggs, I had started collecting them a couple weeks ago. I just poked holes in both ends with a pin and blew them out for Jimmy's scrambled eggs. I then rinsed the shells and let them dry. Then I pulled the ribbon through with a piece of wire - loop at the top and tied a knot on the bottom. Then I painted them. Easy as pie!

I just found out about the Round Robin event over at "Keeping Up With The Schultz Family"

so I thought I would add this post. So head over and check out all the other blogs!

A Valentine for Daddy

Jimmy making his first Valentine (mommy helped) =) Mommy made him a couple of potato stamps, we had fun!

Wooden Signs

Here are some wooden signs I painted by hand (well, I traced the text from a print out - with a sharpie because I didn't have any carbon paper - and painted over it by hand). =)