Our Forever House: Christmas

Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Countdown to Christmas

Wow, it is December 1st! Let the countdown to Christmas begin! Although, I will admit, I have been counting down for a few weeks already! I absolutely love the holidays and all that they mean! Family, friends, giving, sharing and overall Joy! Oh how I love Christmas!

A couple of years ago Pottery Barn featured a fun advent calendar using a series of ornaments. Each day you would place an ornament on the tree. This simple yet fun and beautiful idea has been recreated all over blog land. While it is nothing new or original, I knew I wanted to do this and this house had the perfect wall!

We have a narrow wall that separates our kitchen from the formal dining/living room. The picture above gives a bit of perspective. Behind the wall is my refrigerator and well, you can see my dirty dishes on the counter. To the left of the wall is our formal dining room which is currently covered with Christmas decor and unfinished craft projects and supplies.

I pulled together a few decorations to use for this project. My theme this year emphasizes a deep Christmas red along with a clean rustic style. I love our Christmas tree because it is an eclectic mix of ornaments from our childhood up through today. I will share more about that next week. For now, we are talking advent. In addition to some of the ornaments from our tree, I made a few as well.

I love the cinnamon ornament in spot 2, some beautiful crystal on day 3, an apple ornament on day 5 which has been on my husbands family tree for many years. I also added a hook to a pine cone and a star fish to add a sense of nature. Of course on day 8 I used my Santa belt ornament and day 10 is an simple paper ornament I made with some sparkly scrapbook paper.

A couple of other favorites is the sparkly green bow on Day 12, jingle bells on the 13th, a paper star and an old glass pine cone ornament that I spray painted silver and then rolled in Epsom salt for a snowy effect. I even simply used a candy cane.

I love the overall look on the wall.

Tonight is the night we will take the first ornament and place it on the tree.

I can't wait! In addition to the ornament count down, we will also plan to do something special each day. Today we will be going to dinner with my in-laws to celebrate my Father-in-Laws birthday!

We actually started the fun holiday activities last night by watching The Muppet's Letters to Santa on TV. I have been recording a few other holiday classics for other days as well. Have I mentioned how much I love the holidays!!!

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

It's a Lego Christmas!

Our home is beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Oh how I love this time of year. And this Christmas, with an almost 5 year old boy in the house, it would not be complete without a few Lego decorations. If you have boys, you likely know what I mean. While we are just beginning the Lego craze I have to say I LOVE these classic blocks. No batteries, just simple creativity and hours of entertainment.

A few weeks ago we received our Lego Club Jr. Magazine. If you have kids I highly recommend signing up for this FREE 2-year Lego Club subscription. Kids love getting mail with their name on it and it has some fun, simple projects for the kids.

In the back of each issue they share one or two simple, step-by-step projects you and your kids can make using Legos they likely have on hand. Sometimes we have to improvise with color or sizes but generally speaking we are able to make these projects, or something very close to it.

In this months magazine they had a Santa. It is so much fun. My son and I had a great time finding the Legos and putting it all together. Santa proudly sits on our mantel.

Well, after we made Santa we were excited to make a few other Lego creations to join Santa. I headed over to the Lego website where they share the directions to A LOT of other Lego projects. The Lego website rocks because they include the building instructions to all the Lego sets they have sold over the years. These online instructions come in handy when the originals get torn, lost or otherwise destroyed - trust me on this! The Lego Club section is awesome too. In the building section they always have 3 or 4 simple projects, similar to those shared in the magazine. I love these quick, simple projects.

So, to add to our holiday Lego creations, I simply did a search by keyword on this page. I searched for "snowman" and "Christmas tree".

For the snowman we used the Extended Line: LEGO Snowman: B1 40003. We made a few slight modifications based on the Legos we had but I love how it turned out.

Our Lego Christmas tree is VERY loosely based on the Extended Line: LEGO X-Mas Tree: B1 40002.

This is NOT a sponsored post and I am by no means being compensated for this post (although if Lego and or their marketing agency wants contact me we would LOVE to continue to write more gushing posts about the wonders that are LEGO creations). Call Me!!! Really!!!!

Shared on: Somewhat Simple, House of Hepworths, Sugar and Dots, Sweet Peas and Bumblebees, The CSI Project

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

{Christmas in July} #5 - Dessert Plate

Several years ago my Mom made these simple Christmas dessert plates. She took a plain clear glass plate that she found at the dollar store and decoupaged some holiday fabric on the bottom side. It takes a bit of work to smooth out the bubbles and wrinkles but it turns out great. I decided to take her project a step further and glue it to a crystal candlestick with E6000 glue to make a dessert pedestal which will look awesome on our holiday buffet.

I will be making a bunch of these this holiday season to deliver Holiday cookies to my friends and neighbors - a treat and gift, all in one! These could be customized for any holiday or special event. After seeing the Halloween fabrics in the store the other day, I am thinking that would be fun too!

Note: The decoupage and E6000 glue requires that the plates be hand washed.

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Todays Creative Blog

Polly Want A Crafter

Skip to My Lou

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I ♥ Naptime
Tatertos and Jello
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House of Hepworths
Nap Time Crafters
Chic on a Shoestring

Monday, July 18, 2011

{Christmas in July} #4 - Gingerbread Sugar Scrub

Today I decided to tackle a Christmas gift idea I have had in my head ever since I tried my first sugar scrub a couple of months ago. I absolutely LOVE how soft and smooth my skin has been ever since I started using it. I had tried salt scrubs years ago but always hated how they sting if you have any nicks, scratches, etc. I can use the sugar scrub immediately following shaving with no problems.

Today I decided to create a Gingerbread Sugar Scrub in keeping with the holidays. Now, I will admit that I don't really care for gingerbread and have never really made it but I like the idea and color of it.

Here is the recipe:
    1 cup brown sugar
    1 cup white sugar
    1 cup olive oil
    1 Tablespoon fresh ginger - finely chopped
    1 teaspoon all spice
    1 teaspoon cinnamon
    1 teaspoon nutmeg
    1 teaspoon vanilla extract or essential oil

Stir together and place in your jar. You can multiply this recipe as needed for the jar(s) you are using. As long as you keep the above ratio's you should be good.

Can't wait to make more of this for my friends and family! Merry Christmas in July 'cuz I don't think I can wait 6 months to give this one away!!!

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Skip to My Lou

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Polly Want A Crafter
Todays Creative Blog
Somewhat Simple
House of Hepworths

Friday, July 15, 2011

{Christmas in July} #3 - Snowman Push Pops

Oh how I would love a nice cold, snow day about now! The heat is getting to me here in sunny Arizona. I have had winter on my mind. As part of my Christmas in July series, I wanted to feature a fun, unique treat! I can't wait to have a holiday party!

Earlier this month, I whipped together some mini-cupcake shooters using the reusable push-up containers I purchased from here. Today, I decided to make snowman push-ups! They were really easy and according to my children - very tasty.

The supplies...
* Push-up Containers
* Mini powdered sugar donuts AND donut holes
* Mini M&Ms
* Orange Mike & Ikes (or candy corn)
* Round chocolate wafer cookie (I used a Thin Mint)
* Rolo Candies
* Peel-A-Part Twizzlers
* Chocolate and White Frosting

I started with a dollop of frosting on the base and then gently placed a mini-donut into the tube. You need to do this carefully so that you do not scrape off the powdered sugar when you push it down into the container.

As you can see, the cup gets dirty during this stage, use a lightly dampened rag to wipe off the powder sugar off the edge and interior. Next, attach a brown mini-M&M to a donut hole using a small amount of chocolate frosting. If necessary, scrape away a bit of the sugar so that the frosting can adhere to the donut itself.

For the scarf, I used a couple of strands of pull-a-part Twizzlers. I trimmed them, created a small ribbon shape and gently placed it on top of the middle donut hole pushing the ends down into the cup. Be careful to not scrape the powder sugar off the donut.

Now push an orange Mike & Ike or candy corn into a donut hole for a nose and secure with a small amount of frosting inside the hole. Use chocolate frosting to make two small eyes and place the head on top of the scarf.

Make your hat by using a small dollop of white frosting on the center of a chocolate wafer cookie and pressing a Rolo onto it. You want the frosting to ooze out a bit so that it looks like a band. Using chocolate frosting, make a small ring on the bottom of the hat and place on the donut.

I absolutely love how these turned out and can't wait to have a party!

Is it Winter yet?

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Under the Table and Dreaming

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

{Christmas in July} #2 - Quilted Paper Gift Tags

Christmas in July continues with a fun and simple project...quilted paper gift tags. Before I get started, a HUGE thank you to The Frugal Girls for featuring my Santa Belt Ornament I made yesterday. For all you new visitors and followers, Welcome!

Quilted Paper Gift Tags

Today I decided to experiment with my new found love of my sewing machine. I am not much of a sewer, but I have proven that I can sew paper and I love it. For this project I used scrapbook paper and felt. Very easy. If you don't machine sew, you could easily do this using a hand sewn method for a fun and unique look. I would like to try it using some different color threads as well. I can't wait to decorate packages and more this holiday season!

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Under the Table and Dreaming

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

{Christmas in July} #1 - Santa Belt Ornament

I love the holidays and can't wait to decorate our house this year. Last Christmas, we had just moved in and after all the cleaning, fixing and painting of buying a foreclosure, I lost alot of steam. Plus, we were still totally trying to get a feel for the space and how we would use this wonderful new home. This year we will be much more settled and look forward to bringing the Holidays to life.

With the temps over 100 degrees in Arizona nearly every day from about June through September, a white Christmas sounds great about now! Over the next couple of weeks I will share a few Holiday projects I am working on.

SANTA BELT ORNAMENT

Today is all about Santa and his jolly belly. At the end of the season last year, I picked up a tube of glittery red balls for half price in the Target Dollar Spot! I simply cut a 1/2" strip of felt, wrapped it around the center of the ball and added a small square frame made out of paper. I added some silver glitter glue (found at the Target Dollar Spot yesterday) to the buckle for a little extra bling.

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