homemade holidays

I love homemade gifts for the holidays; it's so fun to think of something special for family and friends and then get to work making it.  This year I had a ball making these Christmas gifts.

I made Picture Coasters for my parents.  A few years ago I made coasters with scrapbook paper and they've held up perfectly so when I saw these on pinterest I was dying to try them out.  They turned out so well that I made a set for myself also!  

To commemorate our trip to Harry Potter World I made golden snitch ornaments.  I got the idea here, but her method was way more complicated than mine.  I was going to just use glittery gold cardstock but in the paper section at Michael's I found this awesome stuff that was kind of like faux leather but it was glittery gold.  I know that makes absolutely no sense, just go to Michael's and look for it.  That paper made it easy peasy- I cut out lots of wings, glued them together so they were double-sided, then hot glued them on to the gold ornament (from the Dollar Store.)

I made a couple of Plaid Scarves for friends using Janssen's tutorial.  These actually took way longer than I expected, but mostly just because the sewing gods were not on my side that night.

My favorite of all- the Mermaid Blanket.  I saw this on Pinterest and knew my girls needed mermaid blankets.  I couldn't find a tutorial so I just figured it out on my own and they actually weren't very difficult at all.  After finishing I found this tutorial which is almost exactly how I did it (except I added some detail on the fins before attaching them to the tail and I didn't do waist fins- but those are so cute!)  I made one for Jilly and one for Mattie, and they make the cutest little mermaid I've ever seen.

Christmas Advent Ornaments

Last year my friends Shauna and Jana posted about making mini Advent Ornaments, and I suddenly needed to make some of my own.  I actually started way back in September, but wasn't very dedicated to the project til November and then I found myself sitting at my sewing machine late into the night November 30th so I could finish the tree in time!  This was an enormous project and left me with stiff and sore fingers many nights but I really enjoyed it, and I'm so thrilled now that it's done!

The pattern can be found here, and was immensely helpful.  I realized that I liked the simpler ornaments better because I was able to make them look better.  So I skipped a few of hers that seemed complicated and instead made a little Baby Jesus in a manger (got this idea from Shauna), a star, and a light bulb.  I wasn't crazy about the tree in the pattern either so I copied Jana's.

My favorite part of the project is that Jilly loves it as much as I do.  Every morning in November she would ask if I had finished an ornament the previous night and get so excited to see my progress.  Now there is an ornament in each pocket of my Advent Calendar (so glad to finally have a purpose for it!) and it's so fun for the girls to pull one out every morning.  Hopefully these ornaments survive for many, many years!

celebrate

For Christmas this year I made fabric pennant banners for some of my family and friends.  I wanted to add letters and chose Celebrate since it is multi-functional.  I ended up making eight banners, so I came up with a few helpful shortcuts along the way.  

1. Cut your letters out of felt.  I used my cricut to cut letters on cardstock then used these letters as patterns.  I cut out all my letters during our road trip to Utah and it was an excellent way to avoid watching ugly, ugly Nevada creep by.

2. Cut out fabric triangles.  I gathered my fabric- some pieces I already had and some that were new- then started cutting triangles using a pattern I made.  My triangles have a base of 8 inches and height of 10 inches.  Shortcut #1: Cut with pinking shears.  I was originally planning on sewing two triangles together for each letter but that would have taken way too long (and twice as much fabric.)  Cutting with pinking shears looks cute and assures they won't fray.

3. Attach letters to triangles.  Shortcut #2: Hot glue letters onto fabric.  Felt stretches and can be a huge pain to sew so I hot glued them all in place first.  Make sure you only hot glue in the center of the letter though because a sewing machine + hot glue = disaster (I know from frustrating experience.)

4. Top stitch around letters.  This took some time, but I think it makes a big difference.  E's were a lot of fun, B's were a pain.

5. Attach banner together with ribbon.  Again, hot glue gun to the rescue.  I found a method that really worked for me: Spread hot glue along the edge of the ribbon, then attach it to the top of the first triangle with a little (about 1/2 inch) fabric border on the top.  Then turn the ribbon/triangle over and squeeze another line of hot glue on the edge of the ribbon, this time overlapping a little bit (about 1 1/2 inches) on the back of the first triangle.  Attach the second triangle and repeat for all the rest.  

6. Top stitch over the ribbon:  Since I only hot glued along the bottom edge of the ribbon I could sew along the top edge.  And Voila!  Hang and Celebrate!!

 (photo credits to Lisa, who offered to use her fancy new lens for me, thanks friend!)

diy Headband/Jewelry Holder

After I mentioned the jewelry holder I made for Jilly, a couple people asked how I made it so I thought I'd share.  These are easy peasy and fairly cheap- probably why I've made three now!

You need:
piece of wood (they have pre-cut pieces at Home Depot/Lowe's, I've gotten a different size every time, but Jilly's was 3.5 in. wide and 20 in. long and cost $1.50)
hooks (I got a big package a while ago at Walmart in the hardware section, can't remember how much it was, these are similar but I think mine were cheaper, how many hooks is up to you- Mattie's has 3, Jilly's has 5, and mine has 9)
one piece of scrapbook paper
mod podge
foam brush
paint
sand paper
ruler/measuring tape
drill

1. Sand your wood.  I hate, loathe, and despise sanding so I do the bare minimum.

2. Paint your wood- you really only need to paint the edges since that's all you see.

3. Cut your scrapbook paper into 2 strips.  Since Jilly's board was 3.5 inches wide, I cut my paper to be 3 inches so I'd have a 1/4 inch border at the top and bottom.

4. Paint your board with mod podge, lay the paper down, then cover the paper with a layer of mod podge.  You don't need two whole strips of paper, I glue one strip down, then line up the second strip and cut off what I don't need at the end.

5. Let the mod podge dry then measure where you want your hooks to go and make little marks.

6.  The drill is one of those things I have decided is husband-only territory (like the grill- I'm never going to learn how to use it so it's always his job, a nice break for me!) so I had Bryan drill small holes at my marks.  This makes it much easier to screw the hooks in. (This tip came from Lisa after I just about broke every single one of my fingers screwing those darn hooks in the first time.)

7.  Drill (or have someone drill for you) two holes in the back so you can hang it on a couple of nails.

8.  Screw in those hooks, hang it up, and add your jewelry/headbands/whatever else you think of!

^^ I'm not quite sure why I chose this paper, it didn't match our bedroom then, or now, nor will it ever.  Whatev

five on friday

1.  Jilly outed me this week while Bryan had the day off.  I was getting in the shower and she said, "Can I go to the store with you?"  I was confused and told her I wasn't going to the store and she said, "So then why are you taking a shower?"  Bryan thought it was hilarious.  So maybe I only shower when we're going out...

2.  Way back before Jillian was born I made a holder for all my necklaces.  Then sometime later I made a smaller one for Jilly to hold headbands, but it's now in Mattie's room.  Jilly has been begging me to make one for her room, and she desperately needed some jewelry organization so I finally got to it this week.  She loves it, and we think it's so fun for all the girls to be matching.

3.  I know this makes me sound a little grinchy but I could hardly wait to take down our Christmas tree and other decorations.  I now have an itch to clean and de-clutter every corner of our house.  I rarely feel this motivated to clean so I'm trying to get a lot done before I lose steam.

4.  Mattie's latest trick (besides crawling) is pulling herself up on evvvvverything.  She's delighted by her cleverness.

5.  My 28th birthday was on Sunday.  It was a very happy day full of messages from family and friends, presents, and chocolate pie.  I've never been a huge fan of having my birthday so close to Christmas, but this year I learned a reason to be grateful- the girls were still so excited about their new toys, they played happily all day.

de colores

We have been practicing colors with Jillian, but thus far she has only seen the need to learn one color- pink.  And why would you need to know any other color when you will only wear pink pajamas, have pink bows in your hair, use a pink toothbrush, eat out of a pink bowl, etc.?  I would probably be more frustrated with her stubbornness except I share her affinity for pink.  Nevertheless, I do believe it is important to learn the other colors as well.

Enter the Sisters Share it All Pinterest Challenge.  Janssen, Merrick, and Landen each picked 6 pins to do over the next 6 weeks and invited anyone else to join in.  I am a slacker, and instead of picking 6 pins in advance I think I'll just pick on a weekly basis.

So this week my project was a Colors Book.  I've had this pinned forever, and realized it would be super easy because I already had all the supplies (free-my favorite price!)  I just went through my fabric scraps and sorted out a few fabrics for each color.  Apparently I don't like orange very much because I only had 2 orange scraps and thus not enough for an orange page (oh well.)  But I did have enough scraps to make a red, yellow, green, blue, purple, and pink page.  I cut the scraps with pinking shears and then sewed them on to pieces of felt I had leftover from the quiet books.  As you can see, I was going for ease over aesthetics.  As I sewed, most of the scraps went askew and my book is far from perfect.  But, it does the job and was very satisfying to finish so quickly.  I also cut letters out of my 6 different colors to make a cover page then attached it all together with rings.  

Jilly mostly prefers to stay on the pink page and rub the soft pink fleece scrap.  But I'm optimistic we'll have a color breakthrough soon.

a valentine's craft

My biggest fear is that one day Jillian will tell me that she is sick of doing Valentine's crafts and activities.  And my heart will break.  But, for now she seems to enjoy them as much as I do so life is good.  We made these stained glass hearts while sitting on my bed and still wearing our pajamas- a sure sign that this craft is a winner.

Prep work- The day before I cut out lots of little squares from red and pink tissue paper.  If Jilly was just a little older she could have probably done this herself.  I also cut out a few heart outlines.

I stuck a heart outline to a piece of contact paper and left the sticky side up.  Jilly then filled up the inside of the heart with little squares.

 At this point she was done and I filled in the rest.

 Then stuck another piece of contact paper on top to seal it in and cut it out.

We ended up making lots of these and sending them off to family members.  Jilly could only handle doing a couple at a time, so I just put the supplies away and pulled them out the next day to make more.

The fun thing about this craft is that it could be adapted to fit any holiday- a four leaf clover, an easter egg, a pumpkin, a christmas tree, the possibilities are endless!

diy silhouette

Way back in August I saw this frame at TJ Maxx and thought it would be perfect for a silhouette of Jillian.  Then my pretty frame sat around for a few months (as you've probably noticed I didn't exactly accomplish very much this past fall.)

Last week I needed a craft and decided to get to it.  It was hard to get a good profile picture of Jilly since she's such a wild thing.  But I grabbed my camera while she was busy playing with play dough and snapped a few pictures hoping one would work.  I decided that this one was the best.

I printed it out in 5x7 and started cutting along her profile.  I was nervous about cutting but it actually wasn't too hard.

Next I traced the cut-out picture onto a piece of black cardstock.  Because she was looking down and the back of her head was kind of cut off I actually only traced her profile.  The rest I just free-handed.

I cut out my cute little Jilly and glued it onto this pretty paper I found at Hobby Lobby and stuck it in my frame.  It looks perfect with my Valentine decor and makes me oh so happy.

Quiet Book

Some girls in my ward said they wanted to make quiet books and since I'm in charge of all our RS Activities, and since I had participated in a swap two years ago I decided to take the project on.  I quickly learned that I had not thanked Emily nearly enough for all the work she did in organizing my original swap (thanks Emily!!)  Since we had so many people participate, and many people that wanted to make 2 books, we ended up making 2 different books with 10 pages each.  The people that wanted 1 book made 10 pages and the people that wanted 2 books made 20 pages.  This turned the logistics of the project into one of those brain teaser puzzles we used to do in elementary school and at times it was too much for my brain to handle.  But it was a lot of fun and the end product is amazing.

I don't have all the pages but here are the ones I did end up with-

Fireman's Jacket- we have a few firemen in our ward so this is a fun one.  The jacket unzips then there is a little heart that you can snap on and off- so cute.

Tic Tac Toe- I LOVE the teal/red color combo and can envision many games between Bryan and Jilly (once she learns how to play tic tac toe)  

Button-on Flowers- One of Jilly's favorites in my original book.  

 Lace up shoe- This woman gave her husband lots of credit for punching all the grommets.  

 Stoplight- In the pocket there are green, yellow, and red circles to match to the page.  This is in my original book and Jilly loves to match the colors

 Puzzle- seriously, these people are amazing

Mailbox- I love the cute little foam letters she added 

 Paint Palette- The paint colors have velcro and can be taken on and off, and I love the addition of the paintbrush

 Teddy Bear- another duplicate from my original book, I love how cute and friendly he looks

 Mittens- Kids can slide their little hands into the fleece mittens

 Fishbowl- this is a favorite from my original book and the first page Jilly wanted to play with when I brought the new book home (she was too quick to let me hide it for Christmas, hopefully she'll forget about it)

As you can see, I still have some work ahead of me putting the whole book together, but I'm so excited for it to be done and under the Christmas tree!