Christmas Thank-you's for Kids

This is such a fun way for little kids to thank Grandma's, Grandpa's, Aunt's, Uncle's, Cousins, Friends, or even Mom and Dad for the gifts they received this holiday season.  Simple open up your Microsoft Word program, search in for clipart pictures that are similar the gifts they received, and end it with a signature from your child.  Printing it in gray scale or black gives your child the chance to personalize the letter by coloring it.  It's a great activity to keep the kids busy after the holiday!

Super Easy Toffee

Super Easy Toffee

1-cup butter

1-cup brown sugar

Mix in pot and boil for 6 minutes.  Test in ice water for hard crack stage.  Sprinkle almond chunks onto a lightly greased cookie sheet.  Pour butter and sugar mixture over.  Top with milk chocolate chips or a Hershey bar broken up; once melted spread with a butter knife. 

Christmas Blocks

For you people out there that have a Cricut machine and some handy dandy cartridges this project is for you!  I used the "Lyrical Lyrics" and the "Christmas Village" cartridges, some wood scrap, paint, and vinyl and look what cute Christmas blocks I came up with.  What an easy and quick Christmas project!

Christmas Gifts Neighbor

Here are few Christmas neighbor gifts that I have gathered over the years.   This year we are using the flashlight saying. I just loved the meaning behind the saying.  It truly says how we feel about our friends!

Flashlight--We love how you "light up" our lives. We've come to depend on your "glow". Here's a "flashlight" to store, so you'll always be sure to create "light" wherever you go!

Christmas Ornament--Twinkle, twinkle, sparkled, shine, this ornament comes just in time! Merry Christmas!

Christmas Towel--Sending "clean" and "sparkling" Christmas wishes your way!

Oven mitt--For a "warm" hand of friendship just as you've given me, and the wish for a joyous season with love aplenty under the tree!

Bounty paper towels--This season may the "absorbing" spirit of Christ "blot" out your problems, "soak up" your sorrows, and "wipe" away your difficulties and may the new year bring you "bounteous" blessings all the year through!

Soup mix--We wish you a wonderful holiday "simmering" gently with love!

Fritos Scoops and bean dip--Here is the "scoop" for "bean" so nice. "Dip" into a fun holiday!

Batteries--"Twas this night before Christmas and Santa was worried, he had an emergency. Boy was he flurried! The power was off, and his flashlight was dead. He didn't buy "batteries" when Mrs. Santa said. We don't want you in ta similar plight, so we give you "batteries" to "lighten" your night! Merry Christmas to you. May you walk in the "light"!

Strainer--With the stress and "strain" of the holiday season we wanted to take the time to wish you a Merry Christmas!

Festive Holiday Wreath

I've been wanting to make a new holiday wreath for my front door for a few years now.
This year, I finally did it.
It's hard not to when you walk into Michael's and the wreaths are 50% off and all the picks are 60% off! Score!!

Also, I saw this red burlap at JoAnn's last week and COULD NOT pass it up. I sat there dreaming up projects I could do with it because well, quite frankly, I was NOT leaving the store without it!! :)
{In fact, I bought the rest of the fabric bolt! ha ha}

A holiday wreath turned out to be the perfect thing. . .

LOVE IT!

Now, what to do with the rest of that fancy red burlap?!
I've got a few ideas up my sleeve!  :)

Christmas Shirts

I'm a sucker for cutesie holiday shirts and as long as my kids are still young enough to wear them, they're gonna! :)

I made these fun Christmas shirts for my little kiddies this year. Who doesn't love a good holiday shirt, right?! They were so simple to make and took no time at all!

First we'll start with my Little Lady's ruffle tree shirt.

You'll need a plain white t-shirt and Christmas material. You could use as many different Christmas fabrics as you'd like but I found these two fabrics that went perfect together so I just stuck with two alternating ruffles.

Next I cut a 3" strip of each material for the ruffles. Sew the strips together, then open the seam and iron flat down the center. {see pic below}

Next step, the ruffles. After you've back stitched a few stitches to start on your ruffle piece, stop sewing with the needle still down in the material to hold it secure. Then, lift the presser foot, scrunch the material a little from the sides then put the presser foot back down and sew the scrunched section. Repeat this until your whole strip is ruffled, back stitching at the end.

Next, decide how long you want your tree "branches" on your shirt and cut your ruffle stripes to size--be very careful not to pull too hard on the ruffles once their cut. Then, back tack a few stitches at the ends of each "branch" so your ruffles don't come apart.

Place your finished ruffles on your shirt and pin them in place. When they're nice and secure where you want them, sew the ruffles on the shirt with your sewing machine. And that's it, you're done! Isn't it so cute?

I made a cute ruffle flower clip for my daughters hair with the extra ruffles I had using my trusty glue gun and an alligator clip. So cute!

Now, for the cute Snowman shirts I followed a way easy tutorial on Brassy Apple. I've already had so many comments on these cute shirts and better yet, my boys love their Snowman shirts!

Happy Holiday sewing!!

Flour and Sugar Containers

For the longest time I have been with out flour and sugar containers.  I found some at Ross and decided to add some vinyl to them.

Simple, but cute at the same time!

Summer PJ's into Winter PJ's

 I found a pair of pajama's on the clearance rack for my daughter for $3.25, but they were short sleeved and had a pair of shorts with it.  I decided to convert them into winter pajamas by cutting sleeves out of the shorts material and adding them to the shirt.  It worked great and is keeping my little Allee Bean warm a night!

Thankful Turkey Ideas

The first idea. . .

With Thanksgiving just around the corner we decided to help Allee understand what it means to be thankful by making a "Thankful Turkey". 

With some construciton paper, crayons, markers, and a glue stick you've got yourself a "Thankful Turkey".  We wrote on each feather the things that Allee are thankful for. 

 Her favorite part was coloring and gluing on the feathers.

She had to tape the turkey up on the door herself and added her own tape memento to the turkey's face.

Later I added the "Give Thanks" banner cut out from my Cricut to finish it off!

The second idea. . .

I found this fun 'Thankful Turkey Wreath' idea on pinterest. It was so fun and easy to make with my kids, they loved it! We decided to add a little something extra to our Turkey Wreaths though, and wrote things we are grateful for on the feathers.

All you need is a paper plate, construction paper, scissors, a marker, and glue. You can follow the tutorial on the pinterest link. Enjoy! :)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

DIY Children's Play Kitchen

For my daughter's 2nd birthday I really wanted to get her a play kitchen, but didn't want to pay the price!  I came across this child size, wood curio cabinet at a consignment store and the ideas started rolling.  Working for a local cabinet business I was lucky to get the knobs, corbels to add to the side, and a piece of new laminate for the top.  The other huge help was my Dad.  He helped me put it all together.

I started out by taking off all the doors, hinges and handles.  Then I sanded down everything and re-painted it all white using leftover paint from my parents house.  I picked up a can of silver spray paint for the appliance doors, black spray paint for the burners and handles, and hinges for the additional microwave door.  Doing some research online I found that using old cottage cheese container lids for the burners worked great! 

After spraying everything and putting it all back together we began to add the details...

We used knobs for the faucet handles, I got a small stainless steel bowl from the a local thrift store for the sink, re-used the black handles for the appliance handles, cut-out and spray painted a faucet for the sink, glued on the stove burners and added some black vinyl squares for windows on the appliances. 

A couple other fun additions were some salt and pepper shakers made out of old spools of thread.  I added a button on top and a "S" and "P" out of pink vinyl for the fronts.  I picked up a small chalkboard to add to the side at a local craft store and added some vinyl to it also.

This little kitchen turned out just how I had planned and my little daughter LOVES it!  I added up the total cost for the cabinet and materials and it came to $30.  What more can you ask for?  How great is that!!!

Child's Art Display

I've been wanting to make this for my daughters room to display all of her cute art projects for awhile now. I finely did it. It was SO quick and easy!

First, I made the rosette flowers that will cover the nails.

I used the same fabric as I did to make her bed pillows so it all coordinates together, remember these. . .

Next, I measured how far up the wall I wanted my art string to hang and marked it with a pencil on both sides. Then, I hammered a very small nail {wire nail} where I had marked.

*I chose to use a smaller nail because I didn't want the hole to be too big in case we change things up a bit in her room, later down the road.

After you've hammered your nail in, tie your string to the nail. I used a dab of hot glue when I tied the second knot, just to keep the knot from pulling apart once I hung my daughters art on it.

After you've got your string tied to both nails, dab a small drop of hot glue on the back of your rosette flower and slap it onto the nail head.

I originally bought regular wood clothes pins that I had planned on spray painting white, but, then look what I found on clearance at JoAnn's! Cute ladybug clothes pins... Hooray! They saved me some work and they look great in her room! :)

Next step, hang your child's favorite art and you're done!

I love how it turned out! Now we have somewhere special to display all my daughters cutest art projects instead of shoving them on the shelf in her closet!

Fall Banner

I felt like this little table needed just a little bit more color on the bottom shelf. So I made this simple banner to brighten it up a bit.

I picked three cute fall papers, cut out my flags and attached them onto my string with the stapler. So easy! This project seriously only took me about 10 minutes to complete. And I think it turned out quite cute if I do say so myself!

I've already been scoping out the Christmas paper, I just might make one to hang up for Christmas too!

Halloween Headband

Scraps of black, purple, orange, and green material rolled into flowers, then bunched together.  Add a jewel to the center of the purple flower, then sew them onto a stretchy headband and you've got yourself a Halloween Headband!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Halloween Stacker

Isn't it cute? And so easy too!

Here are all the supplies you'll need:
the wood is a 2x2 board, cut into a 10' block, 8' block and a 6' block. Black, orange and purple paint, paint brush, vinyl words, purple tulle, black wire ribbon and orange feathers. Oh and don't forget your hot glue gun, always a must when crafting! :)

First, paint your blocks and let them dry. Then stick your vinyl words on the blocks. Hot glue your blocks on top of each other just to make it a little more sturdy. Wrap the tulle around the sides of your stacker and tie at the top. Lay the black ribbon and another small piece of tulle over your knot and tie it again. Trim your tulle and black ribbon to your liking.  Hot glue the orange feathers in place and you're done!

So quick and easy!

Looks fabulous on any shelf in your home!

Happy Halloween!