Tag: Christmas

Thumbprint Christmas Lights Gifts

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I’m super-excited about how easy these THUMBPRINT CHRISTMAS LIGHTS were to do and how cute the finished products turned out! L and I made pictures for her grandparents and this adorable little onsie for her baby sister. I think we’ll be making more of these shirts this coming week…one for L and some for her friends too. The THUMBPRINT CHRISTMAS LIGHTS are just too cute!

 

 

Materials needed (shirts):

  • tshirt
  • acrylic paints
  • cardboard (old cereal box works)
  • Sharpie marker, black

Materials needed (card or picture):

  • paper
  • acrylic paints
  • Sharpie marker, black

First, when making prints onto clothing, put a piece of cardboard up through the middle of the shirt. A collapsed cereal box works great for little ones. This will keep any of the paint or marker from seeping through to the other side.

Next, draw a curly line across the shirt with the black Sharpie.

With the paint, help your little one make thumbprints along the line. The thumbprints shouldn’t all touch the line, though it’s okay if a few do.

 

 

 

Once the paint has dried completely, go back with the Sharpie and draw 2, 3, or 4 lines under each thumbprint to make them look like a string of Christmas lights.

So stinkin’ cute! Huh? WB approves!

 

To make a Christmas card or picture, simply do the same on a piece of card stock paper.

 

 

What else could you put THUMBPRINT CHRISTMAS LIGHTS on? A tablecloth, napkins, a small board of wood, little boy’s pants, boxer shorts for dad, ball ornaments…so many possibilities!!! Enjoy!

DIY Semisoft Honeysuckle Soap

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I have to start by telling you that I’m not a fan of smelly soaps, smelly candles. I don’t even own perfume. This honeysuckle soap is perfect though…its mild smell reminds me of childhood summers, playing outside in the woods, drinking the lil drops of honeysuckle nectar pretending it was a real treat. Just about everyone I give this soap to has asked for the recipe. It’s just that good!

Ingredients:

  • 1 bar of unscented, white soap (my favorite to use is Dove for sensitive skin)
  • 1 1/2 cups boiling water
  • 1/2 to 1 tsp honeysuckle oil (I buy mine at the Handworks Gallery in Winchester, Va.)
  • 4 drops red food coloring
  • 10 drops yellow food coloring

Tools needed:

  • blender
  • cutting board and knife
  • cooking spray
  • paper towel
  • 12 little jars and lids
  • hot glue gun and glue (optional, to secure lids)

First, put the water on to boil. While waiting for the water to boil, cut your bar of soap up into small pieces.

Place the soap into your blender. (Have the lil kids help with that step!) Pour in the boiling (or nearly boiling) water. Add the honeysuckle oil and food coloring.

 

 

Blend for 15-30 seconds. Your blender will fill to the top with foamy, lotion-like soap.

 

Prepare your jars with a quick spray of cooking oil. Follow by wiping the spray around the inside of the jar briefly with a paper towel.

Carefully pour the soap concoction into each little jar. Set the jars aside for a few hours before putting the lids on. The soap will firm up a bit, but will continue to have a creamy, semi-soft texture. (Most canning jars come with the lids in two pieces. Just use a hot glue gun to secure the lids together if you like. Don’t use super-glue or crazy glue!!! I made that mistake once and all the soap ended up smelling like toxic glue! Ick!)

Stick a little label on the lid; tie a ribbon or string around the jar and you have the perfect “anytime gift.” Enjoy!

 

DIY Vintage Postcard Christmas Garland

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Anybody that’s been to our house knows that I love garlands and the Christmas season is just another excuse for me to make and display more! Our POSTCARD CHRISTMAS GARLANDS are some of the quickest and easiest to make, plus they add a lot of character to the room. We have two postcard garlands in our house…one hangs across a wide doorway and the other under a mantel…both are made a little differently.

 

The first VINTAGE POSTCARD GARLAND is one that I made new this year. I found a huge collection of postcards at a local antique store a couple weeks ago and knew that I had to do something with them. I carefully went through the postcards, all from the early 1900s, and picked out some of my favorites…some I chose because of the bright and colorful picture on the front and others because of the endearing (or humorous) message written on the back.

 

 

Since these postcards were old I didn’t want to damage them in any way, so I decided to clip them to a vintage-looking string with mini-clothespins. It was that easy. You can add an old ornament or a prism, as we did, in the middle as well. I just love ours!

The second POSTCARD GARLAND is one that I made a few years ago out of new, but old looking postcards. Have you ever read any of the “Flower Fairy” books by Cicely Mary Barker? The illustrations are just beautiful!

I once found these postcards with the “Flower Fairies” depicted on them and knew it’d be perfect for a garland. No, these fairies aren’t necessarily Christmassy, but I like things a little different, a little unpredictable. This garland celebrates all things magical about the Christmas season. To make this garland, I punched holes in the tops of the postcards and strung them up. On the ends I tied a few strips of fabric, just some scraps out of my scrap pile. And that’s it! Simple, but definitely cute and fun!

 

Enjoy!

3 Secrets for Decorating Your Christmas Tree

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I always feel like our Christmas tree is a miniature version of the one I grew up with…I’m sure as our ornament collection grows over the years, so will our tree. Many of our ornaments are ones that hung on my family’s tree when I was a kid and hold such special memories to me. Isn’t that one of the best, yet bittersweet parts of Christmas…all those memories? The exciting thing is that now we have the chance to make memories with our own children…some new and some borrowed from our own childhoods. I feel like our Christmas tree is just that!

 

Popcorn Garland

My parents’ Christmas tree still dons the garland my brothers, sisters and I made when we were kids some 20-30 years ago. If you make it right and store it well, it will obviously last a very long time.

 

 

One of the most important tips is using plain popcorn, popped in a hot air popcorn machine. Also, if you plan ahead and have the time, letting your popcorn sit overnight and become slightly stale helps in stringing it…it won’t break as easily. To string the popcorn just use a piece of thread (or dental floss) and a sewing needle. You don’t have to make one super long string at once, make 4 or 5 foot long ones and tie them together.

 

 

When storing the popcorn, first start by adding a bright ribbon to both ends of your garland. That will make finding the end easier next year. Find a medium-large container and coil it around inside the container, much like you do a garden hose. We use a plastic tupperware-like container, but a large popcorn tin works very well too.

 

 

Tree Skirt

If you’re like me and like a homey, vintage looking tree skirt you don’t have to look far. I bought this cheap Christmas blanket one year at a thrift store and we wrap and fold it around the bottom of our tree. I do wish it was actually a quilt and not a look-alike-quilt, but nobody would ever know the difference and it achieves the look I’m going for. You could do the same with a table cloth or any large piece of fabric.

 

 

Tree Topper

Don’t be afraid to use a non-traditional tree topper. I love decorating for Christmas, but even more I love adding magical little twists to our decorations…keeping things unpredictable and slightly quirky. I found this glittery butterfly clip at a local floral shop years ago and attached some florist wire to the back to help secure it to the tree. So much fun!

 

 

 

 

Happy decorating everyone!

DIY No-Sew Rag Garland

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Out of all the garlands I’ve made over the years, the RAG GARLAND has always been my favorite! It’s bright, colorful, super-easy to make and it looks fantastic inside or outside, day and night!

 

The RAG GARLAND is fun for the holidays, but can be made and used for any time of the year. I put ours up for Christmas, but I didn’t make the color scheme ultra-Christmassy…I love color and can’t seem to limit myself to just red and green! The best place to find cheap and funky fabric is at antique stores, thrift stores or flea markets…any leftovers can be used to make lil rag tag skirts or tutus for your little ones.

Materials needed:

  • fabric
  • scissors
  • string of lights

First, cut your fabric into strips about 2 inches wide and about 12 inches long.

 

Next, tie each fabric strip around the string of lights with a single, basic knot. If the fabric is blank on the underside, just fold the fabric over before knotting it. Repeat until the string of lights is covered.

 

 

 

 

This is a garland we made for Steamys, a local coffee shop/book store/gift shop in town. We used vintage fabrics to make it extra funky!

 

 

Happy garland making!!!

 

Gnome Village Advent Calendar

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I’m so super-excited about our GNOME VILLAGE ADVENT CALENDAR this year! Starting on the 1st of December the kids will lift up a gnome home each day…the house numbers will correspond with the day. Underneath each house will be a little surprise: a hershey kiss, a candy cane, a miniature ornament for the tree, or a special message. The “special messages” may include,

  • “Make cookies for a neighbor.”
  • “Make Christmas cards for friends and family.”
  • “Leave little notes written in chalk around the neighborhood.”
  • “Make a Gingerbread House today!”

 

 

Making the GNOME VILLAGE was a little time consuming, but very easy to make. You could always make your gnome houses very simply with a standard door, windows and house number and they’d look just as cute! Just mix up the colors for some variations!

Materials needed:

  • mulit-colored card stock (or you could use toilet paper rolls)
  • doilies
  • markers and/or paint
  • glitter
  • Elmer’s glue
  • hot glue gun
  • sequins, stickers, etc (optional)

First, cut the card stock in half horizontally, then take about 3 inches off the end. I like using card stock instead of regular construction paper because it doesn’t fade as easily and it’s sturdier. I’m hoping to use our GNOME VILLAGE year after year!

After your paper is cut, it’s time to decorate! We decorated some of our gnome houses with markers, some with paint and embellished them with sequins, jewels and glitter. Have fun and be creative! They certainly don’t all have to be Christmas-y, just colorful!

 

 

 

Once the houses have been colored and painted, shape the paper into little tubes and use a hot glue gun to secure them in place.


 

 

 

 

To make the gnome house roofs, make a cut to the center of a doily. (I actually used two doilies stacked for a sturdier roof.) Overlap the ends and glue into place…should make a little rooftop-cone.

 

To add snow to the roofs, very gently roll each roof in Elmer’s glue and then sprinkle with glitter. This was definitely L’s favorite part!

 

 

Using the hot glue gun again, attach each rooftop to a house. All done! Pretty easy, huh?

 

We plan to display our GNOME VILLAGE ADVENT CALENDAR on one of our mantels this year…with a little snow, mini-pine trees, and a few gnomes it will surely become one of our favorite Christmas decorations for years to come! So. Much. Fun! Enjoy!

 

 

Homemade Granola (Gluten Free)

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Is there anything better this time of year than HOMEMADE GRANOLA, fresh out of the oven? It’s warm, a little chewy, and crunchy too. This granola is sweet and a bit salty, with a just a hint of cinnamon. Oh, how I love homemade granola!

I came up with this granola recipe years ago (a combination of Alton Brown’s, my mom’s, plus a few of my own additions) and I’ll warn you, it’s highly-addictive. The great thing about granola is that you can add or substitute some ingredients to make it your own. You could switch out some of the nuts with walnuts or peanuts, add a pinch of nutmeg or pumpkin pie spice. I like to use Pure Maple Syrup with this recipe, but if I have Apple Syrup from the farmer’s market on hand, it’s a delicious substitution! Granola is a wonderful gift for family and friends and this recipe makes plenty enough for two families. After it’s cooled completely just put half of the granola in a large mason jar with a ribbon tied around the lid and it’s ready to share! Enjoy!

 

Ingredients:

  • 6 cups of oats (I use Bob’s Red Mill, Gluten-Free, Rolled Oats)
  • 1 cup almonds, sliced
  • 1 cup pecan pieces
  • 1 cup cashews, raw
  • 1/2 cup sunflower seeds
  • 1 1/2 cups coconut
  • 3/4 cup brown sugar
  • 3/4 cup maple syrup
  • 1/2 cup vegetable oil
  • 1 1/2 tsp salt
  • cinnamon
  • honey
  • 1 cup raisins
  • 1 cup dried cranberries

 

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F.

 

In a large bowl, mix together the oats, almonds, pecans, cashews, sunflower seeds, coconut, and brown sugar.

 

In a smaller bowl (or in a measuring cup!) mix together the maple syrup, vegetable oil and salt. If you have kids in the kitchen, they’ll enjoy seeing how the syrup and oil separate in the glass measuring cup before you mix it all up!

 

Pour the syrup-oil-salt mixture overtop the oats and nuts. Mix until everything is evenly and thorough coated. Spread the granola out into a large baking pan, or what I prefer…a large, non-stick roasting pan used usually for cooking turkeys or hams. Place in the oven. The total cooking time will be about 2.5 hours for such a large amount of granola, mixing every 15-30 minutes with a large spoon or spatula. Here is the schedule I tend to follow:

 

Cook 30 min. Mix.

Cook 30 min. Mix again.

Cook 30 min. Mix. Add HONEY in a zigzag, all over pattern.

Cook 15 min. Mix. Add more HONEY and sprinkle CINNAMON on top too.

Cook 15 min. Mix.

Cook 15 min. Mix.

Cook 15 min. Mix. Enjoy some hot and fresh!

Allow to cool for 15 min. Mix in RAISINS and DRIED CRANBERRIES.

 

 

Enjoy!!! And share!!!