A Very Scrappy Christmas

Pinterest is rekindling an old love of mine; paper crafting. I know I talk about Pinterest a lot, but it is so fun to bounce ideas around and be inspired. I feel like I do more projects using other people's ideas for inspiration than trying to come up with things on my own all of the time. Isn't the internet so great for sharing?

I saw this cute little Christmas countdown here and my sister in law and I each did a spin off of our own versions. Here's mine. Love this new little countdown!

Then while I still had all of my stuff out and my husband watched football, I made this photo cube cut from a piece of scrapbook I have held onto for a couple of years.  This project all came out of my ahead, but I love the ability to put older pictures on it as time goes on.

The pictures are from past years' Christmases except for the one of my daughter from this Christmas season.

And my sister in law sent me a pin she saw that inspired me to do this very similar version:

And last but not least, another Pinterest inspired craft. We don't have a chimney and aren't really into Santa, but I liked the wording of this and like all of the other projects here, already had the supplies on hand.

Hope some of these can inspire you guys too!

Do you DIY ornaments?

Pinterest has been inspiring me this year to do all sorts of fun ornaments for our little family tree! Here are some links to do your own DIY ornaments! I won't include pictures of each one here, but if you click on the links you can make see the cute ideas!


The cinnamon ones made the house smell so good. I put a few in the tree and also put some on gifts as toppers. From Martha Stewart

Picture from Martha Stewart

Yesterday, we baked salt dough ornaments so the kids can paint them this evening. Including the obligatory hand print one. Here is the recipe.

We also did these bird seed ones for outside. The kids love watching the birds eating their ornaments that they made for them! They are made with bird seed and gelatin. Recipe here.

And this clothespin nativity one is probably my favorite. There's a tutorial you can buy from Etsy, but I winged mine.

We did these glitter balls too. It was so easy and I had everything here on hand. Another great gift topper! I will post this picture, because I had put it on my instagram :) Here's the how-to

Super Hero Shirts

My boys love super heroes. Like kinda obsessed a bit. I love good deals. Like kinda obsessed a lot.

I was at Dollar Tree a few months back and picked up a blue shirt that totally screamed "Decorate me!". So I took it home, put it in the "to do" cabinet and moved on.

I knew I wanted to make my middle guy a Captain America shirt with it, but didn't know if I should do an applique or a freezer paper stencil.

Michael's had their felt sheets 5 for a dollar a couple of weeks ago, so I had picked up a nice big stack. I got to thinking that the felt would be a fun applique on the blue shirt and whipped on up really quick!

 I had a wooden star I used for a template and then randomly grabbed some bowls and lids in the kitchen and layered with fusible paper backed web. Sewed each layer on and sewed to the shirt. Super quick!

Which of course woke up the beast to create more. So back to dollar tree I went, picked up 7 more shirts and made 2 sets of 4 super hero shirts to give to my boys for christmas. The whole project (8 shirts) was under 10 dollars and I think thats a great deal compared to buying 1 store bought super hero shirt for more than that!

Make sure to buy a bit bigger and wash and dry them before beginning. They are actually decent quality shirts despite being from the dollar tree, but I am a tad nervous of how they will fit the boys since I wasn't able to try the shirts on them! And of course, colors were limited (I would have loved green and red)!


I washed and dried captain america after it was finished and the felt held up super duper, as you can see in the picture!


Not all of them came together as quickly as the captain america, I suggest just googling whatever logo you like, printing the image and cutting the pieces out to trace.

the other shirts were:

green lantern

avengers

the flash

fantastic four

x men

superman

batman

I can't wait for the boys to see them!

Advent Calendar

For years, I have wanted a really neat advent calendar. I love the idea of the kids getting little treats every day leading up to Christmas. There's something special about the month of December.

This year, we decided after looking around and trying to find a fun idea, to just build something with the stuff we had on hand. Wood scraps, scrapbook paper I had hoarded from a few years ago, muslin, paint from painting the hallway, and wrapping paper all came together to make this advent calendar.

My husband is a pretty handy guy! I showed him a picture of what I was thinking shape wise, then we cut everything out. I lined the back piece with wrapping paper and then as we painted the pieces, he assembled it all. 

I had this scrapbook paper here from a few years ago. I cut each day out and modge podged them onto poker chips I picked up at the thrift store, then glued them onto each compartment. I wanted the title to be seen by the little ones, so I put it toward the top of the shelf rather than the center. 

For the bags, I cut out a piece of muslin, folded it sewed the sides and made a draw string for it, then freezer paper stenciled each day on them in different fonts and colors. 

Each day has little treats, activities and small toys for them to receive as the days draw closer to Christmas. Can't wait to incorporate this into our family traditions!