Make Mini Trees From One Big Tree

Cathy has a very fun idea for an old Christmas tree - I get that it is now well past Christmas and you've taken all the decorations down at this point, but maybe you have an old tree you're planning on pitching and just haven't gotten around to yet? Instead of tossing, you might want to hold onto it and make this next year...

She removed the lower branches from her big artificial tree and turned them into 12 little trees for kids to decorate. Love this - what a great idea for a kid's Christmas party! Using a hack saw, she removed the branches and cut off the curve on the metal part of the branch, then inserted the branch upright in blocks of wood (Al drilled a hole in the middle of each block). The kids got to decorate their own tree using decorations Cathy bought at the dollar store. Economical, fun, and a great way of turning trash into treasure!

Makes me want to cut my tree apart and have a party 😉

Santa Ornament

Last year Mickey and I made these cute snowman ornaments (click here for that post) that are so simple and quick to make - if you're looking for a last minute gift or a gift topper check them out! Along the same line is this santa ornament - paint a black band around a clear ornament for his belt, then add a gold painted buckle topped with lots of gold glitter to make it pop. Remove the top of the ornament, cut strips of red and green paper about an inch wide (does not need to be exact, just strips of paper), curl them up and stick in the ornament opening, re-insert the ornament top.


These would also be a great craft if you have kids coming over for Christmas Eve or Day, set up a few supplies and turn them loose (I would definitely put an apron on them if they're all dressed pretty haha! Did you know that an old adult button up shirt works great to cover little kids clothes? Yup, just put it on them backwards and button up, roll up the sleeves).

tip:  find something to set the round ornament in
while you're working on it. putting it on this roll of
painters tape helps keep it from moving around.

Candy Cane Mice

I have made these for years but have no idea where the idea or pattern came from - look how cute they are (and they're very simple)!

                                  

You need felt in 2 colors, small googly eyes, something for the nose (I use mini pompoms), and candy canes.

Draw the pattern on cardboard or heavy cardstock, then cut out. It's an oval, 4" tall x 2 1/2" wide for the body, and the ears are 1 1/4" x 4" long, see picture for the shape. Trace the shapes onto felt and cut them out. Cut 2 (1/2") slits on the body where the candy cane will go, and 2 (1/2") slits on the head where the ear piece will go. Fold one end of the ears in so you can insert it into one of the slits and then feed it up thru the other slit. Glue on the eyes and nose. Insert candy cane thru the body for it's tail.

on the left is the pattern, in the middle is the cut out felt shapes.
note where the slits are, they don't have to be perfect but you
get the idea where they should approximately go. the vertical
slits on the narrower side of the body are for the ears,
the horizontal slits on the bottom is where the candy cane goes. 

feed the ear piece  down thru one slit then back up thru the other

insert the candy cane so it's on the underside of
the mouse. 

Kids Christmas Craft Day...Short-cut Gingerbread Houses

I love to have "kids craft day"! Invite as many (or few!) kids as you want, get 2 or 3 fun crafts around (depending on the craft I'll usually get the supplies ready so they are ready to assemble - you don't want them getting bored or bogged down with hard/time consuming tasks if they're young), set everything up so it's easy to see what they are making, and then turn them loose!

These are not current pictures but I still wanted to share this idea with you if you're looking for a fun kid craft  - make tiny gingerbread houses! And I have an easy "cheat" for you instead of making the houses the traditional way...cover small milk or juice boxes with store bought frosting and break graham crackers to cover. I don't have a finished photo, but you can see how the boxes look covered up before they decorated them in these photos. I set up a table with all kinds of different candies and decorations in small bowls, divide frosting up into individual containers so each kid gets one, and let them go to town. Once the box is covered with graham crackers they can attach candies with additional frosting. I don't use my yummy homemade frosting for this project, no reason to "waste" the good stuff :). This was so much fun!

Christmas Bell Door Hanger

My friend Janis came over for crafting at Day Camp and we made these cute door hangers out of a bell and a bird...

I found large bells at the craft store, not as big as I was hoping but they're pretty large. We ran a ribbon thru the loop on the top of the bell and tied a knot, leaving long tails - I had this bright green on hand, you could use narrower ribbon or patterned ribbon or twine...use your imagination and whatever you have on hand. 

 Then we raided the Christmas decorating box and came up with some pieces of wired garland, berry picks, cardinals (cardinals just seem like Christmas to me - did you notice my Thanksmas/Christmas tree was decorated with cardinals and poinsettias?), silver leaves...just use whatever you can find. Little pine cones or shells would be cute - whatever will fit on the top of the bell.

After tying on the ribbon, just build up what's going on the bell, hot gluing different things until you like how it looks. For this one I used a berry pick, a 4" piece of garland, a couple silver leaves, and the bird on top. That's about it for directions haha, just hot glue things to the top of the bell and hang it up!

I used one of the dollar store wine glasses
on my craft table as a holder for the bell
 so it stayed put while I hot glued stuff to it,
hands free while hot gluing is always a
good thing...

Paper Christmas Lights Garland

Shout out to my friend LeDonna for this cute idea - she saw it and sent a picture to me, and I agree with her that it's a fun easy Christmas craft for young and old alike :). Thanks L!

Because I'm a little bit of a perfectionist I didn't want to just wing it if there was someone who had actually figured out exactly how to make these somewhere online, so of course I googled and found a few different ones. I followed these directions and they worked perfectly.

Supplies are few:
- cardstock in a few different colors for the lights, and gray for the tops
- hole punch
-ruler and scorer (scoring isn't necessary but it did make the tops fold easily and look neat)
-glue stick or adhesive of your choice (I used my Stampin' Up rolling glue thingy)
- thick twine to string the lights on, I used about 48"

Directions:
Cut gray cardstock into 1 1/4"x  4" strips
Cut colored cardstock into 1" x 8 1/2" strips
(note I made 15 lights, so I cut 15 gray strips and 15 assorted colors strips).

Score the gray cardstock every 1/2". You could also just fold it neatly every 1/2" and run your fingernail along the edge to give it a sharp crease if you don't have a scorer. 

Make a dot at 1 1/4" and 2 3/4" in (that turns out to be in the middle of the 3rd space and the 6th space, see my picture - I stopped making a dot after the first couple and just eyeballed it). Hole punch on the marks. Fold the paper on the score lines, glue both ends 1/2" flap to each other making a circle.

To make the bulb: fold a colored strip in half. Pinch the two ends together and push on your palm or table to get a slight bend in the sides of the bulb. Holding the ends together hole punch thru both layers about 1/4" down in the center.

To string them into garland, put the top of a colored strip into a gray circle matching up the holes. Run twine thru all 4 holes. Then continuing adding the lights until you have it as long as you want, making sure to line up the bulbs with the glued gray part all facing the same way. Spread them evenly on the twine.

One thing I did I have a second of trouble with is the twine fraying and becoming hard to fit thru the holes - I wrapped a small piece of tape around the end and that solved the problem. 

Glitter Words

Glitter and glue. Glitter and glue. I do love those words :). I also love this very simple decorating idea of tracing on some letters and glittering them up! You can obviously use whatever word you want (as long as you can fit it on your paper), choose your color, font and frame - totally up to you.

I did "NOEL", mostly because it's short and less work haha. I guess JOY might have been even easier...I also played with "MERRY" but didn't like how I traced the letters on the paper so didn't finish that one. Am using it though to show you some of the process.

Supplies needed:
- frame
- 1 piece of letter size cardstock, cut to fit in the frame
- chunky glitter, craft paint, marker (I did the same color for all of those)
- foam or small paintbrush
- craft glue (I used white glue that dries clear)

Print out the word you want to display using a bold font, size them to fit on the paper (mine is 8x10). Cut out the letters, play with them on the cardstock to see how they look best then trace around the letters with a marker. Either lightly paint in the letters (don't make it too thick or the paper will buckle) or color in with a marker. Spread glue very thinly over all of the letters, all the way to the edge trying not to leave any gaps - then sprinkle on the coarse glitter. If you do have any gaps in the glitter just dab in more glue and sprinkle some more. I sprinkled it on very thickly then tapped it off into a pie pan to catch and reuse the glitter that didn't stick.

Let it dry and place carefully in your frame, try not to move it too much before getting the frame together because the glitter will spread around on the picture - I tried for no glitter anywhere except in the letters to give it a clean look.








For "MERRY" I traced the letters with a green marker and planned to fill in with green and green glitter but then decided I didn't love my placement....

"NOEL" turned out good all silver though!

Play around with this idea - I chose words to glitter and frame but you could do a symbol (star, candle, tree...), handprints for baby's first Christmas, paw print for puppy's first Christmas haha, use your imagination!

I am working on a little Christmas arrangement on a table
placed behind our couch. I like it so far...

Snowman Ornament

December 1st! Time to start thinking Christmas decorations :) My niece Mickey and I made these adorable snowman ornaments out of a few simple supplies, easy and inexpensive.

All you need are plain clear ornaments (easy to find right now at the craft store), white paper, craft paint for face, and maybe some pretty ribbon to tie on the top if you want.

We painted black eyes, dark red dots for mouth, and an orange glittery "carrot" nose. Cut the paper into long thin strips (ours are 3/4" x 11" but you can do any size you want), roll the strips up into tight coils and insert into the top of the ornament (remove the hanger part first obviously). Shake the ornament around a bit to loosen the strips if they don't on their own, keep adding strips until it looks good to you. Put the hanger back on and tie a big pretty ribbon thru the hanger loop (or just hang up as is!). So cute!

Personalized Tote Bags

For Thanksmas I made everyone a personalized tote bag in place of a traditional stocking - instead of names I used a picture that made me think of them. 

Picked up some plain tote bags at the craft store (3 for $8 before my coupon) and fabric transfer paper for light and dark fabrics. Just like the Halloween shirts I did for my niece, I downloaded images from my computer and followed the instructions on the transfer paper to iron onto each tote. A very simple project that everyone seemed to enjoy and I had fun creating (and filling!).