Santa's Wreath Making Workshop

This (a) is probably not something I'll ever be able to do at home, (b) is so cool that I wanted to share how it's done with you, and (c) puts my baggie wreath, tinsel wreath, sucker wreath, spooky hand wreath, etc. to shame!! This is serious wreath making right here...wouldn't it be great to have your own Santa's wreath making workshop at your house?!!

LeDonna took pictures for me (and you!) when she went to make wreaths at Dick and Becky's workshop where they make these gorgeous evergreen wreaths every year; she gets to go help out and make some too...we've been lucky enough to be on the receiving end of one of these wreaths every December for a few years now and it's something I really look forward to - I'll be bummed if she decides to stop making and sending them (I save a place for where it's going to be hung before I even know if she is sending one hahaha!).

You get an idea of what the process is by looking at the pictures - I asked what the thing is called that is hooked onto the table and attaches the evergreens to the wreath (it looks like a big stapler), she said
"Basically it is a big clamp!  There is a foot petal that we press down and that clamps the wires on wreath around each bunch of greens. There is one pic that shows the whole table and you see the foot pedal".

They gather a lot (seriously - A LOT - look at the piles!) of different kinds of evergreen clippings; trim the pine pieces into the right sizes, and make small bundles that they then lay, one at a time, on these special wreath frames that have small metal spokes every few inches around the edge; stepping down on the foot petal works the clamp on the table that bends the spokes around the bundles and holds them in place. They keep adding bundles and clamping in place until the whole wreath is filled in. To finish - they add a big, pretty bow and (most importantly) send to very,very lucky people :)

I really do love these wreaths, and had no idea how much work was involved - receiving one of these  beautiful, fresh, handmade wreaths has always been a joy, and now I'm even MORE appreciative :) Thanks for sharing your Santa Workshop pictures LeDonna, so interesting!

Around the Campfire (week 49)

Dear Campers ~

Here's the weekly recap of what happened at camp this week!

Posts you might have missed ~

12/2: around the campfire (week 48)
12/3: snowman tealights
12/4: snowman wreath
12/5: snowman ornaments
12/6: snowman treat holder
12/7: pumpkin snowman
12/8: snowman place setting (and some Christmas tree light tips!)

What's Cooking ~

• baked chicken and stuffing (I put the chicken in a casserole dish, spread with a little cream of mushroom soup, topped with a box of stuffing made according to the package directions, bake 350' for about 1/2 hour)
• grilled pork tenderloin, mushroom ravioli, roasted asparagus
• grilled tuna, greek salad (tomato, cuke, avocado, feta, roasted garbanzo beans)
• unstuffed chicken cordon bleu, roasted green beans, drop biscuits (will share recipe soon!)

Christmas is coming so fast! Next week I'll share some last-minute gifts you still have time to make (they are quick which helps!), a recipe or two, and anything else that I have time for when an idea pops up and I have to make it! Have a good week :)

Sincerely ~

your camp counselor, Jill

Snowman Place Setting and Christmas Tree Lights

I posted this back in 12/2015, since I've done 5 snowman things this week I thought I'd finish it up with a snowman repeat - isn't this fun? Super easy, and so cute.

I'm actually making another snowman craft but I didn't get it done in time to post today - mostly because my little Christmas tree's lights quit working last night and even though I was tempted to just go buy a new pre-lit tree I thought I'd try re-stringing it instead....and it took me most of the day! I took all the ornaments and stuff (and there's a lot of stuff) off, and then figured out how to remove the existing non-working lights - and in the process learned a couple very helpful tree-lighting tips!

Maybe you already knew this, but I didn't...the lights that were used to string the tree are icicle lights. Such a good idea that I wish I would have known years ago - the part of the light strand that hangs down and would form the icicle if you were hanging them as intended (for example across a railing or balcony), is what they used for each branch. One icicle is wound around one branch, repeating with the next icicle and next branch. Genius.

The other thing I discovered, and I wonder if these are for sale, is small plastic clasps shaped like a horseshoe were used to anchor the end of each icicle farthest out on the branch - I've never noticed them before and I'm going to see if I can find some for the next time I want to put lights up (I have string lights on my big bamboo/palm/whatever it is tree that is usually in my living room - I love having the little twinkle lights on all year 'round - the plastic clip things would be really helpful for something like that).

It wasn't what I planned to do today, but a couple good things came out of it and I now have a fully lit and decorated tree (can you believe Dave thought we should just leave the tree without lights up until after Christmas and deal with it then? What's the point of a Christmas tree if I can't have twinkle lights? Eye roll) that I will enjoy looking at for the rest of December.

Pumpkin Snowman

My sis posted back in October about how to preserve pumpkins to make a snowman in December (actually she didn't know how and questioned how to keep them from either rotting, or  being smashed by local bratty hoodlums haha click here for that post). She also (heavily) hinted at having someone else (me) make her said snowman from pumpkins. Even tho her begging annoys me, I did (sigh)  make her a pumpkin snowman (you knew I would) using - wait for it - just like I hinted at - artificial pumpkins.

Key note: I said back then that I'd pick up some cheap-after Halloween-fake-discount artificial pumpkins to make a snowman in December but guess what? Yeah, no fake pumpkin deals to be found. Ok, if you want to get technical, all the craft stores advertised "deals", but when I went to get them, no one...seriously annoying...actually had the fake white pumpkins available. Ergh. I'll give you a visual - me digging around in 3 giant bins labeled "70% off pumpkins" outside of Michaels...literally on tip toes (no short jokes please) trying to get to the bottom of these big deep bins, just to confirm there were no perfect white fake pumpkins for me to buy. Thanks for that, stupid bait-and-switch store.

Jill, being the crafty one, improvised. I found a fall garland on sale (70% off) that was all leaves and vines and gourds and other random shooty stuff that was supposed to be natural but nothing I've ever seen in nature....that had 3 gourd/pumpkin looking things attached that could be used for a mini pumpkin snowman, so that's what I did. And check it out - gotta say, super cute.

The 3 gourd/pumpkin things were different colors - orange, light green, and cream. Since I wanted a snowman, it was an easy fix to just paint all 3 of them white using basic acrylic craft paint. The eyes and mouth are flat black beads that I hot-glued on; the nose is a triangle of orange pipe cleaner, a button on the middle pumpkin, and insert a couple sticks for the arms; finish with a wired ribbon for the scarf.

I looked for a pre-made top hat thinking I could save a bit of time, but of course - because I was looking - I couldn't find anything the right size. Whatever...it's easy to just make one from black cardstock. Cut a circle for the base, a rectangle coiled strip for the hat, and then - stay with me - I had this button stack leftover from a craft Brooke and I did two years ago at Halloween (click here for the post) which is a couple buttons layered together and tied with a piece of black and white twine - that worked perfectly for the top of the hat. You can just do another smaller circle of black cardstock for the top of the hat if you don't have a random button stack tied with twine on hand :) Oh, and I added a rim of green metallic pipe cleaner to jazz up the hat - you can decorate it with whatever you got!

I did attach a circle of cardboard (top of an empty ribbon spool) to the bottom pumpkin to make the snowman more stable - depending how flat your pumpkins are you might want to do this. If you have a flat base it might stand up straight on its own - play around with it and see if it's level enough without an additional base to make it sturdy.

Snowman Treat Holder

Ronda gave me this treat holder and I didn't realize how cool it is until I opened it up - inside a cute double sided decorative paper pouch is a clear bag filled with marshmallows. When you lift the top flap, the inside bag opens and you can stick your hand right in the bag for the treats (in this case she has marshmallows in the bag - which is perfect with the snowman stamped image and paper of course!!). Another idea could be rudolph or reindeer paper with red hot candies in the bag.

This isn't hard to do at all, but my describing it is probably more confusing than it needs to be...hopefully the photos will help make things clearer!

Start with a 12" x 3" strip of Stampin' Up decorative paper, fold the bottom up 4.5" and the top down 2.5". You now have 3 sections of the strip - the two end sections fold together for the front of the holder, and the middle 5" of paper is now the back of the holder. Attach a small clear cellophane bag that is approx. 4"h x 3"w in between the bottom folded up flap and the middle 5" section. Fill the bag with whatever goodies you want, fold the top section down over the bottom section (enclosing the goodie bag) and stick in place with the adhesive of your choice - glue dots, glue stick, tape, whatever.

Did that make sense? Summary - fold a strip of paper in thirds and glue a baggie inside!

To finish the holder, Ronda punched out a red 2.75" decorative circle and a 2.5" white circle; stamped a cute snowman in the center of the white circle, then stuck the white circle on top of the red circle. She left the snowman plain for me to fill in, but I haven't had time to do that yet! Stamp and decorate any image you like, this snowman is especially fitting because the paper is snowmen and trees. Coordinating the stamp with the paper is an extra little creative touch. Stick the snowman circle overtop of where the front flaps meet.

One note - if you are using decorative paper that has a direction on it make sure it's going the right way when you fold the strip...otherwise when you open the package the image (in this example the trees) might be upside down. End of the world? No. Not as cute? Yes.

Snowman Ornaments

Third super easy snowman craft this week - did you see the tealights and baggie wreath? So easy. And these, just as simple and quick!

I'm pretty sure you don't even need instructions - and you certainly don't have to do them like Janis and I did (we had craft day yesterday, my sister's worst nightmare LOL, but so much fun to craft with a friend!); we sort of made this up as we went.

Clear plastic ornaments filled with tiny white styrofoam balls; add eyes and mouth with a black sharpie; glue on a little piece of orange pipe cleaner for the nose. We gave our snowmen ear muffs similar to how I did the tealights - run a short pipe cleaner thru the ornament hanger and hot glue the ends in place. We found these super fluffy full chenille stems at the craft store (initially we thought we'd make the whole ear muff out of them but it was a little too fluffy), curl up a little piece into a circle and hot glue over the ends of the regular pipe cleaner where the ears would be...if a snowman had ears that is ;)

click here for another snowman ornament idea from Dec. '16:



12.5.17: gift wrap idea - add a pocket
12.5.16: white pumpkin deer
12.5.15: Macey's hand painted wine glasses

Snowman Wreath

Remember the baggie wreath from Halloween (food baggies tied onto a wire circle)? I turned it into this snowman wreath by attaching a wood sign and some silver snowflakes that I found at the dollar store. So my original-cheap-easy baggie wreath that cost a couple bucks is now a cheap and easy snowman wreath that cost less than 5 dollars. And it's super cute. Can't ask for much more than that from a snowman wreath! :)

one year ago: wine cork Christmas trees
two years ago: pasta with roasted tomatoes and chicken sausage
three years ago: contact paper dog house

Tealight Snowpeople

Super fast, super easy, super cute. And not made out of a pinecone - it's a brand new week people :)

You'll need:

• flameless tealights (check the dollar store)
• ribbons
• small pompoms and a pipe cleaner (if making earmuffs) 
• black cardstock (if making the top hat)
• black and orange sharpie
• hot glue

Using the black sharpie, dot the eyes and mouth on the top of the tealight. Make sure the bulb is tipped up before you add the face, it looks more nose-like that way (see pic).

For the earmuff snowman: cut a small piece of pipe cleaner, bend slightly to curve so it fits the top of the tealight, glue just the ends to the tealight. Glue a pompom over each end of the pipe cleaner. Run a long piece of thin ribbon (or twine, string, whatever you want to hang it with) thru the middle of the pipe cleaner (that's why you don't glue the entire thing down, just the ends) and tie on. 

For the top hat snowman: cut a rectangle (just eyeball it to fit the tealight) and a thin strip out of the black cardstock, glue the strip onto the bottom of the rectangle for the brim. Add a piece of rickrack ribbon (or decorate however you want!). Glue the hat directly to the front of the tealight above the eyes. Glue a long piece of thin ribbon (or whatever you want to hang it with) to the back of the tealight.

For both: color the bulb in using an orange sharpie. You can use an orange marker but the color might not stay on as well. Attach a thicker piece of ribbon for a scarf - for the earmuff one I used a glue dot to hold the crisscrossed ends together, then glue the inside of the back of the scarf to the back of the tealight, it didn't need any glue in the front. For the top hat one I just twisted a piece of ribbon so the right sides were both facing (sort of like a breast cancer awareness ribbon, it has a small loop in the middle) and glued to the back. 

see how the bulb is tipped up at the end? you
want it facing this way when you add the face. 

snowman on the left is not lit up so you can see the difference. 

source: onelittleproject

One year ago: broccoli beef recipe
Three years ago: how to make a wine cork trivet

Around the Campfire (week 48)

Dear  Campers ~

I'm late getting the weekly recap of things that happened on the blog this week to you, my computer is driving me crazy and won't let me do anything quickly! I type for a bit, and then it freezes...and then I wait...I have to wait so long that I've started reading my book in between freezing up and working - argh!!!

Anyway...onto a quick recap - it's going to be quick 'cuz I'm typing as fast as I can hoping to get it all done and post before another "episode"!

Posts you might have missed ~

11/25: around the campfire (week 47)
11/26: Miss Lori's gossamer wreath
11/27: pinecone angel
11/28: Cathy's rolled oats cake
11/29: pinecone elves
11/30: pinecone gnome
12/1: pinecone snowman

What's Cooking ~

• grilled swordfish tacos, coleslaw, tortillas
• grilled steak, scalloped potatoes, roasted green beans
• grilled pork chops, butternut squash risotto, peas
• baked seasoned salmon, sticky rice, steamed spinach
• grilled bone-in chicken breasts, roasted baby potatoes, roasted asparagus

Ok, that's it while the computer is working, I'm not going to push my luck! Now I'm off to decorate the house for Christmas. See you next week - so far I don't have any plans for more pinecone crafts ;) but there will be lots of other easy and fun projects and food I'm sure!! Bye!

Sincerely ~

Jill, your camp counselor and frustrated computer user

Pinecone Snowman

Last pinecone craft for a while...or until I think of something else hahah...this easy snowman. A few of these would be cute lined up on a windowsill, tabletop, shelf, whatever - or as ornaments if you added a hanger.

If you read my posts on how to make an elf, or a gnome, (click for those posts), then I don't even have to give you directions for this little cutie! Make the same hat, adding a mini pompom to the tip, and bend it so it flops down a bit. Add a bit of fuzzy pillow stuffing or cotton ball to the brim. Make his face using sharpie markers; tie a piece of ribbon around his neck for a scarf; hot glue a couple twigs in the side for arms - adding a couple beads to the ends of the sticks if ya want.

Oh, this one is a tiny bit different in that I turned the pinecone the other way this time, so the head is glued onto the flat bottom of the pinecone. Easy!