My favorite Christmas Present (that I gave) December 29, 2009

I love to see the reactions of the gifts that we give during Christmas.  You know the feeling.  You put so much thought, so much effort, so much consideration, and sometimes so much crafting into your gifts.  Will they love them?  Will they be disappointed?

I made several of the gifts that I gave this year.  That is always nerve wracking for me.  It is hard to not get your feelings hurt when the gift you worked so hard on is not loved as much by the recipient as it is by you.  Happily, I can say that everyone loved my gifts and appreciate the hard work that was put in to  those gifts.

My favorite gift this season was for my sister in law.  I made her a beautiful family sign.  I was worried though.  She can buy anything that she wants.  Money is no object.  Would this be good enough?  It was!!!  She was thrilled.  I think it is the best and most loved gift that I have given her over the last 16 years.  She gushed and smiled and showed it off.  I gushed and smiled and felt so wonderful inside.  I spent exactly $1 on this gift.

Let me say that I know what the real meaning of Christmas is.  We have all been given the greatest gift of all.  A relationship with our Heavenly Father through Jesus Christ who was born to set us all free from our sins.  I know it isn’t about the gifts.  That is exactly why I wanted each gift that I made to have a special meaning to the recipient.  I wanted my gifts to convey the love that I feel for each person that received that gift.  I think I was successful in that.

Here is the beautiful family sign that I made for my sister in law.  She already has it hanging and each time she sees it, she will know how loved she is by our family.

I know that I would love to receive this as a gift.  How about you?

I’m linking this up to Kimba’s DIY day~~go check it out!

The Christmas Wrap December 18, 2009

I have always wanted my presents to look pretty but always crunched for time, they never have.  Until now.  I decided to do my presents in brown craft paper and white wrapping paper this year and make special tags for each one.  I have had so much fun wrapping this year.   It has been really therapeutic for me to take time and effort into wrapping each present.  It isn’t about a beautiful finished product but a thoughtful finished product.  My family knows that each present was wrapped just for them with thought and reflection.

This Christmas has not been about buying more and more and more.  It has been about buying or making with thought and love for each individual.  Christmas has more meaning to me this year than ever before for so many reasons.  I have learned so much about myself in 2009 and I will be ready to say goodbye to this year when it is done.  I am thankful for the trials that I have been through this year though because they have brought me to the Father.  They have shown me the unconditional love of God and his gracious mercy that he pours on us each day.  I am so thankful to be able to celebrate the birth of our Messiah this year with new meaning and understanding.

My presents were wrapped with love; each and every one.

Now this next one is my favorite and it is a present that my daughter and son will share.  I love the simplicity and the sweet tags.  I may not let them open it I love it so!!

The kids always love poking under the tree to find their presents but this year they have loved all of the special hand made tags.

There are so many wonderful ideas and pictures at The Inspired Room today.  I’m linking up too!

Christmas in the kids’ rooms December 15, 2009

I usually don’t decorate the kids’ rooms or doors for Christmas but this year I decided, I’m home–why not?  I didn’t do much but they like having a bit of their own Christmas cheer.  In Clare’s room I made a cute little wreath out of a wire form, white tinsel, and ribbon.  Her room is green with Yellow, orange, Bright pink, and purple comforters.  She is 13 after all.

I got these cute little felt things (I’m not exactly sure if they’re snowflakes–I say no because I’m gonna use them in her room all year) at the Dollar Tree.  I decided to use the green one on the wreath above and then hung the orange and pink ones from her curtain rod with pink ribbon.

I bought a small roll of “feather ribbon” at Target.  I was going to use it to create the wreath but I decided to use the tinsel instead.  I made the little feather tree with a yellow chipboard flower at the top, a cute bright mirror tree from Dollar Tree, and Pink glittery Peace ornament from Wal Mart.  She also has a little Christmas tree at the end of her bed.

Her gingerbread house complete with gum bricks. This is her Gingerbread "burb" house she says.

The only I have really gotten finished for my son’s room is the wreath on his door and he has his gingerbread house in his room.  He also has a couple of the small alpine trees in his room.  His wreath is adorned with some of his favorite items.  He is 10 and he makes what we call “paper figures”.  He can make anything with paper.  It is pretty amazing.  I put a few of his favorite Transformers paper figures on a little twig wreath that I had.  I tied a little jute bow and hung on his door.  He loves it!

Here is a close up of a couple of the paper figures:

I’ll be posting the rest of the house–if I can keep it clean long enough!!!

I’m linking this one up to:

Nativity Hurricanes part 2

Wow!!  I went out of town and came back to find such an awesome response to my Nativity Hurricanes!!  I’m so flattered.  Many of you wanted to know where I got the clip art for the Nativity scene.  I have a QuicKutz Silhouette and it is one of their designs.  I love it and it is also what I used to make the  cabinet door that I did.

I did another hurricane yesterday for my mother in law.  I decided to see how it would look on a large hurricane with the scene going all around.  What do you think?

It is so hard to get a good pic of these.  I wish you could see them in person.  They are so much prettier.  I am in love the the frosted glass spray paint by RustOleum.

Linking this up to Kimba’s DIY day!

New twist on ornament wreath December 9, 2009

I followed all of the directions out there and tackled the ornament wreath.  It was beautiful.  Why did it sit, untouched for days????  My choice in ornaments.  I went too fancy.  All gold and silver which really didn’t fit in to hang anywhere in the house.  What to do???
Well, I have this candelier in the family room over the table where we eat dinners.

Old Taylor Estate Candelier

I envisioned all of the yummy things I could do with this little beauty.  Hmmph.  It has been hanging pretty much like this since I got it.  I don’t know what it is but nothing I do looks as lovely as these things:

or this:

or this:

SOOOOOOOO many possibilities yet when I try they look ridiculous.  Well, that was until the ornament wreath.  My new vow for 2010 is to keep this little beauty decorated this year.  I think that all of the ideas that I steal copy gather from all of the awesome blogs I read will help.

Behold the Ornament Candelier!

Centsational Girl (one of my favorite bloggers) is having an ornament party.  I’m linking this up with all of the other fantastic ornaments!!

Nativity Glass Hurricanes December 7, 2009

After I copied 320 Sycamore’s idea about making glass hurricanes using Dollar Tree items I decided they would be beautiful with the nativity scene on them.  I have a vinyl cutter and I have etching liquid.  I could’ve done it with those but I have been itching to try Rust-Oleum’s frosted glass spray paint.

I got my glass hurricanes, cut out my vinyl nativity, stuck them on and I was ready for business.

Ready for the first coat!

Here they are after the second coat and the vinyl peeled away.  It is hard to get a good pic of these in the daylight–I just made them this morning.  I would definitely do another couple of coats if I did these again–which I will.  I also think they would look lovely filled with cranberries or sand to the top with a little tea light.  What do you think?

I did the actual nativity scene on the tallest, the 3 wise men and a camel on the middle one, and the shepherds with their sheep on the smallest.

Wise men

Shepherds and sheep

The reason we celebrate!

Edited to add my hurricanes in their new home:

I’m linking this up to:

and

Also linking up to:

Christmas Canvas Makeover

I found these ugly and somewhat creepy Halloween canvases at Marshall’s after Halloween.

I knew I could make something far more interesting with these so I happily paid the confused looking clerk my $3 for all 4 and took them home where they sat for at least a month.  I couldn’t decide where I wanted them and how I wanted to change them.  So many possibilities!!

After I read about the Rus-Oluem Revamp contest at Shanty2Chic, I got the motivation that I needed to get these done!  I decided to make Christmas canvases with them and this was a super quick and easy project using Rust-Oleum paint and vinyl.

So I got out my trusty Rust-Oleum gray primer and gave them a good bath to cover all of the ugliness spewing forth.

Looking better already don’t you think?

Next, I got out my newly purchased and oh so pretty Colonial Red Satin by Rust-Oleum and went to work.

While the paint dried between coats, I got busy cutting my Christmas shapes with my vinyl.  (It took longer to decide on which shapes I wanted than it did to do all of the painting!)  The best part of this project is that the vinyl peels right off and the red matches my family room.  Do you get where I’m going here????

Here is the final project hanging on the wall that connects the kitchen and family room.

I’m linking this up to:

and

Be sure to check out all of the other great projects!!

Also linking up to:

No Wimpy Garland Here!! December 4, 2009

I decided that I would put up garland this year after scoring some at the Re Store along with a hideous floral arrangement that had some awesome greenery in it that I knew would look great.  I was too excited to take a before pic.  Sorry!  I decided I would hang it above the doorway leading from my family room to my dining room.  I pulled the ugly arrangement apart and then got some red berry sprigs from the Dollar Tree and a couple of greenery sprigs from Hobby Lobby at 50% off.

I love how this turned out so much that I went and bought some sad, puny garland and a couple of sprigs of greenery at Michael’s for around my front door outside.  I also found a really ugly greenery centerpiece at the Re Store that had some pieces that I could pull and use for filler.  I had some greenery that I had pulled from a wreath in the fall and some red berry filler left over from the Dollar Tree.  I wired some sets of 3 shatterproof Dollar Tree ornaments together and I was all set.  I began by wiring my puny garland together and fluffing.  How sad it was!!  I put some of the cheapo garland fringy stuff behind the strands and wired a strand of white lights to the whole thing.  Who knew it would take so long?!

Here is the sad before picture.  My cat had to check it out too.

Isn’t that better??  Here is another full shot:

I’m linking this up to The Inspired Room!

Here is a sneak peak at my next project for Shanty2Chic’s Rustoleum Project on Dec. 6!!

Make it personal! December 1, 2009

I have made a vow that I will not do gift cards this year.  I know they are easy and everyone loves them but they just seem so impersonal!  I made several gift card holders a few years to try to make them a bit more personal so they wouldn’t look like “last minute I forgot to get you anything else gifts”.  I’m hoping that I won’t have to resort to that this year but at least I can make cute card holders if I do!

I made these for my next door neighbors.  A dad and two sons who love to hunt.  I will have to admit that gift cards for teenagers is a safe route to go.  I did try to make their altered Altoid tins as personal as possible.  Easy peasy!

another Altoid tin

I have decided that if I do give gift cards this year (who are we kidding~you know I will) that to personalize the card holder is the way to go!

Go check out all of the other great ideas over at Kimba’s DIY day!

Rustic Wreath

I had several wreaths that needed a bit of updating but I didn’t want to buy lots of Christmas greenery to dress them up.  I scoured the house and found some of last year’s potpourri that had a winter theme with some frosted pine cones, leaves, etc.  Then I found some twig/vine balls in the closet.  I dug out the burlap flower that I made a few weeks ago that was too huge to do anything with.  Voila!!  My nature inspired rustic wreath!

I liked the look but it needed a little something more.  I grabbed the G off of my fall wreath.

Much better.  Don’t you think?

Linking this up to DIY day over at Kimba’s where I’m finding some other GREAT ideas!!

I’m adding this to Wreath’s on Wednesday at Cottage and Vine!