DIY: Candy Cane Mice

Thank goodness for Martha Stewart around Christmas time!  I hope you love her crafts for the holidays as much as we do.  I think pretty much everything she has on her site is adorable and / or gorgeous.  

These are such fun little mice candy cane covers it is a touch ridiculous how much I love them.  I can't wait to give these a shot!  What do you think?  Can you see yourself making a dozen of these cuties and giving them to co-workers as a surprise on their desk for the holidays?

Click the link to get the full directions on making these!  Be sure to Pin It and Stumble It for others!

DIY: Christmas Present Topiary

That Village House has a wonderful idea for decorating either the inside of your house or outside of your house with a large topiary!  We could totally see this being made in a mini version using dowels and smaller boxes as a great center piece for a table!

pletely done, but I thought I would share it with you anyway.

I started with 3 different sized boxes...9, 12 & 14 inch cubes.

I used an ice pick to punch holes in each of them so that I could run a rebar through them. (It's easier to do the holes first, before getting them all wrapped & pretty.) For the smaller boxes, I slightly off-centered my holes, so that the boxes would tilt on each other.

Then I wrapped them and made bows for each.

Tip: Keep your wrapping paper pattern running the same direction.

Tip #2: Before you poke holes through the paper, put a little tape on it. It will help the paper from ripping.

I also made sure my seams were right down the middle of the boxes so that the ribbon would cover them up. And I used double-sided tape to hold the ribbon and bows in place. I'd love to take credit for these tidbits, but again, I straight up copied this idea!!

DIY: Upcycled Felted Sweater Ornaments

We may explode from the excitement brought on by this tutorial from Alphamom's blog.  It's Christmas themed, it's upcycling, and it's easy!  The trifecta.

It’s all about doing more with less this holiday season. So deck the halls with these miniature wreath ornaments made from cast-off wool sweaters. Felted sweaters are a thrifty and eco-friendly way to use recycled materials. Your old moth-eaten or thrifted sweaters can be made into plush toys, mittens, patchwork blankets, skirts, purses, scarves, laptop covers or anything else that you can imagine. The possibilities are endless. To felt a sweater, you must wash it in hot water and run it through the dryer. Keep in mind that your sweaters must be 100% wool in order to felt properly.


I used tapestry needles for this project because they are easy for young kids to handle and have a blunt tip. You could make these ornaments as large as you want, but if you get any bigger than 5″ in diameter you might need to use wire to keep the circular shape.
Supplies:
· Felted sweaters
· Tapestry needle
· Heavy-duty coated cotton thread
· Twine or ribbon
Instructions:
Once felted, you’ll need to cut your sweaters into 1″ squares. Older kids can do this, but I find that my young kids are frustrated when trying to cut any type of fabric. After I cut the sweaters, I put the squares in a bowl for the kids and let them choose their colors. You’ll need about 50 squares for each ornament. This may seem like a lot but once you get going, it moves along quickly.

Then cut a length of thread at least 30″ long. Thread the needle and tie the ends of the thread into a knot, forming a loop. You’ll want to make a couple of knots so that it won’t slip through the loose fibers of the sweater. Older children can practice their knot tying skills. I have found that a loop is easier for children to sew with as the needle won’t come un-threaded.
The kids can string the felt pieces by simply poking the needle through the center of each square. Once the thread is close to full (with a few inches on either end), you’ll want to make sure that it will form a nice loop. You can see that my kids ran out of patience on a couple of these. Then you can pull your knot down a bit to make room to tie the two ends together a couple of times. An adult or older child will need to do this as the thread needs to be pulled tightly. Then add some twine or ribbon for hanging and you’re done.



When crafting with younger kids, it’s essential to have all of your supplies prepared and ready to go. My four-year-old stayed focused on this project for about 15 minutes, which was long enough to make one full ornament. My older daughter (almost six) made four of them! I think these little ornaments would make great teacher or neighbor gifts. Remember that these are made of wool, so be sure to store them in an airtight container to keep the moths away.

DIY: Bird Seed Ornament (can be used outside!)

Saltwater kids has a great and easy ornament tutorial that can be used inside and outside!  These would be great to make with the kids!

 My boys spend hours perched in our front window, just watching birds.

They especially love putting out treats for their feathered friends.

It is amazing how quiet and still a three & five year-old can be - completely memorized. 


So, for gifts this year we are keeping it simple - giving an experience rather than just more stuff.  We are giving the experience of spending a few moments watching nature - a few moments to slow down, and relax.

These molded bird seed ornaments are a lot of fun to make, and very inexpensive. You may already have all the materials you need in your home - we were able to make gifts for all the wonderful friends in our life for around $3.

I found this recipe here, and it worked great!

You'll Need:

3/4 cup flour

1/2 cup water
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
3 tbsp. corn syrup
4 cups birdseed
molds (muffin tin, cookie cutters, etc.)
nonstick spray
drinking straw
waxed paper
ribbon/twin

1: Combine the flour, water, gelatin and corn syrup in a large mixing bowl. Stir until well-combined.

2: Add the birdseed to the mixture, stir until well coated.

3: Spray your mold(s) with cooking spray, and spoon birdseed mixture into each mold. Use the bottom of a measuring cup to pack it down, and make the top smooth.

Poke a hole through top of each birdseed mold using a drinking straw, making sure it goes all the way through.

4: Leave the birdseed mixture in the molds for two to three hours. Then, remove the straws and lay out a sheet of waxed paper. Gently remove the hardened ornaments from the mold, and place them on the wax paper upside down. Allow them to dry for at least two to three more hours, or overnight.

5: Cut your ribbon and carefully put it through the hole. 

6: Package them up!

DIY: Upcycled Felted Ornaments

Here is another wonderful tutorial from Dollar Store Crafts blog!  We love them - you absolutely need to check them out...now.  Go on, you won't regret it.  Then come back here and enjoy the felt ornaments.

I made these tree ornaments from a felted/fulled wool sweater last year and gave them to my family members for their handmade gifts (we try to exchange primarily handmade). You can find wool sweaters by the dozens at thrift stores (although, I admit, they are probably not commonly represented at dollar stores!). Wash in hot water and dry in the dryer to shrink them into fabric that can be cut and sewn and won't unravel. These cute trees are a great way to show off your button stash, too!

Handmade ornaments are also a great gift for co-workers or people who you need to give a token gift to, but who you don't want to spend a lot of money on.

Project Estimate:

• Wool sweater, $3-5 at thrift store
• Assorted buttons, on hand
• Embroidery floss or ribbon for hanging, $1

Total cost: $4 for about a hundred ornaments (if you use the whole sweater to make them)!

To make:

1. Wash and dry wool sweater to felt it. Repeat if necessary.
2. Cut tree shapes (triangles) and trunk shapes. I used the contrasting cuff cut in strips for the tree trunks. Use two matching triangles and one trunk piece for each tree.
3. Sew buttons as desired on front tree triangle piece.
4. Sandwich tree trunk piece at bottom between front and back tree pieces, and ribbon for hanging at top. Triangle pieces should be placed with right sides facing out. Sew around perimeter of triangle.

DIY: Felt Holiday Tree(s)

Danielle Thompson is keeping us inspired and in the Christmas spirit.  We love these felt trees and can't wait to give them a try!  Check out her blog for more DIY!

   

First I wanted to give credit to my initial inspiration for these (b/c it is one of my pet-peeves when people don't give proper credit... grr.. i've seen this happen so many times to other people, and even me... and it just makes me so sad. I try very hard to always give proper credit! although unfortunately with all of the things i bookmark, i do lose track sometimes where i got the idea in the first place. But very very rarely.) 
My inspiration for this actually came from a project (no surprise!) from Emily Martin/The Black Apple last year. I had the idea of making these felt trees in my head this year, and knew the concept was hidden in my subconscience from SOMEWHERE, and then i remembered her trees from last year. :-) But after looking at them for the first time this year, i realized they're pretty different! But same concept...
I wish I could provide some patterns for the felt pieces, but #1, as I've mentioned, I don't trust my pattern making skills, especially when it comes to fabric! and #2, I'm not sure that all styrofoam trees are standard sizes at all craft stores, so the patterns might end up being off depending on where you buy your tree forms.
But essentially the shape will look something like this and get smaller as you layer up the tree:
 
You just freehand cut the scallop along the bottom of the shape. It doesn't have to be perfect, and I sort of like the freehand look: :-)

To start:
1. Cut out your pieces of felt. I used generally 3-5 pieces/colors of felt per tree depending on how layered you want it to look. For each color tree, I used 3-5 shades of one color to show a gradiation of the darkest shade to the lightest shade going towards the top. On some I did a dark-light-dark-light look as well. Whatever worked with the shades of felt that I had. I used wool felt, but you could also use craft felt at craft stores... it's cheaper, but not as pretty, and you won't have the same amount of color shades as you'll find in wool felt.. i got mine online.
The first layer will be your bottom layer. It won't have the scalloped edge b/c it will wrap around the bottom of your tree form. You'll need to snip the area that wraps around like this so that it will fold over with little bulk. Then just hot-glue to the bottom:
 
Then you can glue a circle of felt to cover your bottom completely.
(I used 3 different sizes of tree forms: small, medium and large. So if you do try to make a pattern, you'll need to make a different pattern for each size/shape tree as they will of course differ.) I basically just winged it with each layer of felt... wrapped the fabric around and just cut away til i got generally the shape that i mentioned above. Then i wrapped it around hot-glued, where the ends met, to the tree form, overlapping:
 
 
Since I knew my that my trees would only be seen from the front, i didn't stress too much about how they looked on the back. As you can see, the backs of mine look a bit haphazard. They still look tidy at least. If you wanted, and you know they'll be seen from all sides, you could add a strip of ribbon along the seam on the back like I did here, vertically:
  
 
If you want to be REALLY tidy, you could wait on adding the vertical strip of ribbon, and first wrap your trims and ribbons around the tree horizontally and when you're done with that, you could add your vertical strip of ribbon to hide all of the felt seams/ribbon-ends on the back. Or just leave the felt seams as-is. It really doesn't look bad, as long as you overlap the ends so that no foam shows through. If you're a sewer, you could even sew the ends together on each felt layer and slip over the form!
The great thing about using these styrofoam forms is that you can also pin things to it (as you can see I used lots of pearly colored pins). And that is actually even easier than having to use hot-glue constantly. I'm not a big fan of glueing (i don't totally trust it!), so i try to use it only if i have to. But you'll definitely want to add some hot-glue to reinforce everything.
2. Ok you're done adhering your felt layers, it's time to embellish. You can start adding your trims and ribbons to wrap around the tree horizontally. (or you can leave them as-is with no embellishment! sort of a more modern look) I wanted to embellish, but not overly, still keeping a somewhat clean design (well, clean for ME at least).

DIY: Glitter Trees

I Heart Nap Time's blog is kicking off the beginning of December with some excellent Glitter Trees that are amazing decor and eye candy.

Check out their page for more holiday DIY!

Here’s what you’ll need:

-3 Styrofoam trees: sizes 15×5, 12×4, and 9×4

-3 small candlesticks (you can find these at just about any thrift store for about 50 cents)

-spray adhesive

-glue: Elmer’s glue for the glitter and a stronger glue like E6000 to glue the tree to the candlestick

-glitter in your favorite 3 colors (we found these awesome colors of glitter at hobby lobby)

-white spray paint

Here’s what you’ll need to do:

- give your tree a good coating of the spray adhesive. you can use the elmers glue for this part, but the spray adhesive covers better and gives a nice smooth finish, plus it’s a lot faster. leave the bottom of the tree undone, this will get glittered at the end.

- once you have your tree coated in glue, cover it completely with glitter. when all 3 trees have been glitterized set them aside to dry.

- next take your 3 candlesticks and give them a couple quick coats of white spray paint. then let those dry completely. 

- now take your E6000 and glue the candlesticks to the trees. it’s best to let them sit overnight. (keep an eye on it though. on one of the trees the glue ate away some of the styrofoam and my tree tilted to the side. so just check on it for the first hour or so.)

-  when everything is completely dry, flip them over and cover the remaining part with glue and glitter. (we used the elmers glue for this part)

- then all you have left to do is decide where to put them!!

DIY: Paper Pinecone Ornaments

The Hybrid Chick has a great paper ornament design that we will be trying out for our tree.  We need to stop by Michael's or Joann's craft stores and get some fun paper!

Be sure to check out her blog for more!

I ended up using about 1 1/2 pages of 8.5×11 paper, but I’m sure it would vary depending on how layered you want the pinecone to look. I cut the paper into 1 inch strips.

Then I cut them again at about 1 inch and then folded each one so that there was a point on one side, as seen below.

Next, I took the Styrofoam egg and the short applique pins and started attaching the folded papers on the narrow part of the egg first.

I worked my way around and up the egg to the wide part.  Once I got to the top, I left some unused portion of the egg open so I could add the ribbon and some embellishments.  I used a hot glue gun to add the embellishments.

DIY: Autumn Lunch Bag Trees

Here is another Autumn / Fall time tutorial for your pleasure.  We think these are just adorable, and would be an amazing addition to any household or office desk perhaps?  What do you think?

These come from Matsutake's blog and the step by step instructions sound like they couldn't be any easier to implement.

Made of three of my favorite things: Mod Podge, yarn pom poms, and trash. Yay! They're little Autumn trees made out of old crumpled lunch sacks.

First, cut off the bottom of the bag, then cut it open so it's a flat rectangle. Next, cut slits where I drew the dotted lines.

Now brush the entire surface with a layer of Mod Podge. I watered it down just a tiny bit.

Now sort of bunch it up in the middle. And separate out those strips at the top where you snipped it. Gently start twisting.

And twisting. Twist the trunk. Twist the branches. Twist the roots.

Keep twisting until it looks like a tree.

Let the Mod Podge dry. You can snip the roots and branches with scissors if you want them a bit shorter.

Plop some yarn pom poms into the trees. Add a dab of Mod Podge on the branches to hold them in place. And then photograph them all over your house.