Handmade Holiday Idea 3

I found these adorable towels when I was at IKEA last month for 50 cents. I appliqued a Christmas tree on them and added a couple of buttons for ornaments and a star.

I’ve been collecting jars to use for giftwrapping and spraypainting the lids red. Now that its too cold to spraypaint, I might just wrap them in fabric and tie with a bow.

I rolled up the towel, put it in the jar, and added some crinkled paper.

I’ll add a giftcard and use these as teacher’s gifts.

Handmade Holiday Idea 2

Do you have a Jedi in training in your house?

Luckily we have two and its wearing off on their sister too. When we walk into a store with automatic sliding doors they “use the force” to open them.

Anyway, I came across this tutorial for a jedi cape. Its super easy. To make it even easier I made the first ones out of plush felt, so I didn’t have to hem it! The next two I made out of fleece, because it was way on sale. I think I like the fleece ones better. I used a little bit of scraps to make a tie for the waist.

These should go well with the Ultimate Blasters that Santa is bringing for them.

Holiday Bingo

I’m always at a loss when it comes to classroom games at holiday parties.

I found this great free printable bingo game at BlackDog.net. I’ll probably have to change it from S A N T A to J E S U S for Piper Ann’s party, and then change it to S N O W Y for Nathan’s party.  Oh the political correctness of the holidays. Gotta love it!

Handmade Holiday Ideas

Over the next few days/weeks I’ll be sharing with you some great ideas for a handmade holiday. I might not be making them all myself, but I have a lot of ideas swirling around in my brain. I just hope I have time to blog about them!

I found this tutorial and decided to make some wired ribbon flowers.

I added some stringy fringe and a shiny button to the center.

I hot glued it to a headband…

…and a pin to make a brooch.

It might be a little obnoxious to wear them together, but separately they’re cute as can be.

New Curtains

When I painted my dining room last year,  I searched high and low for fabric for which to make some curtains.
This chocolate fabric was all I came up with. I loved it, but wasn’t really inspired by it. We don’t get much light in that room, so I was afraid of covering up the window. It faces the backyard where we have common ground, so I wasn’t super worried about privacy either. I decided not to make curtains and leave the window open. I was just going to use the chocolate fabric to reupholster some chairs, so it wouldn’t go to waste.

Well, my favorite fabric store was having a sale a couple of weeks ago. I just went to browse when I stumbled upon this fabric…

It was love at first sight. Immediately I knew that I would use it to make curtains for my dining room. It matched perfectly.

This is a horrible picture…

This ones not much better…

I made the top of the panel with the “Wild Thyme” put a coordinating red stripe at the bottom and then made a gathered skirt out of the chocolate polka dots for the bottom.

I think these are my most favorite curtains I’ve ever made.

Wall Collage

I took the kids to Chicago last weekend to visit my parents. My dad was having surgery, Ricardo was going hunting, so I decided to haul the kids up there.

My mom had this awesome frame hanging on the wall. It was one of the things my sister dumped on her when she decided to move back to Hawaii.

Apparently I complemented on it enough that it became mine. I spent the rest of the weekend (when not visiting my dad) searching for more ornate frames.

Here’s what I came up with…

The one in the middle is/was my sister’s. I hope to add to it as I find the worlds gaudiest frames. The large oval was by far the gaudiest find. I got it for $4 at Goodwill. The frame was gold and inside was a piece of oval shaped wood spraypainted white. There were different sizes of shells glued to it. Then there was glue drizzled all over to which they sprinkled glitter. I got some looks from people shopping at Goodwill…if they could see it now!

The squares are shadowbox frames. I just put some red and white fabric in the back.

Withdrawals

The “gunga” (binky) fairy came two nights ago, and left Oliver some really cool Star Wars sheets for his bed. I’ve been putting it off for so long, but it was time for Oliver to hang them up.

He’s been doing pretty well at night time, its the napping that he’s having trouble with.

Today was the first time he asked for his “gunga.” When I said they were gone, he started to cry for daddy. (Ricardo was always quick to the draw to shove that thing in his mouth.)

He still loves his blanket and has attached himself to a bear. I’ll take it. The bear won’t cost us thousands of dollars in dental work!

Now if I could think of some sort of “fairy” to get Piper Ann to stop sucking her thumb!

Ruffled Pillow

Have you seen this adorable pillow floating around the internet?

I love it especially in orange.

I made my own to match my bedroom…

I love the way it turned out except for the slightly different colored white felt I had. It looks ok from far away.

 

Another One

Here’s another bag I made from Ricardo’s pants…

Its in my shop.

Score!

Ricardo cleaned out his closet last week and had 4 bags of unwanted clothes to donate.

I dug through those bags with a few items in mind…wool sweaters and dress pants.

Unfortunately I didn’t find any 100% wool sweaters to turn into felt, but I did find some awesome pants he no longer wanted.

Purses/handbags are what I had in mind for the pants.

Here is one of the purses I came up with…

I was able to keep the back pocket intact for the inside of the purse.

Extra pockets for cell phone or whatever.

This purse is for sale in my etsy store. Don’t forget 20% goes to charity!