Secret Santa

For the past few years, the girls' school hosts a little Christmas shop where they can spend a few dollars and get "dollar store" type items. They have fun picking out gifts for their sisters and hiding them when they get home and it helps out the school PTO. However, this year, my older daughter attends a different school than her sisters and didn't have the opportunity to shop that way. So we decided to pick names and MAKE (not buy) our present for each other. Everyone was very excited about the idea and couldn't wait to pick names. We (the parents) offered to help any of them with their projects if they needed a little grown up assistance. So far, no one has told who their secret santa is, which I find hard to believe if not insane...but I'm going with it. So, here is what I did for my "have-to-make-it, not-buy-it) project.

My youngest loves Karate and takes it at Star Studios. She is a green belt and just earned her first blue stripe. If anyone knows anything about karate, you know what that all means. If you don't know much about Karate, I'll use the book shelf analogy to explain. Each shelf in the bookcase is a different belt color. The higher up the shelves go, the harder each level becomes. There are three notches (belt stripes) that the shelf can rise before moving onto the next shelf (belt color). So, she is at the second shelf (green belt) and she has one notch (blue stripe) on her belt. Each stripe color (in the set of three stripes) is the color the next belt will be when they pass to the next belt color. So she will become a blue belt next after she receives two more stripes on her belt. That said, I made her a Karate uniform for her American Doll.

I didn't use a pattern because I'm too cheap and I didn't want to buy one or order it on-line. However, I did use the pattern from making Jedi Knight costumes for my middle daughter's b-day party four years ago. It actually turned out really good, and I'm even impressed because I'm not sewer. I'm more excited for Christmas to come because I can't wait for her to unwrap it. She will love it! 

Felt Flower Garland

I loved this idea I saw in Better Homes and Gardens, and had to recreate it for my staircase.

 I have a similar set up but without the pretty paint and beautiful wooden staircase! Anyway my garland turned out great!

I have a little Sizzix die cutting machine that I used to cut out the circles. 121 flowers. 605 larger circles and 605 smaller circles. For a grand total of 120,000 imported Italian twinkle lights...just kidding, that's from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. For a grand total of 1,210 circles. And if that isn't enough torture, I created a mistletoe ball too, using small green circles. I will show that soon, when the lighting is better for a good photograph. I must be crazy, my mother thinks so, but I'd rather have something beautiful like this to pull out each year than something made in China.

Gingerbread Men

These are just some wooden Gingerbread men that Kaiser Kraft company had on the shelf last year. I decorated them after Christmas when I had more time. Now this year, it was such fun to pull them out and display them for the first time. There are 12 in all, and all are different. My passion, paper on wood!

Christmas Preparations

Wow, so I know it's been forever since I've been back to posting. I just don't know how other crafty bloggers have time to do this. I spend all my time crafting and raising a family, work, life, travel, husband, movies, puzzles, Christmas shopping, cookie baking, card sending, school parties, Packer games, chores, etc....I just don't have time to play on the computer too! So here it is, 11:30 at night and I'm trying to sneak in some things.

My family entered a gingerbread contest in our home town and we won first prize for the family entry.  We won $20. This was very nice as I thought it covered most of the expense of the supplies to make our gingerbread creation...but little did I know my kids had other plans. $20 divided 5 ways is four dollars each. This is what they had decided to do with the winnings!

Here are some photos of our idea.

Since we had the opportunity to go to Bald Head Island, NC this summer, we modeled our gingerbread house after Old Baldy Lighthouse. My middle daughter and I worked on the lighthouse.

My oldest daughter and my hubby worked on the lighthouse keeper's cottage, and my youngest daughter was in charge of the landscape including the ocean! I am so proud of my family. We did a great job.

Not sure what we'll do next year...but we're already thinkin' up ideas!