After Christmas Projects

Remember how I bought that Advent House last year and had every intention of getting it ready over the year, yet somehow ended up staying up half the night on November 30, trying to get the project done in time for December 1st?  Well, I vowed not to do that again.  It's just that I have such a hard time getting into the mood to do Christmas projects when it's July and the sun is out and it's 90 degrees outside...

I'm lucky enough to have a husband who always get the week between Christmas and New Year's off, so this year I decided to take advantage of the downtime we have in the days after Christmas to get some projects done for next year.  Over the past month, I've marked a ton of projects and tutorials in magazines and on blogs with the idea that I would do them for next year.  But I know all too well that the days leading up to Christmas next year are going to be as crazy as they were this year and half the projects won't get done.  So I did one now!   I made 100 Billion Star's Mini Tree Skirt!  The holiday decorations are still up and it still felt "Christmasy" enough to get at least one festive project done in anticipation of next year.  The project was great for using up all the scraps from all the projects I sewed for gifts and holiday boutiques too.  And the whimsical, non-holiday fabric looks darling with the mini tree my daughter keeps in her room over the holidays.

I know!  I'm even annoying myself with this one!  I mean could I be more organized?  Why not join me in my insanity and craft one last holiday item in the next few days?  Think about how excited you'll be next December when you pull it out of storage and have one less thing to do to get ready for Christmas 2011!

Have a safe and happy new year celebration tonight!  I'm off to an early cocktail party (I'm wearing an awesome, retro headband tonight-you can see it here) and then my husband is making us Steaks with Whiskey Sauce (from The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl) for a late night dinner.  Our daughter is partying with her cousin and grandparents at the ranch tonight.  What are you up to?

Fabric Draft Blocker!

I know that much of the USA is freezing cold right now.  I'm in Southern California and we are expecting 40 degree temperatures tonight!  I know to my friends in the East, that's down right balmy, but our thin blood isn't really built for those temperatures.  Baby, it's cold outside! 

I don't know about your house, but mine is a little drafty.  Over the years, as the house has settled, the front door seems to have developed a large gap at the bottom and the cold air just pours in under it.  Yesterday, with pouring rain and winds outside, I turned up my heater, trouped upstairs and sewed a draft blocker for the spot. It looks very nice, but even better-it works! (I know it works because I keep standing by the door in my bare feet and then tell anyone who walks by how I don't feel any cold drafts.  Some people are getting tired of hearing it too!  Sniff!)  It was a snap to make too.  Here are the basics:

Supplies:

Fabric (You need a 8" x about 40" piece for an average door.  We'll talk size again in a minute.)
Coordinating thread
Sewing machine
Batting or dry beans or rice to fill the draft blocker with
Ribbon (Optional)

Instructions:

1.  Measure the base of your door.  Add a 1/2" seam allowance.  Cut a piece of fabric to the length you just figured, and a width of 8 inches.  Note:  I added a few extra inches onto my length because I wanted to have it extend a bit on either side of my door.

2.  Fold the fabric in half, with the long sides together.  The right side of the fabric facing each other.

3.  Sew along one short side and the long side.

4.  Turn the fabric tube right side out and stuff with beans, rice, or batting.  (I stuffed mine with batting because that's what I had in the house and it was cold and rainy and I didn't want to go out.  It works fine, but as I mentioned, I live in Southern California.  You may need something thicker for protection from the elements.)  The tube is long, so use a broom handle or something to really push the batting down into the tube.  Pack it tight!

5.  Make a loop from extra fabric or use a ribbon.  Insert into the unsewn end of the tube, pin, and then top stitch the end closed.  This an optional step.  You don't need a loop on your draft blocker.  We use our front door a lot and I wanted to have a way to keep my draft blocker out of the way when we weren't using it.  I knew that, if it didn't have a loop and hanger, my husband would just throw it aside where I would trip on it, or stuff it in a closet and a fight would ensue.  (After being married for 14.5 years, I know which battles I want to fight and try to work around foreseen obstacles. You know your family, so decide on this step accordingly.)  In the picture above, you can see how nicely mine hangs out of the way when not in use, but is easily accessible once everyone is home and ready to get warm.

I hope this tutorial helps warm your house, your heart and lower your heating bills a bit!  Is it cold where you are?  What are you doing to stay warm?

Advent Adventures: Days 20-25

I'm going to wrap our Advent Adventures today.  My in-laws will be arriving soon and we'll be having too much fun celebrating Christmas for me to be able to promise any blogging over the next couple of days.

December 20: Decorate the dollhouse for Christmas.  We do this for most holidays.  My daughter has your basic,  Fisher-Price Loving Family Grand Dollhouse, and we decorate it for the holidays.  It's always fun to turn everyday items into dollhouse-sized fun.  If you want to see some of our miniature sweets, visit my Flickr page.

December 21: Go to the movies.  We went to see the latest installment of the Chronicles of Narnia.  It was visually beautiful, but maybe a little too scary.

December 22:  Do a puzzle with Daddy.  Since my husband works, he doesn't get to do many of our Advent Adventures with us.  He's on vacation this week, so this activity ensured he got to spend some quality time with our daughter.  Puzzles were important because they helped him tell our daughter about one of his favorite uncles.  Uncle Walter would always buy his mother a super hard puzzle (like the one called Spilled Milk!) and then my husband and his family would spend Christmas break working on it.  His uncle passed away a few years ago.  Doing puzzles today gave my husband the opportunity to share one of his family traditions with my daughter and honor the memory of his uncle.

December 23: Bake cookies with Grandma.  As I mentioned, my in-laws are visiting from Canada.  My mother in-law bakes a variety of cookies for the holidays and we are very excited to bake some of them with her.  Again, this is a special, nostalgic activity for my daughter to do with relatives she doesn't get to see all the time. Too often, family recipes don't get passed down.  Sure, sometimes they get written down, but it's not the same as seeing Grandma in action, actually making the recipe before your very eyes.  I'm hoping Ninamo bars are going be on the list of cookies we're making today.

December 24:  Open out-of-towner's presents.  After Christmas Eve dinner, we allow our daughter to open all the presents that have arrived in the mail, courtesy of our friends and relatives who live out of town.  She's been eyeing some of them for weeks and can hardly wait.  We'll also read the Night Before Christmas just before bedtime.

December 25:  It's Christmas!  We'll visit my family at the ranch.  And I'll take a deep a breath and be very proud of myself for doing 25 days of Christmas activities.  Some days, the last thing I wanted to do was add another activity to my to do list, but watching my daughter fully enjoy every moment of this Christmas season  made it all worth it.  Thanks so much for joining me on this journey. 

Merry Christmas!

Advent Activities: Days 17-19

Christmas is almost here and I'm almost ready.  Kind of.  Sort of.  Here's what we've been up to the past few days:

December 17: Make Christmas Pizza.  I make pizza every Friday night, and when I saw this post, I knew I had to make candy cane & tree shaped pizzas.  I would have taken a photo of ours, but everyone ate it up too quickly!

December 18:  Paint a holiday picture.  My daughter loves to paint.  As much as I like to encourage her artistic side, I have to admit I try to steer her away from painting.  It's such a production to get out the drop cloth, paints, water cups...and don't even talk to me about the clean-up!  But it's the holidays, so we did it all and created some fun holiday paintings.  I'm totally in love with the reindeer and sled my daughter painted (it's at the top of the painting). I might do this earlier in the month next year and turn the paintings into our holiday cards.

December 19:  We made Mrs. Forrey's Butter cookies.  They are the cookies from my childhood.  My mom even lent me the cookie cutters we used when we were little.  (Sounds generous, but she held it hostage until I promised that I would bring a batch of cookies to her when I returned the cutters.)  I'd share the recipe with you, but then I would have to kill you.  I recently read that if you are short time for holiday baking, you should ask everyone what their favorite cookie is and just make those.  Both my husband and I voted these cookies as our favorites.  In fact, I'm pretty sure one of the reasons my husband married me was because he wanted to make sure he gets these cookies every Christmas.

I had a nice, relaxing evening last night.  Everyone else went to bed early and I stayed up alone, in the dark with only the tree on, eating my butter cookies and watching Christmas in Connecticut.  Does it get any better than that?  I know the holidays are for family, but those little stolen moments alone are wonderful too.

Advent Activities: Days 13-16

The best thing about this whole Advent Calendar idea is that it keeps me motivated to do all the projects I want to do.  Once my daughter opens the window and pulls out the slip of paper with the day's activity, I can't slack off.  I mean, have you ever broken a promise to a five year old?  It's not pretty.

December 13: Make paper snowflakes.  I'm sure I made paper snowflakes when I was a child, but I couldn't remember how I did it.  I had dreams of filling my windows with them, and creating a winter wonderland.  While I didn't quite get there, my daughter and I did make a whole bunch.  I used Vanessa's tutorial to figure out how to fold and cut the paper, then my daughter and I started cutting.  I put them aside because I knew that we would use them for the next day's activity.

December 14:  Turn the play kitchen into a "Winter Wonderland Bakery".  I don't know who likes my daughter's play kitchen more-her or I.  It was looking a little neglected lately and, since it sits in our real kitchen, I wanted to dress it up for Christmas and inspire my daughter to have some holiday playtime.  So we went through my studio and pulled out a bunch of items to use to decorate her kitchen for the holidays.  We found some Candylights, took a paper banner from her room and, of course, got out all those snowflakes we made.  This is what the kitchen looked like before:

And this is what it looks now, all dressed up for the holidays:

We have already had a ton of play sessions in it.  My daughter has named it Kisses Cafe and she's open all day.

December 15: Buy holiday PJs.  I usually buy my daughter new PJs so that she looks great in our Christmas morning photos, but this year I let her go shopping with me and she picked out her own.  She's so excited to wear them on Christmas Eve.

December 16: Watch a classic holiday movie.  Miracle on 34th Street was our pick.  My other favorite classics include: White Christmas (must always be watched while putting up the tree) and It's a Wonderful Life.  A newer "classic" that makes me giggle is National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.  When we were younger, my dad looked a lot like Chevy Chase, so it makes me laugh extra hard.  Especially because looks weren't the only the thing my Dad and Clark had in common.

What are your favorite holiday movies?

 P.S.  If you like the bakery idea, and want to make a cute, stuffed pastry bag for your favorite little baker, check-out my tutorial here.

Sizzix Blog Hop: Week 6: Treat Bag Toppers

This week's die was Eileen Hull's Treat Bag Toppers.  I'm thinking I might need this die, just because I would use it so often.  It creates fantastic toppers for treat bags.  I could use it to create party favors, hostess gifts, and even to package the items I sell in my Etsy shop.  (Eileen? Sizzix Santa?  Are you guys listening?  I've been a very good girl this Christmas...)

For the treat bag pictured, I used some paper scraps, a fantastic dimensional sticker from Jolee's Boutique, and ribbon.  The whole thing came together in a few minutes.  Wouldn't it be a cute party favor for a Marie Antoinette-themed wedding shower?  So girly.

This is the last week of the hop.  Thanks to everyone who joined in the fun.  I hope the experience was inspiring for you. 

Thanks for checking out the Triple Play Blog Hop! Please visit www.tripleplay.typepad.com for more fun ideas from Brenda Pinnick, Karen Burniston, Eileen Hull and friends. If you have enjoyed seeing all of the inspiring ideas on the blog hop, please "like" Triple Play on Facebook.  And don't forget to see what other designers did with this week's die by clicking on the link below.

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Advent Activities: Days 10-12

The ongoing saga of my attempts to fit a little holiday fun into each and every day of December continues...

Day 10:  We made homemade hot chocolate and marshmallows.  If you think making marshmallows is too fussy, I'm here to tell you it's incredibly easy! In fact, I had all the ingredients in my pantry! I used Martha Stewart's recipe and they turned out great.  Just keep in mind that homemade marshmallows don't last long.  After about a day or two they get oily and soggy and yucky.  So you must eat them all in one sitting.  (After all, you don't want to throw them away, do you?) For the hot cocoa, I followed a recipe in Mark Bittman's iconic cookbook, How To Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food. The best thing about the recipe?  Mark recommends that you use a blender to whip all the ingredients together and then heat them up.  The result was a very frothy, chocolatey drink.

Day 11: The dreaded Gingerbread House day.  You know I've been afraid of this one.  I'll admit that I cheated.  I went to Trader Joe's and I purchased a kit.  With the kit, I was able to turn this into a super easy project.  My daughter got to assemble a gingerbread house and I didn't have to expose her to new swear words as I tried to make gingerbread that would work for home construction.

Day 12:  My daughter wanted to make Hershey's recipe for Peanut Butter Blossom cookies, so we baked some yesterday.  My tips for making cookies like these?  Whenever I need to bake something with peanut butter, I use natural peanut butter.  You will get a stronger, peanut taste by using the natural kind.  I also use a melon baller to scoop out the batter, then roll it into balls.  By using the melon baller, I can be sure that my cookies will turn out uniform in size.  (I use an ice cream scoop for muffin and cupcake batter for the same reason.)

What is your favorite holiday cookie recipe?  Do you have any baking tips or tricks to share?

Advent Adventures: Days 6-9

Laura Bray

I'm back!  See?  I told you once my holiday boutiques were over I would get back on the blogging track.  Thanks for all the blog love about our Advent House and Activities.  As promised,  I'm going to finish catching-up with our past few days activities.

Laura Bray

December 6:  We celebrated the Feast of St. Nick.  Don't know what that is?  Check-out my guest post about this very special family tradition on this blog.

Laura Bray

December 7:  We made made little felt stocking for my daughter's two favorite dolls, Catherine and Nancy.  I'll be doing a tutorial for the project next week for my Mommy and Me article in the When Creativity Knocks newsletter.  Sign-up so you don't miss it!



Laura Bray

 December 8:  This was a really fun one.  We went to Mom's house and looked at photos of my childhood Christmases.  We told stories.  We looked at my childhood toys, some of which I still have have and handed down to my daughter, so she was excited to see what they looked like when they were brand-new.

My daughter's photo

 December 9:  We tooks some photos of our favorite ornaments and holiday decorations.  When we were looking at the photos from my childhood the day before, some of my strongest emotional moments involved seeing some of our old holiday decorations.  You know, the decorations that, when they were put up, meant that Christmas was really on it's way?  But they were all in background of the pictures.  So, I gave my daughter my point and shoot camera and told her to take photos of her favorite ornaments and decorations. 

My daughter's photo, she told me she was taking a "self-portrait".

I'm going to load the photos into a photo book and give it to her as one of her Christmas presents.  I am shocked by how good some of her photos turned out.  She has obviously been watching how I compose photos, because her angles and styling are very similar to mine.  I put the camera on action mode to compensate for her inability to hold the camera steady. (When you are five, it's hard to stand still long enough to take a picture!) While she took her photos, I worked on taking some photos myself with my "big girl camera".  Before starting, I searched for tips on taking photos of your Christmas tree and ornaments and found this great blog post.  It really helped me take some great photos.  All of today's blog photos are from this day's Advent Adventures.

My daughter's photo of the top of her dresser.

That's probably enough for today.  More adventures to come.  What are some of your favorite holiday activities and traditions?  I'd love some more ideas for our Advent Calendar!

Advent Calendar House

Last year, I feel in love with the way Amy of Inspire Co. transformed a 3D Advent House.  Then, as luck would have it, I stumbled onto my own Advent House at the after Christmas sales last year.  It was boring and ugly (who wants a brown Christmas decoration?) and missing knobs and the numbers were incorrect, so I got it for it steal.  Since I already had vision's of Amy's house dancing in my house, I was probably the only shopper who saw the potential of this lonely house.

Of course, I had every intention to fix it up over the summer.  But, before I knew it, it was November 30th and the house looked exactly the way it did when I bought it.  I wiped-out a whole day redoing it and I have to say the paint job is a bit messy as a result of my rushing.  I'm telling myself it gives the house "character".  Of course, I'm also telling myself that I'll fix it over the summer, but I think we all know that's never going to happen.

I've been stuffing the little house with slips of paper that have different holiday activities.  Every morning, my daughter runs downstairs and pulls out a slip.  It's been a great way to make sure that all the holiday traditions are being done.  Some days are easy, some are harder.  I've only been filling the slots a week at a time.  That way, I can review our calendar and to do lists and put the easy stuff, like "Watch a Classic Holiday TV Show" on the days when I know I'm going to be too busy to do a large project like "Make a Gingerbread House".  (Is there ever a time during the holidays when you have time to do that?!)  I also have a master list in my desk of which activities I put in each day.  That way, if something comes up, I can switch them around without wondering where I put that blasted Gingerbread House activity.

Here's what we have done so far:

December 1st:  We went shopping for toys to donate to a toy drive at my daughter's school.  When we pay my daughter her allowance, she divides it into 3 piggy banks:

1.  A Savings Piggy
2.  A Spending Piggy
3.  A Helping Piggy

When donation opportunities come up, she goes into the helping piggy and uses that money to buy toys for toy drives or food for food drives, etc. It was so cute on December 1st when she carefully chose toys for less fortunate children and then paid for it all by herself.  As she was checking-out, she explained to the cashier that she was helping Santa.  She thinks that he comes by on his sled and picks up the donation boxes and distributes them.  I thought the store clerk was going to cry she was so touched.

December 2: Buy a new Christmas Book and read it.  Smarty that I am, I picked up one that has a CD with it, so even when I can't read to her, she can listen to it being read on her CD player.  This is the one we got this year: The Night Before Christmas.  (I have to say the illustrations in this version are out of this world!) I love the idea of building an entire library of holiday books that can be unpacked and read every year.

December 3: Listen to holiday music.  I took advantage of this activity and was able to get our holiday music organized.  I didn't have all our holiday CDs copied to the iPod yet, so while we listened, I got that task done.

December 4: Watch a classic holiday television show.  I was at a boutique and wanted to give my husband a break.  He popped in Rudolf and got an hour to himself.

December 5: Visit Santa.  Like I said before this whole Advent Activity thing is for making sure you get all your traditions squeezed into the short holiday season.

I'll finish catching you up on the next blog post and will try to be good about sharing our Advent Adventures with you from now on.  Please feel free to join in the fun.  If you want a copy of my Advent Activity ideas, click here.  It's really not too late.  Start counting down the last 15 days to Christmas or the last 10.  The only people who have "rules" about when to start this stuff is us adults.  The kids could care less.  They just know they are having fun.

Sizzix Blog Hop: Week 5: Bracket Pillow

I can't believe I've been doing the blog hop for five weeks now!  Wow!  So many wonderful dies to play with, so many great ideas flying around.

This week, we were given Brenda Pinnick's Sizzix Bigz XL BIGkick/Big Shot Die, Brackets Album to play with.  She was kind of enough to include some of the fabrics from her Couluer Vie by Brenda Pinnick fabric for Henry Glass & Co.

 The die is advertised to be used to create a mini-album, but Brenda's fabric and my latest sewing kick meant I had to think outside of the box.  A graphic pillow is the result.  The cool toned colors and modern look of the design are perfect for today's modern, hip sewing trends. 

As usual, I'm going to recommend that you hop along and see what the other designers doing with this fantastic die.  The button below makes it easy to travel between the blogs.

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Charity Wings Chat

I'll be chatting, live online at the Charity Wings website tonight at 6pm PST!  I'll be talking about what inspires me and whatever else you want to chat about!  To join in the fun, visit http://www.charitywings.com/, then click on the "Chat Room" link on the menu in the purple column.  The chat room will be activated 15 minutes prior to the chat.  The chat is free, but you do have to create a log in to the website. 

If you decide to become a Club Royalty member, you will be eligible to win an awesome prize I am giving away, courtesy of Art Glitter.  It's a great Basic Glitter kit in Wonderland colors!  Who can't use a little more glitter this holiday season?  To get more information about becoming a Club Royalty member (it's for charity!) click here.

I'm hoping to see a lot of you there.  If you join in, please let me know you are blog reader.  I love "meeting" my readers!

The Feast of St. Nicholas

Tomorrow is the feast day of the saint upon whom many believe Santa Claus was based on.  I am a guest blogger on Debby's Dare today, explaining how my family celebrates.  To find out why my mom filled my shoes with candy, be sure to hop over to her blog here.  Plus, it's another gift giving holiday!  I don't know about you, but I'm always looking for another reason to get gifts!  Happy Holidays!

Sizzix Triple Play Blog Hop: Believe

First, a message to all my loyal, long-time blog readers. I know I've been a bad, bad blogger.  One or two blog entries a week isn't my usual schedule.  I've got a couple of holiday boutiques in the next week and once that's over, I super-duper promise to share all kinds of great holiday ideas etc.  In the meantime, why not look over some of my past holiday posts to get inspired?

My Favorite Gingerbread Man Ornament Pattern.  Warning!  He's got a bite out of him!
Clothespin Doll Ornaments
Cupcake Sewing Cards The perfect gift for a little girl.
Snow Globes
Felt Food Tutorial More great gifts for the little ones on your list!

There!  That should keep you busy until I get back.  I don't know about you, but I always see all kinds of holiday tutorials and ideas on blogs and then forget about them the next year.  I'm hoping my little list will jog your memory and encourage you to explore some of my past posts-especially the ones from November, December and January!

Okay, back to the blog hop. This week's Sizzix die was Karen Burniston's Sizzix Bigz XL BIGkick/Big Shot Die-Gift Card Holder/For You 3-D Pop-Up.  It's a really cool die to present gift cards in, but I decided to use it to make a little sign for my Christmas display.

Once again, I pulled out my Die Cuts With A View 12 x 12 Paper Stacks - Christmas Paper Stack, and went to town.  I'm telling you-you really need to invest in a big, holiday-themed stack of scrapbook paper.  The opportunities are endless for using it.

Speaking of versatility, check-out all the variations on this die by clicking on the button below.

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