Christmas tree skirts

I made a few Christmas tree skirts this year.  First I started with one I already have and folded it in half and laid it onto my folded fabric, lining up the folded side of the skirt with the fold of the fabric.  Cut around the half circle and around the little hole part. Cut through one of the folds and open up the fabric.  You will have a basic skirt.  I doubled the thickness of each of these to add some stability and to make them a nice reversible option.  The rag-quilted flannel one has all exposed seems that fray when they are clipped and tumbled in the dryer a few times.  

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gift bags

This year I tried to be resourceful with Christmas gifts!  I usually don't have very much time to make gifts, but I did a little bit of planning ahead this year- VERY little!  These are a few of the bags I made (all with stuff I already had) to hold small gifts in.  The bag was both a gift bag and a reusable tote!

handmade Christmas

Here's something anyone with a glue gun and a few buttons can make.  This is a cork board I got a yard sale for 10 cents.  I painted the frame and cut a piece of brown craft paper to fit over the cork.  Ribbon, sticks, and buttons do the rest of the work.  

Cousins!

Titus and Ezra live too far away from us!  My sweet nephews need to know their cousins and so for Christmas I decided to send them some cousins to play with!  I copied some pictures of each of my kids onto regular paper and then cut around them.

I love this stuff!  It is a big magnet with a sticky backing.  I put the picture on the magnet and then cut around it again.  

Here's what they look like now:

To make them extra durable I laminated them and sent them off and there you go- cousins to play with!

Advent Calendar

I finally made the advent calendar I've been planning for 3 years!  Please don't get too excited.  This certainly does NOT look like it's been worked on for 3 years, it's just that I finally made the time to do it.  I had several ideas in mind, but here's what I finally chose to do:

I painted a canvas dark brown and then cut out 25 tags (these are actually the tags I use for the Calico Barn so I already had them made).  Then I put brads through each hole to hold the tags onto the canvas (pins stuck into a framed cork board would be nice too).  I bought these brads at the $1 spot at Target.

Some of the numbers are hand written, but most are just stickers from my scrap-booking stuff.  On some of the brads I hung little things.  On the backs of each tag I'll write something special for our family to do together each night this month.  

Now, practically speaking we're not going to be able to have a perfect little family warm and fuzzy holiday- spirited, cookie- baking, craft- making, cocoa- sipping, carol- singing, story- reading, movie- watching, popcorn- stringing night every one of these 25 days, but we'll have fun trying!  This was fun and EASY to make.  If you don't have an advent calendar I recommend making one and by all means don't wait 3 years to do it!  :)