Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Craft. Christmas Jar lanterns.

Need a great gift for Teachers?  Neighbors?  Babysitters? 
Found this on one of my favorite blogs and loved how they turned out!!
You will need:
tissue paper, torn into 1 inch strips
Modge Podge
ribbon
die-cuts (or hand drawn pics for front of jar)

Now don't ask me why I didn't photograph my steps knowing FULL WELL that I was going to blog about it.  I honestly don't know what got into me.  I think I was having so much fun doing this that I forgot all about photographs!!!  So I will show you the photos I could find.
First, you will Modge Podge the strips of tissue to the jar.  I put my hand in the jar and starting the strip of tissue at the bottom, Modge'd it up to the top of the jar.  The top is nearly impossible to do with that same strip (it ends up tearing from all the Modge Podge) so we'll worry about that later - just come as close at you can to the top and don't worry about any tears or holes around the top for now. 
While this is drying, you can work on your die-cuts.  I used my Cricut Expression - Christmas Cheer cartridge to cut out these images.  However, you can freestyle some snowmen and that's cute too - see!
Once you get the die-cuts together, you can Modge Podge them right onto the front of the jar.  Now is when you want to see if there are any spots you missed and to finish the top of the jar.  My tops turned out well and here's what I did.  I took a strip of tissue and wrapped it around the top of the jar horizontally.  That way, it covered the whole top in one swoop!
Tie some ribbon around them, add a tag (I added the candy cane reindeer instead), pop a tealight in that baby and you're ready for gift giving!!  Hint:  If you can find them on sale, the battery operated tealights are really fabulous!!  These actually flicker like flames (I found mine on sale at Hobby Lobby)!!
 Look for another post soon to show what else I filled these treat jars with!
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Sunday, December 4, 2011

Food Craft. Cupcake in a Jar.

I wanted to make something small and cute for my Church preschool committee gals so this is what I came up with - taken from this great blog!

Although I did make homemade cream cheese icing ...

...I did cheat and use store-bought red velvet cake mix.  Sorry ladies.  I tasted a cupcake though and it was really yummy.  MMMMMmmmmmmm......

I put one whole cupcake in the bottom of the 1/2 pint wide-mouth jar, then a layer of homemade cream cheese icing.  After that, another cupcake (yes, I realize this is more than one cupcake but hey - who's counting!!) then topped with a fancy swirl of icing with sprinkles.


For the lid, I punched a circle from red card-stock using my 3" circle punch.  Then used my Cricut Expression to cut the letters for the lid (1/4", Cricut Classic Font), and a few brads to jazz up the word. 

I Modge Podge'd the circle to the lid - tied on the plastic spoons with Christmas ribbon...
...and Voila!  A cute single-serve Cupcake in a Jar!  Hope they like it!!


I know I liked it!  Hee hee.
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Saturday, December 3, 2011

Story. Christmas Tree Farm.



Never worry about the size of your Christmas tree.  In the eyes of children, they are all 30 feet tall.  ~Larry Wilde, The Merry Book of Christmas


It's become an annual tradition that we cut down our own Christmas tree every year from a local tree farm.  I did this as a kid growing up, so we started the same tradition for my family.  It's not always an easy thing to do with two young boys, but we give it our best shot! 

 

So on Thanksgiving weekend we visted Hensler Tree Farm to get our Christmas tree.  It was a super windy day and the threat of rain was always near, but also unusually balmy for this time of year (close to 60 degrees!).

We rode the wagon out to the fields, walked up and down the isles of many trees, and finally settled on one that Logan spied.  He helped Papi cut it down - sometimes Deklen helped too. 

Then we loaded it unto the cart and headed back to our pickup spot to get it wrapped and measured.

Then it was off to visit Santa, and grab some hot cocoa and some munchies before heading back home.  We look forward to coming back next year!





Our tree in all its glory!

 
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