Christmas Crafts

Here are this year's crop of Christmas crafts so far. I am especially proud that I used only leftover wood, blocks, ribbon, paint and vinyl sitting around in my craft room. I really have to use up stuff before I move! My husband has been traveling a lot so I have been getting some really good therapy out of my current craft projects...

 What do you do with a bunch of free cut blocks taking up space upstairs? Snowmen, I guess. I couldn't decide which version I liked better, so I made both designs to give away. I like that the kids can play with them, stacking and unstacking the snowman!

 I love it when I finally find a use for old cheapy craft junk. I had this Let it Snow sign and snowflake from like seven years ago from a dollar store and never could figure out what to do with them. Now I have something for January!

 

More to come!

Family Home Evening Board

Here is my family home evening board! I am glad to finally have one!

Name Plaques

I have made some of these before so these were easy to whip out for gifts for my girls and secret sister gift...

I left a lot of space around these borders because I want to attempt some vinyl polka-dot or dash borders. We'll see if that works out!

Temple Plaque

Always nice to have a friendly reminder of the temple...

Udderly Delightful Cow Cake

 Here is the cake I made for my daughter's first birthday... Red velvet cake, buttercream icing, and all fondant covering and cows. I love a good excuse to decorate a cake! 

Primary Chorister Aids

I love being the Primary Chorister (children's music leader) in my local church. It is such a fun calling and I have really enjoyed making things to help me teach. Below is a pick and choose game, signing signs (Finch Family Games), aids I dreamt up for Nursery (18 months to 3 years old kids) music, a sing-o-meter I put together (Finch Family Games), and I tree I designed that has apples, fall leaves, birds and snowflakes on it for choosing songs or ways to sing. It is fun to try to stretch my brain to create new ways to teach and sing every week!

File Folder Games

I made twenty or so of these a while back for my kids to play with during Sacrament Meeting at church or on Sundays at home. They are wonderful and provide countless hours of simple learning entertainment. Easy and cheap to make. The ones pictured are from Finch Family Games file folder books that my sister gave me.

Hungry Caterpillar Puppet and Food

I am always looking for cheap ideas that will entertain my children in church or other quiet situations. I had fun making these silly green sock puppet caterpillars and food items to eat that go along with the book "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle. Super cheap (dollar store socks, felt, hot glue and google eyes) and my daughter loves to feed the caterpillar the food and pull the butterfly from the cocoon pouch. Yum!

Halloween is coming!

Did I mention that I love Fall? Oh baby, I do! And Halloween is one of the best things about the season. In my future life, I want my house to be as festive for Halloween as it is for Christmas. I had a friend whose parents would totally deck out their house with big Halloween trees and haunted house collections, lights, you name it. That will be ME! However, since my budget (and my storage space) is severely limited, I'll stick to easy cheapy wood crafty stuff for now. Each of these cost me $3 or less to make. These are the newest additions to my Halloween stuff this year...

 

 

 

Fall Festive Fun

I love the Fall and I I love decorating for Fall! There is so much Fall goin' on in my house right now thanks to a lonely weekend with my husband out of town cured with a hefty dose of Pintrest and craft therapy. These are the new fall crafts I came up with...

R Monogram

I always see these expensive monogram tiles at craft stores... this one was, um... maaaaybe 50 cents to make? Yep. Thank you hardware store and Silhouette.

Bow obsession... add fabric flowers to that.

Those that know me well know that I have made about a billion bows during the past two-and-a-half years. Giving birth to a girl just brings it out of ya. My two daughters' closet cannot contain them. And I must say I have done a spledid job of making them all dirt cheap. I buy ribbon at the dollar store or the dollar bin and use it forever, for everything. Ribbon bows have typically been my thing, mostly because I knew how already, but lately I have been dappling in fabric flowers and bows. Cutting up old clothing for some flowers for my wreath got me thirsty for more...

Here are a few that I've been experimenting with... I used only old clothing for all of these... hemmed edges and lace are aweseome!  I love making things for only the cost of hot glue and thread. Go and see what your hand- me-down bag can offer!
I'm sure you have seen tutorials elsewhere (or you can find awesome tutorials at this SITE THAT I LOVE) so I only added mini-explainations... if you want a tutorial just leave a comment.

The following came from one old shirt... lace and hemmed ruffle. This lace is just glued in a circle. The rosettes are just a hemmed edge rolled up, and the big rosette is just a hemmed edge rolled in the middle with a ruffle glued around the edge.

Leftover tulle...puffs! Little layers of tulle wrapped around the middle with thread and ... puffed!

This is just ric-rac leftover from a baby blanket project. I  thought i would see how it turned out and it is my favorite ever! The ric-rac makes perfect little petals. I had to glue the "centers" of each little petal together to get it to wrap around a circular shape. They are so darn cute in my daughters hair. And so easy! I guess this one wasn't technically free since I had originally bought the ric-rac myself, but hey, good way to use up!

These are fabric circles that have been baste stiched around the outside edge and pulled in to the center and flattened. There are two layered here. The button is hiding the pulled in strings, which give it the ruffly look.

Lace... one just wrapped in a circle, and one with circles of lace folded into points and layered.

Old skirt? I love it! These are just long pieces ruffled and sewn into a circle.

Ugliest shirt ever... (and felt)... Ruffled fabric into a circle, rounded square of felt cut in a swirl and rolled up.

This flower is really humongous and I haven't quite figured out what to do with it yet. I was just experimenting to see how big I could make one. This is just long strips of fabric from old pant legs ruffled and glued around a circle of felt. Nifty, eh?

Now I had to add some felt flowers to the mix, since they are the stuff that dreams are made of these days. I love that they take two seconds to make and I can make lots from a single piece of cheapy 20 cent felt.

12 inches x 2 inches of felt folded longways and glued at the edge, slits cut, and rolled up! Fluffy, delightful, fun!

Rosettes made from rounded squares with a swirled cut, rolled up, and six circles folded into "S" shapes and glued onto a separate circle.