Christmas (& Beyond) Projects!

I don't know about you guys, but there's something about Christmas that just makes me want to create!  In our family we have a tradition where we make each other one homemade gift.  For now it's just Brandon and me making all the gifts, but I think that next year we'll add Nicholas into the mix and then just draw names for the homemade gifts.  I am pretty excited about what I made for Brandon, but just in the very slight chance that he'll read this post, I'll wait until after Christmas to show what I made.  I am, however, making some fun things for Renae and Nicholas.  Nicholas is finally going to get an I-Spy bag that I've been wanting to make him for a while now.  I think he'll have fun with it.  For Renae I am making some shoes and some hair things.  That's where I need a little help, though!  For her shoes, I am going to make some of these.  

I want to make some cute hair bows to clip onto a headband and to use later on when she actually has hair, but I need some good bow tutorials.  I did find these cute felt flower bows, which I'll make to coordinate with her shoes, I think.  I have a cute flower sizzix die that will work to make a felt flower clippie. 

I also am curious about where to find generic hair clips that I can cover in ribbon.  I've looked at Meijer, Target, and Walmart for some, but haven't found them.  Any ideas? 

Sometime after Christmas I think I'll also make a cookie sheet advent calendar.  They are really cute!  So many fun projects and not enough hands to do them and hold/hold off my kids with!

 Merry Christmas to you all!

Fun decorating project

For a long time I couldn't figure out what to put above the cabinets in my kitchen. A friend of mine, Melanie, came up with this idea (our kitchens are a lot alike), so we worked on this project together. She was able to make 12 inch tiles, because she doesn't have a shelf above her cabinets. She printed larger pictures, added vinyl words and ribbon. Mine are only 6 inch tiles, so I only added pictures. We found the tiles at home depot, then we used mod podge to glue the pictures onto the tiles. It was a lot of fun and a really inexpensive, quick project. I really like how they turned out. I think this would work well for any room, and you could use any cute hanger or easel to display the tiles.

I decided to go ahead and post a picture of one of Melanie's tiles, so you can see how cute it is with the vinyl lettering and ribbon.

Cute Gift Idea

So I found this while I was blog-hopping, and thought it was the cutest gift idea that looks so cheap!  It's a magnetic board that is made out of a cookie sheet!  Ingenious, I know.  Here's the link, go check it out:

http://payperiodprojects.blogspot.com/2008/11/cookie-sheets.html

Cute Christmas kids craft

Will made this in school last year and I LOVE it. I teach Matt's preschool group later this month and I'm going to have the kids make one for their parents. Each snowman is made from putting the child's finger in paint, then stamping it onto the ornament, and finally decorating it like a snowman.

There's a poem attached to the ornament.
It says, "These aren't just five snowmen,
As anyone can see.
I made them with my hand,
Which is a part of me.
Now each year when you trim the tree,
You'll look back and recall...
Christmas of 2007
When my hand was just this small.

Couple of things....

If you like digital scrapbooking - I love the site www.freedigitalscrapbooking.com It has some great freebies.
As for card making stuff. If you are familiar with versamark ink - they have just come out with two new inks. They both leave the watermark like the original but these are a little darker and have a sparkle in them. I am all about sparkle and glitter. The champagne color is darker than the frost color.
A great card making site is www.heroarts.com Go to their blog. They have great card ideas. On Wednesdays they usually have some kind of video. They also have giveaways. I have actually won one! Anyway - it's a fun site.
Happy Crafting!

I love this idea!

I always have ideas that I want to share with you guys, but I often don't think to post it to our family blog.  Lately I've been trying to get back into my hobbies because I've been told in my patriarchal and other blessings that my hobbies will give me mental rest when I need it.  I've really been needing it, too!  I've really been in a digital scrapbooking mode lately, so I thought I'd share some of my favorite websites to download freebies or get some good information.  Unfortunately I deleted my entire scrapbook folder off the computer, so I have now lost all of the pages I've made in the last few weeks...only about 12-15 pages!  At least I have a few good resources to turn to!

1. Shabby Princess...good for many good freebie kits and a nice ideas gallery, but I'm pretty sure I've told you all about this website already!

2. Tracy's Scraps...dranet.blogspot.com....she has lots of free templates and other freebies, which I have become addicted to using.  Templates make creating pages so much quicker once you learn to use them.  I want to learn to make them, but I have not yet looked up a tutorial on creating templates.

3. Scrapbook_bytes.com...this site has so many really pretty decent tutorials for the most popular scrapbooking software.  I've found many tutorials on techniques that I would have never thought of, so it's been pretty fun learning new things.

What are some of your favorite digital scrapbooking sites?

Getting Started!

Hey Kiley Girls!

Like I said in my email, this is a site for all of us to post to for all sorts of crafty stuff!  Tips, ideas, links on everything from Kids crafts to digital scrapbooking! Let's have fun with it!

~Lori