Ornaments Inspired by Land of Nod

Land of Nod has the most adorable ornaments out this year. I wanted to buy a few for the kids, but then decided that the one simple ornament that I liked could easily be recreated at home for the fraction of the cost. I purchased wooden letters at Michaels. They have more modern looking fonts available, but I was unable to find the letters I need in those types of letters there. So, I grabbed the next best option.  They were around $1 a piece, and considering the Land of Nod Version is $4 on sale a piece this was a huge savings.

I simply used painters tape to seal off an edge, and then used craft paint to cover the unpainted wood.  It took less than three minutes to do all four letters.

I did these between when everyone was going down for a nap and cleaning all the stuff that was around my house. We have had a couple of crazy days lately, and I needed to spend more time cleaning than crafting. This gave me my creative time, and still left me plenty of time to do other things. They dried fairly quickly and I plan on attaching some bakers twine to hang them from the tree for the kids.

Here they are on the larger tree to show you what they look like. When Wynn came home from school she hung them on everyone's smaller trees in their rooms.  This would be a super simple kids craft as well.

Thanks so much for stopping by as always! Do not forget to enter the giveaway on the post from earlier this week that gets you a fun gift from UncommonGoods. Thanks!

PBK Inspired Christmas Decoration

I saw these beautiful wooden signs in the PBK catalog a few weeks back. I wanted to make wooden ones, and have Rob cut them out. I am sure you can do that, but it was too far down on the to do list, and he was busy building playroom storage. Much more important to me. ;)

I painted over a canvas I no longer was using the I had purchased on clearance at Home Goods years back. You could always purchase an inexpensive canvas at Michaels. I also picked up a wooden ornament shape at Michaels for $3 on sale.

I cut out lettering on my Silhouette machine with vinyl adhesive, and used the transfer vinyl to ensure all my words stays spaced correctly and there were no tears.  I hope you enjoyed this holiday project. I still think Rob may give them wooden shapes a whirl and I could make some more of them.  He just picked up a new saw from the tech education teacher who upgraded his equipment, and he says that circles will be easy to make.  

Favor Bag and Envelope Banners

The holidays are approaching and you can add a simple piece of decor for your home or even office. I purchased some clearance invitations from Target last year for .25 cents, and I also had purchased some favor bags on clearance as well. You can use any envelopes, and I am sure you could use some from a set of invites from the dollar store.

I took the favor bags, and glued them to the red envelopes from the invitation pack.  Then I had some gold stars and letters in my craft stash. I added them to my favorite pom pom yarn.  I put some hot glue on the poms, and then attached the back of the envelope to them.

I've actually made a few banners now with favor bags. I love using them instead of having to purchase the pre cut banner pieces that tend to be a little more expensive at a craft store.

Here is a close up shot of my JOY banner with the favor bags.

I took the invitations, and cut the trees in half where the lettering was on the front. Then I layered the top over top of the lettering to cover it up for the banner.  Then I glued the invitations on the envelopes to create a second banner. These two banners cost me less than two dollars to make total.  Target always has a great clearance section after holidays of course, and so I'm going to make sure I hit those aisles up this year.

Hope you are enjoying your time prepping for the holidays. Have a great evening!

Pottery Barn Inspired Place Card Holders

I saw some very cute place card holders on Pottery Barn's website, and thought it would be a great DIY project.  PB sells them for approximately $5 a piece.  I made them for under $2 a piece. That means I can make enough for our entire table at Christmas for the price of one box of four from PB.

Pottery Barn

I purchased glass bottles with cork tops, some jewelry wire, sisal Christmas trees, and some fake snow. All together it was approximately $25 and were all purchased on Amazon.  This made twelve total place cards instead of only four. I only used about 1/20th of the bag of fake snow, and so I did not include this in the total cost since I will use it for other projects. 

I simply wrapped the jewelry wit\re into a small circle pattern, and then stuck the end of it in the top of the cork. I then added the fake snow and tree to the inside of the bottle. I cut out a small piece of paper to add to the top to indicate the name or intial of the person.

These took only about ten minutes to put together, and they will look great on your Christmas table. I can imagine they can be redone for various occassions too.  

Thanks for stopping by!  Enjoy your holiday season.

Reindeer Ornament - Baby Food Pouch Lid Craft

I am back yet again with another idea for how to use the tops of baby food pouches. The boys have not eaten baby food in a while, but I still have quite the collection of tops.  

These ornaments are easy to put together and are definitely kid friendly. I used felt, pipe cleaners, googly eyes, food pouch tops, and craft glue. I cut out some light bulb shaped felt pieces.  Then Wynn wrapped the pipe cleaners around a pencil to make them resemble antlers.  We used the craft glue to attach the antlers to the backside of the felt piece, and then glued the second felt piece behind it.  Then we glued the eyes and nose as well. I ended up adding loops of ribbon at the top as well in order to hang them.

You could also use hot glue or any other type of adhesive. Since I was working with a four year old it made sense to use craft glue with her. You could also use these as present toppers as well.

Thanks so much for stopping by today.   It is a tough day in our house. We lost our first family pet yesterday. Our Lance was nine years old, and a sweet & gentle giant.  He will be missed by us all.  

Framed Holiday Art

I found some lovely paper printables on Hostess With The Mostess last year and printed them off.  I did not have a plan to use them then, but I decided that this Christmas I would have a great reason to use them.

I then took some gold and silver vinyl and cut out some holiday shapes on my Silhouette Cameo. I then just added the cut out to the scrapbook paper printables.

Then I framed them and put them up in my living room for easy decorating. 

 

 

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I hope you are having fun decorating your home for the holidays.

DIY Holiday Gift Wrap

I have seen some great ideas for some DIY wrapping paper on Pinterest over the years. I took some Sharpie paint pens and some brown packaging paper and created some designs of my own.

Wynn has been very nice this year as you can see. I thought this was a fun way to make some wrapping paper and not have to worry about a tag as well. The little bow will make it easy for Wynn to unwrap it.

Here is the second type of wrapping paper I made using the same supplies as the first example above.

I just used the markers to create a festive chevron pattern and a song lyric. It was a lot of fun to create my own wrapping paper decoration with the Dollar Tree packaging paper. This paper is a lot more sturdy than the every day wrapping paper too, and I like that it does not easily tear.  Thanks so much for stopping by!

Wish List Ornament

Wynn has been reeling off items she wants for Christmas for months. I thought it would be cute to commemorate what she asks for each year on an ornament for her own tree that she has to decorate herself.  With the new additions to the family I thought we could create ornaments for them as well for their first Christmas.

I used acrylic paint, wooden tags from Michaels, paint Sharpies and a paint brush.

I painted the wooden tags, and then used the paint sharpies to write the Christmas lists on the tags.  These are not fancy by any means, but I think it will be cute to go back over the years to remember the most wanted gifts. 

Here is how the ornaments turned out. I cannot wait to see them on the tree that Wynn decorates each year.

I obviously could not fit all of Wynn's list on the ornament, however, these are the top four most mentioned gifts she would like to receive from Santa.

Thanks so much for stopping by! Hope you like this quick and easy project.

Christmas Mantel & Other Holiday Decor

Here is my simple and sweet Christmas mantel. Given that I have limited time on my hands I knew I had to put together a mantel that would require little work on my part. I took my recently created cabinet door chalkboard and created a sign.

I also took my glass outdoor lantern I scored at Lowe's on clearance at the end of the summer for $7 and filled it with silver and gold ball ornaments. I placed a larger tree on the opposite side that scored from Marshalls a few years ago. 

 For the sign I took a candle wreath I purchased last year on clearance at Michaels for less than a dollar and made it the "O" in Joy.

Just nearby under my television I added some more holiday decor pretty quickly as well. It is nice now to be able to pull some things out of bins that I can use each year instead of shopping for new decorations.  I took a few pictures of this space to share with you as well.

I hope you are enjoying your holiday season. Thanks so much for stopping by!

Pottery Barn Inspired Holiday Sign

I found a super cute extra large sign on the Pottery Barn website. I wanted to create a scaled down version to be a part of my Christmas decor this season. I found a leftover piece of wood in our scrap pile that we seem to have accumulating in our basement. I grabbed some tan and red paint and some paint brushes to get working.

I painted the board red, and then cut out some letters on my Silhouette machine. I placed the letters on the wooden board.

Then went over the entire board and letters with the tan paint.

I wanted the sign to appear rustic and older, so I was not concerned with any bleed through under the letters. I was actually hoping for a little bit actually instead of the paint looking perfect.  Then I rubbed some sand paper over the entire piece to make it look a little more distressed.

Here is the sign from PB that inspired my scaled down version for this project.  I really love the size of it, but obviously not the price tag.

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Pottery Barn

Thank you so much for stopping by!  

Snowman Ornament Kid Craft

I was looking for something fun to do with Wynn for her own Christmas tree. I had purchased some clear ornaments from Michaels, and decided we could create some snowman ornaments together.

We used some tissue paper, cardstock, glue and the ornaments to put them together.  Wynn filled the ornaments with strips of tissue paper. 

I decided to use tissue paper because it does not make a huge mess when you are filling up the ornament. You could use sugar, salt, beads or just about anything white to fill in the ornament. Using tissue paper also allowed Wynn to fill them up almost 100% on her own, and she enjoyed doing it.

We made a couple for her tree, and she really loves them. Now, we just have to get the tree up sometime soon so she can add them herself. This only took about fifteen minutes to complete with a three year old. It was a lot of fun, and was something we could do while the two little boys cat napped.

Thanks for stopping by!