How to make glittery reindeer

 This was my dollar store craft last year. So simple but so cute.

 I was inspired by some more expensive ornaments I saw at a department store and thought I could do something similar with dollar store finds.

 Dollarama had these great packs of fine glitter in tones of colours. I added 3 of the colours together which created a beautiful new colour.

 In the home section (not the holiday section) I found these reindeer which were perfect to glitter. 

To attach the glitter I painted on white glue and then poured the glitter over top. I used 2 paper plates to pour and catch the glitter. I glued and glittered in sections, it took awhile including letting it dry and touching up the spots that were missed. To fix the glitter so it doesn't just fall off and make a glittery mess everywhere I sprayed with hairspray. It works pretty well, I pulled them out for year 2 and the glitter   still stays put.

Here's how I have them displayed, on top of the bookshelf with a collection of the girls Santa photos (in dollar store frames).

How to make a glitzy wreath

Here's the new wreath I made last year for our backdoor. 

I started with a wire hanger and bent it into a circle.

Then I wrapped the wire with newspaper and taped it around. I took sheets of newspaper and crumpled it  into long tubes and then formed around the wire and taped it in place, then I added more until it was thick enough. I then taped all around to smooth it out. I spray painted the wreath white. And now you have a free wreath form.

Then I put all the Christmas crap I had bought on the table to figure out what to use. It's a combination of dollar store stuff and decorations that I bought at a sample sale - stuff like 1 strand of garland that's not enough to decorate a tree or anything.

I chose the garland to start with, since I only had 1 strand of 3 different kinds I had to spread them out and layer them. After I got all the garland on I added a big bow and some dollar store decorations.

How to make kids Christmas crafts

So I know that you probably assumed that I just gave up on the blog. I wish I made more time to share but at least I've had some time to craft. I thought I'd show you some of the crafts my girls have been making this season.

Lilo made jingle bell bracelets for her friends at school. I bought some bells from the dollar store and thought they would make cute bracelets. I was trying to find some elastic string to thread them on but while looking through my stuff I found pipe cleaners and thought they would be easier for Lilo to use. Plus the bracelets could also be used as ornaments.

Here's Lilo wrapping them all up herself. Too bad she only remembered to hand out 2 out of the 20 she made on the last day of school. It looks like she will be giving out good luck bracelets in the new year.

The girls brought these home from daycare last week. I love them. So cute and simple.
An oval of cardboard as the base, pinecone hot glued on with cotton balls glued around as snow. The pinecone tree is decorated with a string of mini beads, sprinkled with fake snow and topped with a gold star.
These are just made from the Ikea pyssla beads. Fun melting beads shapes that I just glued a ribbon on the back to make into an ornament.
On the back of one of them I glued a piece of paper for Lilo to use as a gift tag on her teacher's gift.

We also made picture frame wreaths from small paper plates. I cut a hole in the middle of the plate and let the girls decorate them. I realized that it sometimes is better if I limit the number of different things I give the kids to decorate with otherwise they look, well unfinished (see one on the left). The ones we made with only 1-3 different things I like better.
I decided to add the kids Santa photo inside to make a cute frame.
I took another paper plate and cut the photo to fit inside and then glued both plates together. Then poke a hole through both plates and loop a pipe cleaner through to make a hook.
And lastly Lilo brought this home from school. A classic idea but so cute and easy - a great keepsake. We got 2 different colours of green paper in her school bag and as home work we were had to cut out outlines of her hands. Then at school she glued them on to a large paper plate and decorated.

Hope everyone is having a fun crafty holiday season.

How to make the Ultimate Turkey Leftover Sandwich

My husband introduced me to his family tradition of the Ultimate Turkey Leftover Sandwich. I'll admit when I first heard of it I thought it sounded a little gross but boy was I wrong.

First take out all your leftovers from your turkey dinner; the Turkey, the Stuffing, and the Cranberry sauce. Then butter 2 slices of bread and cut thin slices of cheese. To build the sandwich, you start with the bread with the butter side out, then a thin layer of cheese, followed by a thin layer of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce then topped with another thin layer of cheese. The second layer of cheese is optional. The key to making the sandwich work is thin layers, otherwise it will sit like a brick in your stomach.

Now grill them like a grilled cheese sandwich. This sandwich press I have is great for these sandwiches but a frying pan will also work, you just have to be careful when flipping so you don't lose all the insides. Also cook on a lower temperature so the inside heats up. If using a frying pan just squish the sandwich down so have the layers melt together.

And Volia - the Ultimate Turkey Leftover Sandwich. It's so wrong but so yummy.

How to make more ornaments

Here are few last minute ornaments I made yesterday for our babysitters. We have a family of 3 girls up the street that take turns watching our girls when we need. It's very handy to have 3 options in one house.
I wasn't sure what to make/ get for them but at the last minute thought of personalized ornaments.
I made this one from an Arizona Ice Tea can. I cut out all the letters, sanded them and glue gunned it to a popsicle stick. Check out here how I made other ornaments from pop cans.

The problem is these girls have long names :) So I glittered a big J here. I glittered both side this time. Then on from opaque stencil plastic I used white glue and glitter to write the rest of her name out. I used a glue gun to add this piece to the edge of the J. It would also be cute to just do initials. Here is the other glittery ornaments we made.

And since I had some of my book left from the other paper ornament I made I came up with this one. I took about 15-20 pages from the book and wrote out the name. Then with an x-acto knife I cut out all layers. Using white glue I glued all the layers together. I used a small amount of glue on the inside of the letter, leaving the edges so when it was all stacked together you could see the individual layers. I then used a white iridescent paint to wash over the letters. On the edges I used a dark bronze colour paint. Then glue gunned to a popsicle stick and glued a ribbon to the back.

I like how they can be used as tree ornaments but also could be used just as room decorations too - a cute gift for anytime of the year.

Hope everyone is having a fun, stress free holiday. Merry Christmas.

How to make ornaments out of pop cans

I saw this idea last year and finally got around to trying it and I love it. It's super simple to do - check out full instructions here.

Start off with an aluminum pop can and using heavy scissors cut the top and bottom off and down the side (near the Nutrition Facts part since you won't want to use that part). Wipe clean and lay flat. Then trace or draw out the image you want. You can use a pencil/ pen or I had some other pointy thing that I think is for rubbing off transfer sticker (from university or something). Draw out the image and add some detail lines and cut out. Becareful as the edges are sharp but they weren't as bad as I thought they would be.

Using sandpaper on a block smooth out the edges and distress. If you added detail lines on the inside of the can then when sanding on the coloured side they will become silver when sanded. If you add detail lines on the coloured side, they will stay coloured when sanded. So play to get the look you want.
Circles that I used a hammer punch to make holes and linked together with rings.

This is why you want to avoid the Nutrition Facts - it doesn't look very good.

This star I added the detail line on the coloured side so you can still see them. I like that effect too. The small star was glue gunned on afterwards.
For the holly ornament - I cut out 3 leaves and used the back side of them and then the berries are the coloured side. Then I glue gunned them together adding a bow on a loop behind it.

I added it to this small box. All I did was wrap the box with the ribbon and then used a paper clip to hold the ornament in place.

We only drink coke in our house, so we only have red cans. I did take a green can home from when we were at a friends place which I want to use to make another holly ornament. Also when I was walking with Isla the other day I found a few more cans on the ground, a blue can and one of the pretty Arizona Ice Tea ones. Amazing the pretty stuff you can make from garbage.

How to make a glittery ornament

I was trying to come up with a gift idea for Lilo to make for the family and I was getting a little stumped. I asked her what she thought Oma would like and she said a new pair of glasses. So that's when I thought of these glittery ornaments.

I found some old cardboard from a cereal box and drew out a shape of the glasses and cut out. Then on the printed side we covered it with white glue using a paint brush to smooth it all over. Then over a piece of paper sprinkle glitter. Reuse the glitter to cover any missed spots. Then leave to dry. When they were dry I sprayed a light dusting of aerosol hairspray to fix the glitter. I remember using hairspray as a fixative in university and it works pretty well, otherwise the glitter would just keep falling off.

Once it's dry you can add other decorations to make it more beautiful (Lilo's words). For the fish it would probably be best to leave to dry between colours but we didn't. The pink glitter around the eye was put there because Lilo put so much glue to stick the eye on.

The wrench is for my brother - Lilo's idea since he's a carpenter.

If you want you can add more glitter to the back of the ornament. I decided not to and I had Lilo write her name and the year instead.

And my wreath I made last year I submitted to contest on Dollar Store Crafts. If you can please go over and vote for me that would be great.

How to make snowflake ornaments with small kids

I was trying to clean up one of the junk cupboards that I have full of craft stuff and I found some cotton balls and Popsicle sticks. I saw someone make snowflake ornaments with Popsicle sticks and buttons and was wondering if cotton balls would work.
As I took out the supplies, cotton balls, Popsicle sticks and white glue. Isla also hopped up and started helping right away. She grabbed the glue and just started going to town. It was neat to see her really enjoying it and actually doing it by herself.
After all the cotton balls were on I quickly took it away to dry - since Isla just wanted to play with it more. I added a bit more glue to make sure the cotton balls were going to stay on.
The next day, when Lilo was making her ornaments (I'll post later) Isla was wanting to do something too, so that's when I thought about adding the snowflake sequins.

On the back I glue gunned a piece of string to hang it from and wrote Isla's name and year.

Looking at it now I could have put another Popsicle stick. I did try to space them out more but the glue is slippery before it dries and a 20 month old isn't that patient.
I still think they turned out super cute.

How to make ornaments out of an old book

Here is one of the ornaments I have been working on the past few weeks. I was inspired by Zakka Life where they made a similar style ornament with felt.
The first one I made I used an old magazine but I like the look of the text on the book.

So the first step was to go to our book shelf and find books that I know I will never read again and don't mind giving up - or you can go to the Good Will. I thought I could part with my copy of Staying Alive.

Rip out a section or 2 from the book - I think I took about 25 pages but it could have used a bit more. Trace out a circle twice and cut out. Put all 50 (or so) circles on top of each other. Fold the top circle in half and make a crease, use this as your sewing guide. Sew across the crease using a large stitch length. I have an industrial sewing machine so it could get through it no problem. If your machine can't you could do it in 2 or 3 sections and then just glue gun the pieces together on the stitching. Don't back tack your stitches, it will just make the paper tear so just leave long thread tails.

Then I would take the thread tails and untwist and tie a knot at each end. Pull the loose threads to the center and trim to 1/2" and glue gun down to seam (I didn't do this until the end and the threads kept getting in the way so it would be easier to do it first).

Since the edges of the paper were a little rough I used some sandpaper on the edges to smooth them out - optional, I just had some sandpaper around for another project so I used it. When using the sandpaper don't use too close to the thread or it will rip it.

Then take the first page and glue a dot in the middle - not too close to the edges so the glue doesn't spill out.

Turn to the next page and put 2 glue dots spaced apart like the picture. And then continue to alternate for both sides of the circle and leave to dry.

There is an example of putting too much glue, too close to the edge. It made all the pages stick together - a big mess. If a few pages get stuck together you can gently get them apart. This one on the other hand could not be saved.
While it's drying get the ornament hanger ready. I used some coated wire stuff that I had from days when I was making necklaces but anything that you can thread a bead onto would work.

Make a big loop at top and add some beads. For the bottom I put the gold coloured bead on first, then the silver ball and then back through the gold bead.

Glue gun the wire to the seam of the circle - pulling the wire tight at the bottom and making the loop the size you want to hang at the top. Trim extra wire.

Then gently pull apart pieces to join the last pages together. Using a glue gun join them.

Take some metallic paint and lightly brush on the edges to add some glitz.

We don't have our tree up yet so I took pictures on this mini tree we have, a little silly looking, I know :)

How to make an advent tree calendar

I saw this super cute idea over at ikat bag to make paper cone trees for an advent calendar.
I had been thinking of making an advent calendar and there are so many fun ideas out there it was hard to decide what to make. I thought this one was really fun.

I found a bunch of green scrapbook paper with different patterns. I traced a big bowl for a circle and then cut the circle in 3 (not an easy thing to figure out and of course when I looked back at the post she used 1/4 circle - much easier) Once I figured it out I traced on the other circles and cut out a few at a time.

I got Lilo to write the numbers 1 to 25 on the triangles since she is loving practicing writing.

Then I gathered a bunch of fun things to decorate with, after a trip to a dollar store I had: jewels, holiday sequins, glittery mini pompoms, glitter glue, stickers, star sequins and big star jewels for the tops of some trees.

While Isla was napping, Lilo and I decorated. Isla did colour one of them when she woke up.

After they were dry I rolled and glued or taped them. This was also a pain. The original made a tab seam allowance to fold over. I tried snipping the tip and folding but anyway I tried it was hard to get them to stay together. So at the end I just used tape on the outside - you can't see it when they are up on the mantel.

So everyday I will put a treat under the tree. So far I've put chocolates, lolly pops and yesterday holiday erasers. I'm also thinking that some days will be activities like, write Santa a letter, make cookies, buy a Christmas tree - so I've decided to not put things under until the day of. Also I don't really trust Lilo not to peak and I don't trust the cats not to jump up and knock them all down.

And yes, we have a tv in our fireplace.