Christmas Angels

These Christmas angels were ordered and sent out just last week.  Word has it they are going to be given to a group of 12 year-old girls...angels themselves, I'm sure!

Mushroom Pincushion Tutorial

I have an upcoming event at which I will be teaching members of the community how to make felt Christmas ornaments.  I'm really excited about it.  It's a Christmas event through the Frontier Homestead State Park Museum. 

I thought it would be fun to have some cute pincushions on the crafting table at this event.  So here is what I made.  You can make one too!

I found these short wooden candle holders at the local thrift store.  I bought them thinking that I could come up with some sort of way to craft with them.  I'm a sucker for unfinished wood.  It calls to me, "Craft with me!"

After thinking about it for a while, it was decided.  I would make mushroom pincushions.  Here's how I did it.

Materials:
wooden candle holders
paint
wool felt
stiff felt
stuffing (I used wool roving)
needle and thread
glue gun

Step One:
First I painted the wooden candle holders. My kids wanted to do this project with me, but they had so much fun painting they never moved onto the felt part. 

Step Two:
I cut out the felt circles.  I cut a circle with a 2 1/4 inch diameter out of stiff felt as well as a circle with a 5 inch diameter out of wool felt.  I used the stiff felt as the base of my mushroom top and the wool felt as the top of my mushroom. 

Step Three:
Using a running stitch, I sewed along the edge of the wool felt circle and pulled slowly to gather the circle. 

Step Four:
I gently rolled the wool roving into a ball and stuffed it into the gathered felt mushroom top.  Then I slid the stiff felt circle into the gathered felt circle to cover the stuffing.  I also flipped the candle holder upside down and hot glued it to the middle of the stiff felt circle. 

Step Five:
I tightened the mushroom top around the candle holder by gently pulling the running stitch.  I stitched this in place.  For extra security I also hot glued the gathered edged of the mushroom top to the candle holder. 

 Step Six:
I cut out small circles with another color of felt and simply hot glued them on to the top of the mushroom. 

 And we're done! Now you have some cute mushroom pincushions to go on your craft table and in my case, to go on the craft table I'll be teaching from.

Felt Fortune Cookie Advent Calendar

Hooray!  My Felt Fortune Cookie Advent Calendar was featured on the Martha Stewart Living Blog!  You can find the post here or you can find the calendar pattern here.  Fun!

Baby Jesus' Manger

The kids are trying to fill baby Jesus' manger with hay before Christmas.  Each time they do something nice, they put one piece of hay into the manger. 

That's our manger (inside the suitcase).  We just decided to put the manger, along with all of the extra hay, into this little suitcase to cut down on a big mess. 

Winter Terrarium

 

I've turned four glass food canisters into winter terrariums. The tallest jar has a toy deer and a little fuzzy weed that looks like a tiny tree. The second jar has another tiny tree and a vintage-inspired Santa ornament. The third jar has some paper Christmas trees. For the fourth jar I made a tiny wool felted snowman with a felt hat. 

 

To make the brim of the hat I cut a small circle of black felt. The top of the hat is made of a strip of black felt. I rolled up the strip of felt starting on the short side, and hot glued it in place when it was all rolled up. Then, I simply glued the rolled up felt onto the middle of the circle. 

 

 

Oh, by the way, for all of the snow I used leftover fake spider webs from Halloween. 

 

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

 

I've been slowly taking Christmas decorations out and putting them around the house.

 

I saw these two reindeer at a thrift store.  When I first walked past them I couldn't believe how ugly they were, but as I walk around the store I couldn't stop thinking about them.  After taking a lap around the store looking at other things, I decided I wanted to buy these little ugly reindeer.  I found myself in a panic, rushing back to them and hoping they were still there.  They were, of course.  I think they look great with these funny, little elves riding on them.  They are resting on a small wooden chair that I have on one my walls.

 

These little elves move from place to place around the house, watching for good behavior.  One is named Dirk.  Dirk is the elf that brought me small toys and candy during the month of December when I was a kid.  The other is named Durf.  He's the new guy.  The kids have high hope that these elves will reward their good behavior come December. 

Crayons and Creativity

This is, thus far, my all time favorite drawing by Ev(6).  It is a drawing of Micah(3) with his bunny towel on after he gets out of the tub.  I love it!