A quick peek at our mini "Pinterest party"!

From my collection of vintage cards

Last Friday, we had a impromptu and very mini [6 people] "Pinterest party" at our house. My daughter and I had planned to get together to make these Snow Globe Terrariums using jars I found in my dad's basement. 

Then Mr. T unexpectedly had the day off, and so he proposed doing some Christmas baking with the grandkids while their mom and I were occupied.  They actually ended up not baking as such, but making two batches of this Sweet and Salty Bark.  There were plenty of tasks for everyone to do in this recipe!

Both projects turned out great, but for now I will just show the above photos of the projects in progress.  No time today to do more than this!

December 11 ~ Simple Christmas card banner

Photo by bhg.com

As I mentioned yesterday, my granddaughter and I worked together on banners for our dining room windows.  We made the individual "pennants" together and I sewed them to ribbon a few days later to create the banners.  Here is the link to this project on my Crafting for Christmas Pinterest board: Christmas Card Banner.  If you click the "website" link at the top, you'll be taken to bhg.com, where you can access the specific directions.

I actually found this project in a magazine -- BHG's Holiday Crafts for 2011, a magazine worth owning  if you see a copy somewhere.  Don't be put off by all of the Halloween stuff; there are far more Christmas projects and I can see easily a dozen or more that I want to try.  This is a magazine that my sweet daughter had placed on my pillow when we arrived for our last fall visit with them.

As I mentioned, we adapted the pattern quite freely.  It called for the cards to be attached to fabric pennants.  I priced the fabric at Jo-Ann's out there and even bought a small piece of it, but it was pricey so I only got enough for one banner.  So, for our project, we used red card stock rather than red fabric.  It's neat because you don't use just fronts of cards, but the messages from inside as well, which can be fun because some of the messages are really neat and some of the handwriting of friends and loved ones can be preserved as well.

One thing we did find to be a bit of a problem was finding cards with the right format to fit the pennant templates (triangles) we had made.  If I had it to do again, I would use a sort of reverse template, kind of like a stencil, whereby I would cut the triangle out of a larger piece of cardboard and use the empty triangle space to place over the Christmas card so I could position it better and make sure it would look good and fit the design well. 

Banner 1

Banner 2

Banner 3

The ribbon I used was some I had purchased from Home-Sew back in the 1970s or early 1980s.   It is red and velvety on one side and red & white checked on the other side.  I thought that since there were so many varying shades of red in the project, that the checked side would look nicer.

So that is our card project.  As I mentioned, I adapted it pretty freely from the pattern, so if you have questions about what we did, just ask them in the comments and I will answer as soon as I can.

December 10 ~ A small bit of Christmas crafting

 
Over the past little while I have accomplished a small bit of crafting.  Yesterday I wanted to try a pattern I had seen for snow globe coasters.  They are made of felt and adorable but instead, I went for something simpler.  In my Christmas fabric stash, I found some snow globe fabric.   I had used the individual snow globes once on a sweatshirt for one of my daughters.  So I first tried making one of these into a coaster.  It came out cute, as you see above, but a little on the small side.

So I went a different route and made mug mats.  I was quite pleased with how they came out.

Sorry it is askew here.  I scanned these rather than taking pictures.

This one stayed a little straighter in the scanner.

A week or two ago I made some banners using old Christmas cards, paper crafting supplies and ribbon.  I will show only one of these for now, as my time is limited today, but later on I will tell more about the project, including a link to the pattern, and showing more pictures.

The others are pretty similar, and I think this one may have come out the best.

That's all the crafting news for now!

December 9 ~ Buy yourself some Christmas time

From my collection of vintage cards

... by using your slow cooker for preparing meals during this busy season.  If you are a busy mom or work outside the home, you probably already do this.  But a nifty little secret is that even if you are home all day, putting supper in the slow cooker is a fantastic way to buy yourself some extra time.  With a one dish meal in the slow cooker and some muffins, biscuits, or even bread from the Walmart reduced bakery rack, you are all set.  Supper cooks itself and you can bake, craft, decorate, or whatever you like for an extra hour or more. 

You can check out the slow cooker recipes at my regular blog, Across My Kitchen Table .  Just click on "slow cooker recipes" in the label word cloud in the sidebar. 

For more ideas, take a look at my Slow Cooker Inspiration board on Pinterest.


Happy slow cooking!

December 8 ~ A quick update on our Christmas preparations so far

 * 1 Christmas card came in the mail yesterday; a second one hand-delivered by friends at church today.  Many more -- about a half dozen -- have arrived from my Christmas craft forum friends from near and far.  Closest -- Minnesota.  Farthest away -- New Zealand.

* 2 trees are up,  one pre-lit with colored lights; one with white lights.  No ornaments yet.  The trees are starting to look pretty good to us with just the lights ... We are debating just how few ornaments we can get away with!

* 3 batches of Christmas cookies made -- Chocolate Spritz; Whipped Shortbread; and Gingersnaps.

Plus a double batch of decadent Moose Munch bark [link to follow later]; 3 Christmas banners made and put up over the dining room windows; a sweet lighted terrarium display made, and arranged on a table on the front porch;  a basket of woodland greenery gathered ... and probably more that I can't think of now.  It's late.

Snow is predicted for tomorrow ...

December 7 ~ Shoeboxes

This sweet graphic is by Little Birdie Blessings

This year was the first time I have participated in filling shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child.  My daughter and her kids have filled boxes a couple of times and have so thoroughly enjoyed and been blessed by this opportunity to share with those less fortunate.  It has been a great experience, especially for the children. 

So this year when Carrie mentioned making some dolls for the shoeboxes she and the kids would be filling, I decided to get my two oldest granddaughters (ages 10 and 12) involved.  Kids that age love to help others!  They jumped at the chance to fill a shoebox apiece for girls in their age range.

  The only downside was that I waited until nearly the last minute, so we didn't have time to make a lot of homemade items for the boxes.  We went to the dollar store on a Friday night,  and each girl filled up a plastic shoe box with school supplies, soap, toothpaste and toothbrushes, hair stuff, and so on.  The next day, we worked on a simple sewing project -- these purse size tissue holders  to add to the boxes. 

These ares some tissue holders we had made previously.

For the shoebox ones, we used Christmasy colors and prints.

This one has a bluebird button on it.

After that, the girls decorated the tops of the plastic shoeboxes with washi tape, stickers, and so on.  They each wrote a nice note in a Christmas card to tuck into the box.  (Sadly, I did not get pictures of any of this.  I'm having a few computer issues and am hesitant to put any new pictures on the computer.)

At the appropriate time, Carrie dropped off our shoeboxes along with those she and her kids had filled.   This was a wonderful experience for the older girls, and we will definitely be doing it again next year.  We are already planning to include a lot more handmade items and have been thinking of things we can make for the boxes.  It will be something very special to look forward to!

December 6 ~ oh, those Christmas magazines!

 
When I was growing up, no matter how tight money happened to be or how little extra she might have to spend on frivolities, my mother would always, always buy the Christmas issues of Woman's Day and Family Circle magazines.  She found great recipes and nice gift ideas in them.  My parents also subscribed to Farm Journal, which had a nice women's  section that in the December issue would be loaded with fantastic recipes and ideas for decorating and handmade gifts.  My mother not only read these  magazines; she saved every one.

So I guess it's not surprising that when I got married I would always eke out enough extra from the grocery money to buy those Christmas issues, too.  Like her, I saved every one.  And I saved others, like Taste of Home, Country Handcrafts, Crafting Traditions, Better Homes and Gardens, and more.  Every year I would get them out and pore over them for ideas for ornaments, handcrafted gifts, recipes, decorating, and all the rest.

Another neat thing is that for a number of years, when we have visited our faraway daughter (first in the South and now in the West) in the fall, she would always have a special Christmas issue of some magazine awaiting on my pillow as a sweet welcome gift.  Of course I have saved all those as well, and have made many projects and recipes from them.

Some years ago, my mother passed her stash of Christmas magazines (whittled down by then, but still impressive!) to me, so I have more than I will ever completely get through.  I no longer buy the Christmas magazines, but I still enjoy looking at the many on my shelves and finding new ideas to try.  Stay tuned in the coming days for a post about one of my magazine-inspired projects!