Nativity Parade

Welcome to my Nativity parade. (Make believe I'm throwing candy at you, like in a real parade.) The Nativity is one of my favorite things about Christmas. Love it. There are so many different kinds out there. Cultural ones. Fancy pants ones. Homemade ones. Love them all...so much that I collect them. Unfortunately, I have too many Nativities and not enough places to put them. Here are the ones I chose to display this year.

I love my Willow Tree Nativity. In fact, the Joseph and Mary with baby figurines are displayed at my house year round.


Here is another Willow Tree...a plaque given to my by my Mother-in-law.


I don't know why, but I think snowmen Nativities are so cute. I found the plate in West Yellowstone.




The stuffed snowmen were given to me (thanks Sharla!) several years ago. Love them. And so do the kids, which is great. They can't break them!!


I think we found this one at Fred Meyers...long time ago.


I made this one a few years back. It's still one of my favorites.


Love the snow globe Nativities. So fun and different!








This Nativity is called Pure of Heart. I love the skinny, long legs of the cow and donkey. We found this one on clearance at Deseret Book.


Here are a couple of my Nativity tree ornaments. Someday I would love to have a Nativity themed tree.




Here are a few more traditional Nativities. This is one we got at ZCMI. They had the best deals on some really fun nativities.


My husband got this one for my birthday a few years ago...from Hallmark, I think.


These last two we got at Walmart. The white one is the first one we ever bought.




Hope you enjoyed this little peek at our Nativities. Merry Christmas!!

Linking up the the Nativity Parade at Crap I've Made. Go Check It out!

Chicken Feeders

Here is my go-to gift idea for teacher and neighbor gifts. So easy, and can be customized how ever you want.



You take mason jar, stuff it with m&ms, skittles, hot tamales, tiny tootsie rolls, or whatever yummy treat you want, then screw on the poultry feeder. I got my poultry feeders at Cal Ranch, a local agricultural store. They come in the galvanized metal, and also different colored plastics. Then you decorate them up however you want. Add vinyl, ribbon, stickers, paint. Put a monogram on it. Whatever floats your boat. You can use different sizes of jars, small or large (as long as the mouth of the jar fits the mouth of the feeder.). So simple, and so fun!





Link up to Someday Crafts Categorically Crafting. Go check out that linky party for oodles of neighbor gift ideas!

Charlie Brown Tree.

Have you seen the blog THRIVE? Chances are you have because I'm usually the last one to see the cool new blogs. (at least I thinks it's new...well, it's new to me.) Anyway, the idea behind it is to choose to thrive, regardless of your circumstances. And since the crafty blogger, Nike (pronounced 'Neeka'...so cool) finds herself in a less than ideal economic situation, she has adapted the 'rock-what-you've-got" attitude when it comes to creating beautiful things for her home. Seriously. She is amazing. And I totally love this idea, because we are also finding ourselves in a less than ideal economic situation. And I love to make things, just like Nike. So her blog is a BIG source of inspiration. Like this....



Wow. Can you believe she made that out of an oatmeal carton? She's good. I love this. And I love the branches. But, I didn't have any of the stuff she used, so I had to come up with my own branchy kind of decoration. So here is what I did.

I took this empty spaghetti sauce jar...



and cut a piece of burlap to wrap around it...



then I mod podged that puppy on the jar.



I used a glue gun to add some twine to the top and bottom of the jar. Then some ribbon to cover the very top of the jar, and add some color.





I had an idea of what I wanted to put in the jar. I had seen these lighted stick bundles at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. They were so cool. They were $19.99, which was about $19 out of my price range. I thought 'I can make something like that!'. Turns out, I can't make something like that. I tried though. I had a big bundle of sticks I bought last year at our local craft store. (really? who buys sticks!? me.) So I broke them in half, arranged them in the jar, and attempted to cover them in one of my 5 foot long, 20 count mini light sets that I got on clearance for 75 cents last year. It wasn't pretty. I didn't take a picture, because I was embarrassed. Have you ever had an idea that in your mind is totally fabulous, but when you tried to recreate what you saw in your mind, the two images looked nothing alike? That's what happened here. So I had to come up with something else. I found some mini glittered ball ornaments I got at the dollar store last year, and tied them to the branches.




I didn't totally love the result, but I didn't hate it. In fact, it's growing on me. And I didn't have to spend a dime on it. Just used stuff I already have. That part makes me happy. It's my version of a Charlie Brown tree. Can't get more Charlie Brown that sticks in a jar, right?





At one point, I added some pine tree picks, but I think I like it better without those. What do you think?

oh christmas tree...

I love Christmas. I love decorating for Christmas. My dream is to one day decorate my ENTIRE house for the Christmas holiday, right down to the towels in the bathrooms and the comforters on the beds. It may never happen, but a girl has to have a dream, right?



So, in the meantime, I made this cute tree. I love it. I really really loved it until I downloaded the pictures I took and noticed that the flash on my cheap-o camera felt the need to highlight all the spots where the fabric didn't completely cover the styrofoam. Stupid camera. But, in real life it's not even noticable, so I still really love it.



See, I even took a picture without the flash....can't even see the flaws, right?



(wow, that's a horrible picture....)
If you see the flaws, just don't tell me. I prefer to live in denile. :)

Bring on the Holidays!

I am far from the organized person that I want to be, but when it comes to the winter holidays, I have to write every thought, idea, activity, vacation, party, and Christmas wish down, or my brain will explode. So I was SO excited when I came across a free printable from the gals at eighteen25. Not only that, they have a step by step tutorial on the blog Under the Sycamore, where they did a guest post.



Now, I'm ready. Bring it on.

Once there were some snowmen...

I love Christmas and Winter decorations. They are my favorite. And I needed a new snoman. So I made two. A Mr. and Mrs. if you will. There may be some little snow guys in their future. And maybe Grandma and Grandpa will come to visit.


Who knows.



All I know is they make the cold snowy weather a little more bearable.

Turkey Tom

I love to browse crafty blogs and get inspiration and ideas for myself. I found this way fun blog the other day. It's
called Craft Goodies. She is currently doing a Christmas ornament a day during the month of November, which I love!!!! She also made this...



So cute! I loved it and knew I wanted to make one for myself. But (and there is always a but, isn't there?) I didn't have the paint stick she used for the head. And I didn't have a block cut to that size. And I didn't want to go to the store to buy stuff with money I didn't have...so I used her cute turkey as inspiration for my own.

I went down to the basement and out to the garage to find some wood scraps...



I went to the craft closet (which is literally a bookshelf in my master closet) and grabbed the craft sticks, glue, paper, and other goodies. Sorry, no pic.

Then I got started. Here is my creation. I call him Turkey Tom, and I love him.




I'm linking up to catigorically crafting at Someday Crafts

I Got Another Blog.

"Really" you might be saying? Really, when you don't even post on this one?

Yes.

It's a craft blog. I want to start an Etsy shop (eventually) so I will be doing lot's of crafting in the future (I hope)and I wanted a place just for all of that.

Then, I decided "why not just do it all here? Do I really want to try to keep up with ANOTHER blog? I can totally just do it all here. Lots of people do that." So, hopefully in the future sometime soon, I will change the look of the blog, cause I've had that Christmas header up for a year now. And hopefully I'll get more organized. And hopefully I'll blog more, and not just about crafts. Not that anyone reads it anymore, but ya gotta start somewhere, right? And I do have alot to catch up on.

Wish me luck.

Fabric Flower Fun

I have been having fun. And I have been a little obsessed. Have you seen these around the blogoshere?



No sew fabric flowers. The key words....no sew. Love that. I learned how to make them by following this tutorial. Then I tweaked it. Then I made LOTS of flowers. I even made them in the car on the way to Utah.

So, then I thought, "what the heck am I gonna do with all these flowers?". I put one flower on a clippy that I can clip to hair bands. I've got plans to make a summery wreath. Maybe dress up some drab lamp shades. But the first thing that I thought of was...TOPIARY! So, I took this...



and made this.






I love creating.

I'm linking up to the Catagorically Crafting party at Someday Crafts.

my first attempt....

so, with the help of my sil, melanie, and a fabulous tutorial from the shabby princess, i made my very first digital layout. i'm a sloooooowww learner when it comes to this kind of techy stuff, so i neglected all of my household duties, and spent my day learning. now, i'm hooked!



i've been so intimidated my digi scrapping, but have wanted to do it for soooooo long. and, i've had photoshop elements since 2004, and have only used it to store photos...so sad. now, i'm realizing photoshop's potential, and i love it! maybe some of our favorite memories will finally be scrapbooked!