Christmas Crafting

I have actually gotten more Christmas crafting done this year than I had anticipated.  As always, Mom has been a huge help.

First, Mom bought us all "JOY" from The Wood Connection.  I love it, because it starts with a J and ends with a Y.  (Love you Callie.)

 

And here is Mom's version.  It looks great in her front room.  Incidentally, someday I hope to be as great as my mom at decorating for Christmas.  This is her front room.  You should see the "big" room.  I'll be sure to post pics of it later.

I decided to try to make the wreath for my front door.  The pre-decorated ones seemed so expensive.  I bought the wreath and sign from Hobby Lobby.  I wrapped some ribbon around it, wired various sizes of ornaments together in bunches, then wired them to the wreath.  All in all, took about 30 min to make.  I hope it keeps well for next year.  I kinda like it.

I wanted to get something cute and inexpensive for all the girls in our Young Women group.  I went to Bath and Body works and got the pocket hand sanitizers along with cases for them that the girls can use to attach them to their backpacks, purses, etc.  They were on sale and I had a $10 off $30 coupon so it came out to be pretty cheap.  I used a Sizzix die cut to cut out tag shapes.  I then used a Sizzix Tim Holtz embossing folder to emboss some snowflakes on the tags as well.  I tied them with a bit of 1/8 in. ribbon.  The tags say

"May your days be merry...

And your hands be clean.

Merry Christmas!"

My favorite craft I have worked on this year has been these wooden block advent calendars.  I made these for the Young Women leaders in our ward.  First I painted the base red and the blocks off-white.  I put a different scrapbook paper on each side of the blocks, then Mom helped me cut the numbers out of scrapbook paper using her cricut.  We printed out "Christmas is Coming..." onto scrapbook paper for the base.  I sanded the all the edges with sandpaper, then mod podged it all.  I also used the Tim Holtz Sizzix ornament die to cut tags out.  I stamped them using a snowflake, tree and "To: From:" stamp and tied it all with some grograin ribbon.  The ladies loved them.....maybe I should have made one for myself :)