Mamie Made: Snow Globes

Christmas has well and truly begun here. My boys are counting down the days and enjoying their advent activity every day. Each day there activity can be found in the 'Advent House' and they love taking the roof off to discover their activity inside.

I'm loving how this space looks all lit up at night. So pretty.

I've also been making some snow globes. Thanks to my lovely friend Dee from IG who sent me these cute little deer and the lovely christmas trees from the first photo I've been having a lovely time making snow globes. They are so simple to make: use a small lid to glue inside the base of the globe this gives the deer or ornament something to give it a bit of lift, hot glue everything down. Fill jar with water and add glitter and screw lid on. Done. So simple and fun to make.

I gave these to some lovely ladies who came for afternoon tea and they loved them, a sweet gift that is a little different. Hope your enjoying your christmas :-)

Mamie Made Christmas: Simple (and Cheap) Tags

I've just begun my Christmas wrapping and I am feeling a little organised, not quite there yet but definitely on the way. This year I bought some tags some beautiful shiny gold stars, I bought two packs each with ten stars in it.

 So I spent the morning wrapping teachers gifts etc and used up a whole pack of tags and well these tags weren't cheap (and I probably could make them myself with my silhouette) but anyway they save time right?

 So I devised a new plan that will work for any gifts, gifts that you would like to look a little pretty or all of those little gifts you give to your kids. Generally all those little gifts for your kids you really just want to get their name on it so you know who it belongs to. 

 So did you spot the little tag? Yep that little pennant shaped gold its a little tag, popped under a handmade tissue paper decoration. And they are so easy to make, they literally only take a second to make and you will already have out everything you need to make it when you are doing your gift wrapping

 So to begin with cut some of your gift wrapping paper, this gold paper was from Woolworth's and was only about $3. You want to cut a strip that is about 10cm wide for a small tag- it can be as long as you like. 

 Fold it in half then cut a small piece off, mine are about 3cms.

 Simply cut a pennant shape into the little piece of wrapping paper.

 Write inside of it!

 Then attach it to your gift, either with sticky tape or with some double sided tape.

These gifts have pretty decorations on them so I can stick these tags under the decoration but for my boys small gifts I simply sticky taped the tag to the top right of the gift with no other decoration.

This one has a simple raffia bow and some washi tape.

This has got to be the quickest and cheapest tag I've ever made and I love that they can match the wrapping completely.

So there you go I hope this helps and you find ways to simplify your wrapping this christmas!

Mamie Made: An Advent House

With all of the advent activities that we are going to be doing I thought it would be nice if i had somewhere to deliver them to, sort of like a post box. A place that the boys can go to each day to find their activity.

After a discussion about which activities all three of my boys (hubby included) wanted and didn't want to do this year  it was specifically decided that nobody wanted to make a gingerbread house this year so I figured that I could make a cute little home for the advent activities instead.

 Its still a work in progress, it still needs window treatments on the sides and some pretty decorations to make it more Christmassy but it is well on the way. Also the roof entirely comes off so that the kids can reach inside and pull out the activity. I'm also thinking it would look cute lit up at night with some lights inside!

 Don't you think that a sweet little potted real tree and a reindeer would look totally cute next to my advent house! I'm just trying to convince myself to spend the money on a reindeer ;-)

Snail Mail Incoming

Not long after I sent out the tea pouches I received some lovely snail mail in my post box.

 This gorgeous little pouch was all sewn up and fit right inside a normal envelope! What a fabulous idea for something small to send!

Inside was some confetti and I was super surprised to find that my boys had no idea what confetti is. A very long conversation about confetti was quite funny. She also added a Project Life Card with a lovely thank you letter inside. 

Thankyou pen pal for the lovely snail mail!

Advent Chocolates

Last year for Advent we did an awesome activity  every day for advent it was lots of fun and my boys really enjoyed it. This year I  asked my big boy Blake (8) if he would like to do it again and the answer was a big yes! Later he came back to me and asked if we could also do one of those chocolate things as well. My initial reaction was no only because Luke (7) is lactose intolerant and chocolate does not sit well with him. I thought about it for a while and decided that I would make our own chocolate advent that way luke can enjoy a treat that works for him.

I ended up deciding that my husband and I would also enjoy this little advent treat so I have made a set for each of us. I simply wrapped all the treats in blue and silver paper and printed out some numbers and stuck them on.

 Hubby and Blake have the naughty choccies and luke and I have something a little healthier. We are still also going to do an activity each day but since this type of food is not normally in our house it will be nice to have a treat!If you have lovely sensible children (or adults!) you may not need to number them but my boys would eat the entire jar in one go!!

 I'm yet to wrap mine up, I might wrap them in a little more girly colours I'm not sure yet.I was glad to have almost crossed this one off my list, its one more thing done in my orginisation for christmas and it always feels good to cross things off my list! 

 I think they will add to the decorations this year too, they fit in with the colour scheme of this room.

I must share our advent activities too. There are so many lovely advent ideas out there, what do you do for advent? And do you just let the kids participate in advent or do you do it too?

Mamie Made Christmas: Starry Garland

I bought a star punch recently I was originally looking for a larger one, this one is 1 inch Id really like about a 2 1/2 inch star punch. I am forever using star shapes every where, with little boys around the house it seems to be my go to shape. I also really love stars in all of my Christmas decorating.

I thought it might be nice to make a simple garland with it. So I got out some string and my tiny attacher and began stapling the stars to the string. This is so nice and simple to do that I was doing it in front of the TV, I love crafty things I can do at night in front of the TV. 

I choose these blues and whites because it will go with the tree in our family room, but I think red and White would go especially nice with the twine.

I used a card to wrap the string  around as I was going just to keep it from becoming a tangled mess. But it made me think that this could make a very pretty addition to a simply wrapped christmas gift.

I was originally going to use this on my tree or around my home but I have since used it to make a mobile of sorts. So there are many uses for this pretty starry garland.

Snail Mail Outgoing

Well It all started with my lovely pen pal who sent me this also lovely tea pouch. I had made some of these last year had been thinking that I would send her one next when this one arrived in the mail.

When I posted it on Instergram there were some lovely comments and I decided that I would snail mail pay it forward and send the ones that I had sitting here to two instergrammers and send something else to my pen pal.

So two tea pouches were sent off along with some soaps I also had lieing around ;-)

 All wrapped up with feathers and string

 And of course pink polka dots.

 Even the post packs had some feathery goodness.

 So there you have it. Thank you to my pen pal who inspired a snail mail pay it forward. And now we will all be drinking tea from our tea pouches!

Snail Mail Incoming

My lovely pen pal sent me some more lovely snail mail, I thought you might like to see it.

I think she is super talented, I can crotchet but I cant read a pattern so the things I make are super limited (to scarfs ha haa) and she keeps coming up with such beautiful gifts. She sent me a gorgeous mug cosy and two coasters. It was such a nice idea for a gift and I was so surprised when I opened it, I'm really loving having a pen pal who is creative its so much fun!

I really don't have any coasters at the moment and I keep leaving tea marks wherever I go, so it really was the perfect gift. It was so lovely to sit with that cup of tea and read a letter, its such a shame that people don't write letters anymore its such a lovely thing to do and to receive.

On My Table Tuesday

Of course there have been lots of things happening on my tables recently.

My Lovely Hubby bought me flowers, just because he knows I love them. He doesn't buy them very often because he will only buy them when he thinks they are super fresh! He is always wanting only the best for me, it makes me laugh, hes so sweet!Of course I love homegrown flowers but it is always a special treat to have something different.

 These delicious almond meal chocolate chip cookies have really been hitting the spot lately when I've been craving something sweet. I must make some more they get eaten way to fast.

 There has been a lot of making on my table lately. This starry stringy garland has been making me happy and has also made it on to a Christmas mobile of sorts.

Lastly there has been some Christmas magazines making there way on to my table. I just get so excited when I see this type of thing out. This one is especially nice because it contains lots of making ideas and also Christmas themes. Love it!

She Scraps

Thought I would pop in with a scrappy share today. I'm still trying to keep up with project life and I'm still loving it but I am missing traditional scrapbooking a little lately, I might have to fix that soon and get scrapping!

Somehow week 38 is really all about me, I guess that sometimes happens. I didn't get any photos of the boys this week, it's all about how my hubby challenged me to wear more colour because I mostly wear black with jeans. And that took over the week, it's ok though sometimes its all about the boys and I'm sure over the year it all balences out!

The previous week was all about spring hitting, snail mail and my new (early birthday gift) sillouette! There's some Heidi Swapp Hello Today paper in there as a background.

For some crazy reason I seem to only have pictures of one side of each week. I'm going to have to fix that ;-) Well this last one is from back in August and I'm loving the pop of green. So there you go I have been project lifting slowly but surely and hopefully I will complete the year!

 

 

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Mamie Made:Christmas Ornaments

 OK So I've been away much longer than I had intended, mostly because well I've had no internet. So lets get back to it.

Here are the ornaments that I've started on for this year.

I'm so wishing that I had better photos of both of these ornaments the reindeer now has red polka dot ribbon around his neck. I am totally loving him. I found him on Pinterest but it was from an Etzy store that is no longer running, so it is a copy of that and not my idea but I just loved him so I went with it.

This little Christmas cupcake/pudding is completely designed by me and I think I have sewn up at least 20 of them so far. I'm undecided if I'm selling the lot, keeping them or giving them as gifts or some combination of the three.

Anyway its nice to be back and I will see you again very soon xxxx

Mamie Made Christmas: Ornaments of Christmas Past

I have a kind of love affair with felt Christmas ornaments. I make them every year. It would be totally awesome one day to have a whole tree covered in handmade felt ornaments but I'm not quite there yet. I thought I would share a selection of them here....

 Rainbow Stockings

Little birds

 Matryoshka dolls

Gingerbread Houses 

Bauble Style ornaments 

 Stars inspired by the Allsorts blog

And even Christmas Owls

I usually give felt ornaments at Christmas I usually use them to decorate gifts or tie onto cards. I think they make a sweet small gift for someone you would just like to give a little something too. Or they make a gift look a little special. I will be interested to see this year when I pull out the decorations just how many I have left because I usually give most if not all of them away.

One other little idea that I love is making one ornament for your child ach year so that when they grow up they have a set of ornaments, I think I might even start doing that this year.

I hope you enjoyed seeing some felty Christmas ornaments, Tomorrow I will be here with some that I am making this year.