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.

On My Table Tuesday

Here's a few lovely things that have been on my table recently.

 Incoming Snail Mail from my lovely pen pal Sara! Its so nice to have something sweet come in the mail, I'm treasuring these letters, nothing could be nicer to sit and read. On top of that Sara has added something creative in each letter so much goodness!! Also isn't this little crotchet pouch such a sweet idea for some treasures to be put in.

 Also on my table at night, writing snail mail. After Sara sent me a  lovely tea pouch it sparked a pay it forward, so there will soon be a few more people out there carrying around tea pouches!

Flowers, always some form of flowers are bound to be found on my table.

Mamie Made Christmas: Lip Balm Gifts

I had this post up on my old blog I thought that since I will be making these for Christmas gifts it would be nice to share it here as part of my Mamie Made Christmas Series.

 I hope you enjoy this simple make !!

There has been lots of making going on here lately I've been trying to make a few new things that I've never made before.

 Lip balm is really simple to make all that needs to be done is melt down your ingredients in a double boiler and then pour into the vessel you would like to use. if you were just making it for yourself you could use a nice recycled jar or even some tupperware. I have made some to give as gifts and didn't have anything nice to put it in so I bought some, they are fairly inexpensive and are easy to find on the net.

I got mine here at Aussie Soap Supplies, they also have the other ingredients if you are looking for them.

The Lip balm recipe I used is:

1 tbsp of beeswax

2 tbsp of shea butter

2 tbsp of coconut oil

This made quite a bit of lip balm I even tried making some coloured lip balm. I still have a few little pots to fill so next time I am going to try adding a little honey to my balm.

Mamie Made Christmas: Cards

So going with my Christmas themes I came up with two coordinating cards.

 I prefer to keep Christmas cards as simple as I can and I generally play around with a few different designs before I settle on what I end up with. I had really wanted to have feathers on my cards this year but it just didn't work for me. So don't be afraid to play around until you decide on something that you like.

I have incorporated my theme into the cards and they also give me a few options to go with with other things later, like wrapping and tags. For instance I may end up making star shape tags, tags with the theme written on them or tags with butterflies on them. And wrapping paper could be white, gold, blue, pink or even brown paper.

I cheated a little I purchased a pack of blank white cards with envelopes this time, they have a glossy look to them and made life a little easier as the envelopes fit perfectly and I don't need to go and buy separate envelopes. I printed the theme onto card stock and cut them out with my paper trimmer. The stars were traced and hand cut and the butterflies were cut with my new toy the silhouette cameo but you could easily use a butterfly punch to get a similar effect.

So there you have it! My cards are all made and out of the way.

Mamie Made Christmas: Themes

Do you have a Christmas theme?

Have you ever had a Christmas theme?

My be you've never even thought about having a Christmas theme.

This may be a little forward thinking but I feel it helps me to be organised.

I have found that for me having a theme for Christmas helps me to simplify Christmas. If your anything like me leading up to Christmas you will see many gorgeous magazines, blogs and images on Pinterest that you will drool over and wish that you could do all of those pretty things but if you have a theme, if you know where you are headed its so much easier to stay focused and not try to do so many things that will leave you feeling stressed and you'll be able to say no to all of the drool worthy Christmas things.

(these are tags we used last year, on the back we wrote something we were thankful for each day and put it on the tree)

This year we have three Christmas trees going up in our home (a whole other story! lol) and I've decided that each tree will have a different theme. Knowing this has already helped me out as each tree's colours coordinate with the rooms that they are going in I have been able to organised the decorations so that the day the trees go up will be a much simpler process, no one will be digging through the decoration box to find what they are looking for, it will all be where its supposed to be.

You probably just have the one tree and having a theme can help you narrow down what wrapping paper, cards and decorations you will have so that everything coordinates giving your Christmas cohesive feel.

Sometimes the simpler the theme the more effective, here is a list of some fun themes I thought of:

Shape themes

Star

Hearts

Angles

Butterflies

Tree

Word Themes

Joy

Believe

Be Merry

Hope

Love

Light

Magic

Other themes

choose two colours

Pom pom Christmas

Beach Christmas

Winter wonderland

Cupcake Christmas

Candy lane Christmas

Handmade Christmas

Modern Christmas

Traditional Christmas

North pole Christmas

I'm sure there are so so many themes that could make your Christmas amazing. Not only that it is suppose to make the season more enjoyable and less stressful so you shouldn't need to go out and buy a whole pile of new stuff, May be you already have everything you need but you will feature it differently or maybe it will mean leaving out some of the things you own so that something else can stand out.

In the past I have had themes like 'Be Merry, Be Bright' and last year I did 'Joy to all the Boys and Girls" we had a boy tree (with blue ornaments) and a girl tree (with pink ornaments) and I bought one new ornament for each tree it was the word "JOY" and placed it at eye level where it stood out.

This year my shape is really a Star and each tree has a theme but the two main ones will be 'let your heart be light' and 'Believe in the  magic of Christmas'

Ok So here is some links if you thinking about themes now:
This one is a lovely pink modern tree and I just love how every thing goes with there home;here
There is an amazing advent tree here and she also talks about themes.
There is some lovely county style tree here
This post has a sweet Swedish feel that I love here and it would be easy to do yourself.

I hope I haven't given you too much to think about or made your head explode! ;-)

Are You Organised at Christmas?

Or do you have the same problem that I have rushing to get everything done, stressed tired and in a tiss, up late at night wrapping pressies. When I would much rather be watching carols and having a glass of wine with my gorgeous hubby!

(This is one of the Christmas Tree Soap's that I sold last year)

Well this year I am determined to be having that glass of wine and enjoying all of the Christmas loveliness This year I have decided to set myself a date to get everything done. I'm talking everything, gifts made, bought and wrapped, cards done, advent sorted (I'll explain our advent later) and everything just super duper organised.  I don't make all of the gifts we give, not even half but I love to have a handmade feel to the gifts we give even if that is just a hand made card or tag and that takes time.

My deadline is Friday November 21st 

This gives me a full week before our advent begins to relax.

That point is that I want to be able to enjoy the Christmas season and I have to say that I have had conversations with my three boys (hubby included) about which things they really hate doing at Christmas and things they love. There are a few things that we won't be doing this year because I want the season to be enjoyable for all of us. This might be a conversation that you have with your family there might be things that they have always wanted to do but you are usually too busy or there might be things you let go of because not everyone is into it.

So this is what I will be doing:

October will be generally for making, I've already begun to make lots of little things but still have a list of things I would like to make as gifts and decorations for our home.

Also if you have a meal at your house or family coming on Christmas day this might be something you may want to think about organizing, Christmas can get expensive and if your organised you can begin to pop some things away now and take some pressure off later.

November will be for finalizing everything, wrapping gifts and writing cards.

Also during November in our home we celebrate Thanksgiving, yes us little Aussies have made our own little tradition the date tends to move around to suit us, this year it will be on the 29th of November. We love this little tradition I think its important to be Thankful for all we have and this gives our family the chance to focus on the things that matter the most to us right before the Christmas craziness. Also another reason why I want to have Christmas stuff sorted before then.

So what do you think? Do you have one thing every year that you wish you would do early or would you like to get everything done early like me?

I would love for you to follow along or join in my Mamie Made Christmas!