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Tuesday 30 August 2016

Christmas Challenge #27: Christmas House

I am taking a little break from advent stuff, though I do have another advent calendar that I want to make! Today I'm making some little felt ornaments
 They were super simple to whip up and I just love giving these as little gifts!

As you can see I just cut a few house shapes from some white felt and then added a roof, a door and a little heart window. Simple and Fun! And another day closer to 100 Christmas things !

Monday 29 August 2016

Christmas Challenge #26: Advent Calendar, It's Done!

Be warned this post is photo heavy! I just couldn't resist, I LOVE how this turned out!!!







My only small dilemma is the fact that you can see what chocolates are inside I may just have to  wrap them up in some white paper. I like there to be an element of surprise as to exactly what is inside. But other than that I love it!!

Sunday 28 August 2016

Christmas Challenge #25: Advent Calendar- What's Inside....So Far.

So far I have decided to keep it really simple and just pop some chocolates and an advent activity in each little bag. As I said in a previous post I will be popping the supplies for any christmas crafts in the advent house.
 If I can find some dairy free chocolates I may swap out chocoaltes, I'll see how I go!
These little advent cards were super simple to make. I made more than I needed so that I could swap them around depending on what we are doing and what supplies I can get my hands on in the next few weeks. In the past there have been times that some things have just worked out better than others so I am leaving a bit of flexibility in there.

Christmas Challenge #24: Advent calendar

So I have finished this Advent Calendar and so far I am loving how its turned out!
Although it took a while to weed all of those numbers Im happy that I did, because this will be an advent calendar that we use for years to come. In the past I have used paper and it has ended up in the bin after a lot of crumpling and ripping.
 I love that the black has a touch of glitter but not so much that my boys will complain ;)
At this point I'm still a little undecided as to who's advent calendar this will be, an adults one or a kids  one, hmmmm??

Saturday 27 August 2016

Christmas Challenge: Advent Calendar #23

So I have begun an advent calendar but it has been taking me a while to finish. So I may be sharing my progress over the next few posts.
 I started out by buying 100 of these 4x6 muslin bags from amazon. I figure I will probably make two advent calendars out of these. There are a tonne of ways you could number these bags, you could screen print, paint, add paper or embroider, appliqué or even stamp them. I decided to get some black glitter heat transfer vinyl from silhouette and cut the numbers with my silhouette cameo. Its the first time I've ever used heat transfer vinyl and I'm really happy with how it turned out- I think I may even make some t-shirts with it!
I'm loving the size of these muslin bags too I feel like they could have all kinds of things inside of them or even multiple things!

Friday 26 August 2016

Christmas Challenge #22: Advent Memory Journey

This Advent idea  is all about putting up a photo a day for advent. A visual memory journey! 
This could be such an awesome one for anyone - with kids, without kids, old or young. This could be awesome if you are single- it could remind you how much love you've shared and it could also be awesome for someone far away- you could totally pop this one in the post for someone far away to enjoy, you could make this so heart warming!
I've made this with photos that all include my children, I thought my children would love to see a kind of time line of christmas's past that they have enjoyed, so they could see all of the magical things that we have done over the years. So it begins in 2006 when my son Blake was nearly one but this could be so cool if you had just one photo from each year so that it spanned 25 years, it would also be so cool to have photos from your own childhood or even photos of your parents from before you were born! (or even of your grand parents)
You could make this with a theme- 'times together', 'christmas morning' photos or even 'before you knew me' just keep it as one photo a year from the last 25 years.
 If I'd thought about this I could have printed these photos out much smaller and even a square shape so that they were all more cohesive looking on my printer on probably about 3 A4 sheets of photo paper but I ended up using my cannon selphy printer to create my Advent Memory Journey.

Thursday 25 August 2016

Christmas Challenge #21: Advent Activity Ideas

Over the next few days I am going to be focusing on creating our Advent calendars. The Advent calendar itself can be as unique to you as what is inside the calendar or what the activity is.
You may just want to go with a simple chocolate or something more elaborate.
Pinterest is an awesome place to find great ideas for gorgeous Advent calendars- you can see my pinterest board here!
 But lets begin with some advent activity ideas before I get started on making some advent calendars.

Advent Puzzle: You could find a puzzle that has 25/50/100 pieces and pop a few pieces into each day of the calendar so that on christmas day you have a completed puzzle. My boys would love this!
Or you could get 1000 piece puzzle and have it out over advent and try to do a bit everyday of advent.

Books: Ok so we've seen the awesome book advent idea where you wrap up 25 christmas books for your kids and then they get to open and read one each day, totally cool! But what about if you chose and awesome christmas novel and read a chapter or two each day. This could be great for adults or kids or even a great family activity, a special way to connect each day over advent.

Songs: Our theme for this year is "The Sound of Stars" so I have been thinking of choosing a song for each day that mentions stars in it and making it a sort of game for the kids by writing the name down on a piece of paper and popping it in their advent calendar then they could find the star in the song.
You could just choose 25 favourite christmas songs and play one each day. This would be a super low effort but fun way to make advent feel special.

Memories: I love the idea of creating a christmas memory box, wouldn't this be such a special keepsake! You could do this prior to christmas or you could do this during christmas in either of these two ways.
1. Write down 25 of your favourite xmas memories and pop it in your advent calendar and share with your love ones.
or 2. Take turns in writing down one memory each day of advent and pop it into a box so that by christmas you have a variety of memories that you could pull out again next year.

Tea and Chocolate: Now I know that chocolate is far from a new idea for advent but this idea is more about you choosing something that you really love and enjoying that everyday. For me it's tea so I want to put a variety of tea into my calendar and I will be purposely taking the time each day to enjoy a delicious cup of tea. For my husband it is chocolate so I will find some special chocolates or chocolates that he doesn't eat often. Just something a little bit different to give advent a different feel.

Lego: This is not my idea but I just love it so I had to add it- it could be basically free most kids have lego right?  This one is totally cool! and This one here is awesome! The kids would LOVE it! All it is going to take is a little organisation!
You could totally do this idea with some other kind of toy that your kids already love, set up a cute christmas scene slowly by popping a toy for each day into the calendar OR just use your kids toys by writing an instruction and pop into each day- like "find your doll and add sit it under the blocks christmas trees that we made yesterday". I don't have girls but I imagine that shopkins or my little pony or even barbie would be awesome for this- Oh I wish I could make a girly one!!!!
So Fun!


I'll will be focusing on getting the advent calendars done, since the calendar themselves and whats inside the calendar can be two completely different things!

Wednesday 24 August 2016

Christmas Challenge #20: Our Advent

I happen to be a bit of an Advent fanatic, not surprising considering all of this christmas stuff right ;)

My boys every year do a christmas activity advent . I usually come up with 25 different ideas that would suit us then I sit down with the years calendar and work out which day each activity would be best on. For the first part of advent the boys are at school so the activities are usually easy and short, because by this time of the year they are tired, once school is finished they are always pretty up for some cool crafty activities to keep them busy. This year my eldest son has requested more crafting activities, who am I to say no to that request? ;) So what I have done in the past is pop a choccie and a description of the activity in a numbered bag these stay on display somewhere in the house so that the boys can keep track of where we are up to. Then I pop the materials in our "Advent house"(you can see it here!) each day. I may just add some of my other ideas into this years advent- I know that seems crazy but I can not help myself lol!
This is the kids christmas advent from last year, each one was a little house!

The last couple of years my hubby and I have had our own advent, (here is 2014's advent choccies) We have really enjoyed this (yes even my hubby has enjoyed it!) and so we will be doing it again this year. I really love having something to do during advent that makes the time different and distinct from the rest of the year. I think the key to getting any man to like this is to play right towards things he likes. My hubby is a chocolate lover so each day there is a different chocolate in the calendar for him, I'm dairy and sugar free so I buy this awesome carob!! and get to have one every day. Last year I added in some different questions each day like; 'What is your favourite christmas memory?' and "What was your favourite christmas gift as a child?' they were just simple things and we ended up talking about them each night as we went to bed, it was a really lovely way to wind down from the day and have a nice conversation.
This was the our christmas advent, this picture doesn't do it justice- it was pretty!

This year my  hubby and I have decided to do  a christmas puzzle during advent. I got this one here! because its got lots of colour, I really loved this one! but I didn't know if I could handle all the white. I REALLY wanted this one here but didn't want to spend the extra on it!
Then I started thinking would it be nice to add chocolate and tea to our puzzle time each day so I may just find a different tea for me and choccie for my hubby (I'll stick to carob). I may even jump over the edge and add a different question to talk about while we are puzzling each day!
So be warned the next few days are going to be all about advent :)
Have you decided what you are doing for advent?


Christmas Challenge#19: Our Theme

Our theme this year is 'THE SOUND OF STARS'
This years theme was thought of my by eldest boy. He loves the song  We Three Kings and he loves the part that talks about the 'star of wonder' and so the theme was built around that. So I thought it would be fun to give each of our christmas trees a song that has the star mentioned in it and decorate around that song. Then each tree (and room) has a colour theme to go with that.
Im just using what I already have and mixing it up and then just using what I make during my christmas challenge. So here is what I am thinking for each tree/ room.

Tree One 
Song: We Three Kings
Colour: lots of colour, pink blue, purple etc

Tree Two
Song: O holy Night
Colour:Metallic- gold, rose gold and silver
Tree Three
Song: Noel
Colour: Red, White and Black.
So I hope that helps to make sense of some of the things I am making and the colour choices I am making with the christmas challenge. 

Christmas Challenge #18: Christmas Stars

This one comes a little randomly,  but when your son takes it into his own hands to cut 50 stars for you, you don't say no to that right?Ok so he didn't cut them by hand but he did cut them with a die cutter and it was quite thick cardboard so it took a bit of force, I think he did very well!
So I have this idea to create a kind of mobile above our table this year, I want it to be quite the feature of the room and I want it to be a  big bunch of clouds with stars hanging down.
 I made a starry mobile last year but this year I am going bigger and colourful!
 Alas I had wanted them to be all painted and done when I shared them but they have taken me a few days of painting them and waiting for them to dry only to have to do another coat. And I've not yet painted both sides! AHHHH! Thats ok though Im ok with doing these over a bit longer period of time. It will be ok!
SO my question is to glitter or not to glitter?

Sunday 21 August 2016

Christmas Challenge #17: A Fishy Gift

Hi! Today I am sharing a fishy game that I made for my son. This one has been a WIP so I am so glad that I finally finished it and can now pop it away for xmas!
 How I made it: I simply cut a bunch of fish shapes our of felt and lots of fins, dots and stripes. I sewed them all together and added a washer into the mouth of the fish when I stuffed them and sewed them shut. I took two small lengths of wood that I purchased at the hardware store and painted them, then added some line and a magnet on the end. I then hot glued the red hook onto the magnet to cover it.
 I'm happy with how these turned out and happy that they are finally done and my son will be able to play with them!
 I'm also super excited that I have another handmade gift to pop away! YAY for handmade gifts!!!
I just can not wait to see him playing with it!

Saturday 20 August 2016

She Scraps: Cocoa Vanilla: Colour Me Happy



I'm loving using the collection of colour me happy by cocoa vanilla as a kit, the same way I have been using the Free Sprit collection. I sometimes find it so much easier to be restricted by what I allow myself to use rather than being able to use all the things!
I'm having a little trouble getting this white page to be all white with my camera but I think you get the gist ;)
I have been playing with my delusions mists on this one and I love how bight the colours are in the range of ink mists! Im looking forward to playing with them more.

I kept this one pretty simple, I die cut the xoxo and then backed it with the papers and then just punched some hearts from the same papers.
As you can see I'm still loving scrapping with small photos, Im not sure this love affair is going to end anytime soon!

Friday 19 August 2016

Christmas Challenge #16: Felt Food Wrapping it Up!


 So now that I have finished my set of felt christmas food I thought it would be fun to wrap it up in a box.

I found a box I had well just lying around ;) and painted it red. I added a heap of tissue paper to the box and added the felt food. I wrapped it in cellophane and then added a bow and a little more holly. Oh I could've added bells!!
I think I may put a label on it that says:
Christmas Toy Food: Cafe Selection.
What do you think?
Im pretty happy to be finishing up on this one!
You can expect to see some handmade gift wrap and some advent things here soon!

Tuesday 16 August 2016

Christmas Challenge #15: A Gift: Cat Makeup Bag

Im really exited about this gift! I'm super happy with how it turned out and I'm hopeful that the recipient is going to like it!
How I made it: This was a simple make and only took a couple of hours. I simply cut the main felt piece the shape that I wanted then stitched on felt pieces for the cats face. I then used some adhesive webbing to adhere some lining fabric to the back of the cat pieces. Then aded a zip to the top and sewed the outside of the bag.
 It will make a perfect little makeup bag but would also be cool as a pencil case or a cute crafty bag!
Ahhhh It feels so good to have one more christmas gift made!

Christmas Challenge#14: More Christmas Tags

The last time I made tags I cut them with my silhouette and I cut these ones at the same time. I popped them on my table and left them there because I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do with them.
I recently purchased some dylusions ink sprays and when I got them I thought they would be perfect to use on these tags. I just love that red colour its called 'cherry pie' ! Oh I think it may be my all time favourite colour!!!
I ended up backing the cut tags with some bright green misted tags and then just glued on some stars. I'm loving the effect of the dylusion mist!! So much fun to play with!!

Christmas Challenge #12 and #13: Christmas Felt Food

Today I'm adding two little gingerbread men to my Christmas felt food! Because a Christmas feast wouldn't be complete with out a sneaky bite of a gingerbread man!
Which part of the gingerbread man do you bite off first? Are you vicious and bite his head off or do you just nibble an arm or leg?
 I think that I am calling this a set and I am ready to package this lot up and pop it away for a little someone.
I'm really loving this little set!

Monday 15 August 2016

Christmas Challenge#11: Christmas Felt Food #4

The fourth felt christmas food thing is another cupcake, I just felt like the other cupcake needed a friend ;)
 I'm thinking that I will make this into a set of six then box them up so that I can gift them. I might even make the box.
Again I am liking the second cupcake better, I think once you make it the first time you can adjust to make it a little better. I love that I already have a little set!

Christmas Challenge #10: Felt Christmas Food #3

I've added a red christmas doughnut to the felt food plate.
 I'm loving the size of this one more than the first. I can't wait to have a little pile of christmas food happiness!
I'm so sorry I am a few days behind, I am only days behind in sharing though, I have been making everyday so hopefully I will have a few days with two posts to share :)

Friday 12 August 2016

She Scraps: Silhouette Cut Files

I finished this one a few weeks ago but am only just getting it up here. I was worried that the photos of it weren't good enough but oh well they will be what they are. Life has been busy here and the daylight hours are still short. :)
 I've been playing with my silhouette and glueing pieces of paper behind the cut files because you know, it's fun!
 I think I used some simple stories paper, some old studio calico doilies and some large white sequins, I'm still loving them!
And again using some instax photos, loving scrapping with smaller photos!