Gingerbread House Party in a Box

Last weekend my littles decorated our traditional gingerbread house we always do as part of our Advent calendar. It's always lots of fun and good memories. And I love to see how the houses are evolving as they get older and another set of hands can help create them!

This year, I decided to gift a few of our friends with their own little Gingerbread House Party in a Box!  I thought it would be fun to give them a little something to do on one of our cold, snowy midwest winter afternoons...that get dark a whole lot earlier than any of us mommas would like.

These kits are so easy to make! Just grab a few basic house constructing supplies, graham crackers and a can of white frosting, and then add in your choice of fun and festive candies for decorations. I even added in a few packets of hot cocoa mix and stripey straws to keep the little architects bellies warm while creating :-)

I included starlight mints, gumballs, red hots, holiday sprees, holiday tic tacs, and holiday gumdrops along with a bunch of miniature candy canes which would also go great with the hot cocoa mix!

I wrapped the can of frosting in scrapbook paper to make it a bit more festive and called it "Cement". I even added a small muslin drawstring bag with a bottlebrush tree and a little deer to stand outside the gingerbread homes...it's the little things that make it more fun!

And there you go! A sweet holiday surprise to give to your friends or family. PS. how fun would this be to open on Christmas Eve or even to do on Christmas day!

Merry Christmas to you!!

Thanks for stopping by today!

XOXO,

A Christmas-ing We Go!

Last weekend we thought we should take advantage of the warmer temps (yes, that would be 40 degree weather folks...this past weekend we were lucky to hit the 20's and that's without windchill!) and go cut down our Christmas tree!

We found a new to us tree farm and I think this one might be my new favorite place to go every year! It was family run, very mom and pop, and so cozy and cute.

We road this pretty red tractor out to the trees...

{The biggest and the littlest of the family}

We ended up narrowing it down to 3 trees fairly quickly...and then finally THE one, it's amazing how good our kids are becoming at picking out just the right tree :-)

Once we cut our tree down we headed to their fire pit to warm up with some hot chocolate. I love that they had such a fun place to go while you waited for your tree to get shook and netted.

Then we paid up at their adorable life-sized gingerbread house...how fun is this! I sorta kinda want one in my backyard!

And then off to home we went...until next year!

PS...we finally, finally, finally have the lights on and the ornaments hung! It only took us 5 days after the fact!!

XOXO,

XOXO,

TUTORIAL: Paper Rosette Gift Name Tags

I was asked by Joann's to be a part of their Papercrafted Christmas campaign that they are co-hosting with Die Cuts With a View (DCWV).  Me and 11 other bloggers are sharing some fun ideas on how to craft with DCWV scrapbook paper and embellishments this month. How fun!

With Christmas literally weeks away, and the fact that I have gift wrapping on the brain, I thought I would use DCWV's scrapbook paper to make some vintage-inspired Paper Rosette Gift Name Tags. I am always in search of fun ways to label gifts and these make my heart sing, so pretty and so easy to make...perfect for the holidays and more!

Here's what you'll need to make your own:

Paper Rosette Gift Name Tags

DCWV Christmas & Winter Paper Stack

Scissors

DCWV Christmas & Winter Embellishments (optional)

3.5 inch paper doilies

Hot glue

For these rosettes I used the DCWV Christmas & Winter Paper Stack. I found this paper was the perfect weight to make a small sized rosette. You can find this paper stack and a whole lot more from DCWV at Joann's here.

To make the rosettes...
1. Cut a 12 x 12 inch piece of scrapbook paper down to 3 x 12 inches. Starting on the short end, fold the paper back and forth in 1/4 inch increments.
2. Continue to fold the paper like an accordion until the end of the paper.
3. Press the accordion of paper in half and hot glue the ends that meet together.
4. Fan out the rosette and hot glue the other two ends together as well.
Hot glue the rosette onto a paper doily.

The Christmas & Winter Paper Stack also comes with a few pages that include small colored flags and other fun paper tags. I cut the flags out and wrote names onto them.

I also used a scallop paper punch to embellish the name tags a bit more.

You could even embellish the name tags with the coordinating DCWV Christmas & Winter adhesive embellishments, the pack comes with a big variety of pretty choices!

When your Paper Rosette Gift Name Tags are done they should look like this...so cute, right!

Such a perfect addition to your holiday gift wrapping this season!

And here's a coupon from Joann's so you can save when you buy your supplies to make these or an other fabulous project you might have in mind for the holidays: Click Here for Coupon!

 XOXO,

*This post is brought to you by Joann's but all opinions and ideas are 100% my very own :-)

TUTORIAL: Toilet Paper Tube Advent Calendar

This post is part of a social shopper marketing insight campaign with Pollinate Media Group™ and Cottonelle, but all my opinions are my own. #pmedia #CottonelleHoliday  http://cmp.ly/3/8vNxcO.

Can you believe it is December already? That means only 4 weeks until Christmas!!! Well, 23 days to be exact, whoa momma!

With holiday parties and cookie exchanges coming up on the calendar, the last thing I want is to be stuck in my bathrooms always having to change the dang toilet paper! Hello, I have more important things to do like bake up some yummy goodies, set a festive table, and actually enjoy my holiday parties this year. Thank goodness for the Cottonelle Triple Roll pack I found at Target, triple the toilet paper on one roll means less trips to restock the bathroom for me!

And when you do finally get an empty roll, how about a fun holiday idea to make having to change that roll a little bit easier?

I saved our leftover toilet paper tubes and created a super fun Advent Calendar for my littles! It was so easy to do and the best part is that you already have the toilet paper rolls so that project material is free! This time of year you can even get scrapbook paper at most craft stores for 6 sheets for a dollar so this is one inexpensive project AND a whole month of fun for the kiddos!

Toilet Paper Tube Advent Calendar

25 toilet paper tubes

a variety of scrapbook paper

glue stick

scissors

twine

number stamps and ink or number stickers (1-25)

glue dots

white foam board

old picture frame

The first thing you need to do is cut your scrapbook paper to size, I cut mine 4.25 x 6.75 inches which gives you a bit of overlap for the edges when you wrap.

Then just glue the paper around each tube.

Once it is dry, mine seriously took like 30 seconds to dry, you just push the ends in slightly to form a pillow box...easy peasy!

But don't forget, before you close up you newly made pillow box you will want to add your advent calendar gift! This can be anything small like a toy, a piece of candy or gum, or even a piece of paper with an experience for the day like these here. For this advent calendar I decided to put little figurines inside that, in the end, would create a wintery Christmas scene.

This is what the finished product of this Advent calendar will look like!

Each day there will be a little something to set up...a sled, a wrapped package, maybe even a few letters :-)

A deer, or two, or three...or a snowman.

Even a teddy bear!

Once the tubes were filled and closed, I wrapped each in some twine and hung a little number stamped circular tag to each for each day in December leading up to Christmas.

I had an old frame I found this summer at a garage sale for $1 that fit a piece of white foam board perfectly and I just used glue dots to place the tubes onto the board.  They are pretty lightweight so it only took two glue dots per filled toilet paper tube to hang.

And there you have it! An easy, inexpensive, and really pretty Advent Calendar using toilet paper tubes!!! 

If you want to make this fun project or maybe you just need to stock up on some toilet paper for all your holiday parties, CLICK HERE for a "Buy Cottonelle Triple Roll 12 pack or larger and get a FREE box of Kleenex" coupon while supplies last and head over to Target to redeem this great deal! 

XOXO, 

Decorative Lace Trim Christmas Trees-TUTORIAL

Today I thought I would share my first official Christmas craft of the season with y'all, yahooo!  Ever since Thanksgiving weekend my house has been transforming into a sparklier and more glittery version of it's old boring self every day :-)  I adore the holidays as most of you probably do too.  It's a season full of hope, and joy, and blessings and I just love all of that.

Aside from all the sparkliness my home now has, I also wanted to add some shabby chic prettiness to my front room particularly on the vintage dresser by my front door. So on a trip out with my littlest 3 one afternoon while Noah was at Kindergarten I happened to find some plain cardboard cone forms at Michaels for less than a dollar a piece...total deal!  Add that find with some vintage lace trim I had in my stash and some form of adhesive (I used adhesive tape but a glue gun would work great too!) and this project is as inexpensive as it gets...Merry Christmas to me!

Decorative Lace Trim Christmas Trees

Cardboard cone forms

lace trim

adhesive tape or glue gun

scissors

Simple ingredients for this project!

All you need to do to start is to roll the tape near the base of the cone (or use your glue gun!)  I cut strips one by one as they will need each need to be slightly smaller as you go up your cone.  I also cut the lace slightly larger than the circumference of the cone so it would overlap a bit when I glued the trim down. Do this the entire way up until you get to the tip and just make sure you cover the tip well! Also, make sure you start your rows of trim at the same spot so you have a nice seam up the back you can put against the wall.  To be honest, you can't really tell the seam is there but if it at all bothers you just do it that way!

Pretty and oh, so shabby chic, right!

Can you believe I bought that antique scale at a Flea Market for $10 dollars?  What a score!

This would be a great craft for a ladies night in or a church function if you are looking for something fun to do for an upcoming holiday party!

Enjoy and thanks for stopping by today!

XOXO,