Treasure Bear

Our church has a special ministry called Treasure Bears where you make a special teddy bear out of clothing from a deceased loved one. When my grandfather passed away in August, I knew right away to grab some of his clothing to make into bears. I gathered up two shirts (in hindsight, I should have grabbed a few more) and hoped to get signed up for the program as soon as I could. Well, by the time I tried to sign up, it was full so I emailed the person in charge and asked for the pattern to try to make one before Christmas. She graciously came to a craft night at the church and spent 2 hours helping me lay & cut out the pattern! Once that was done, I was able to follow the simple directions and with Chip's very careful pinning, this is the final product!


This bear is a gift for my dad, a memorial to my grandfather. I am hoping to put one of grandpa's Lion's Club pins on the pocket after he opens it. I am planning to take the class the next time it's offered so that I can create a bear for my family as well.

Scrabble Tile Gifts

Since I had purchased so many Scrabble sets for the creation of this gift, I had plenty of tiles left over. The girls enjoyed making up games with the tiles for a bit. Then I used a few of them in the I-SPY bags. The girls also made name magnets for some relatives by gluing the tiles together with hot glue (always supervise your children closely when you use hot glue!) and putting adhesive magnet on the back. (update - Chip had to super glue the tiles together and put them on a card stock backing because the hot glue didn't hold)


I also tried my hand at making Scrabble tile necklaces. The first batch didn't turn out too well. Apparently the diamond glaze got shaken up a bit more than I thought on the ride home from the store and many, many bubbles seemed to rise up as the tiles dried. The second batch was significantly better! Paperwise, I used Japanese paper, scrapbooking paper and tissue paper for the decoration on the tiles. I used the paper from the packages the chains came in to create jewel cards. I think they look pretty good!


You can find directions in multiple places on the web. I simply lightly traced the tiles on the back side of the paper, trimmed the paper slightly larger than the tracing and used the diamond glaze to adhere the paper to the tile. After that dried, I trimmed the paper to the exact size of the tile then coated the whole thing with diamond glaze. I used a paint brush handle to spread the glaze around the tile. Once the glaze was dry, Chip epoxied the earring backs and necklace bails to the backs of the tiles. Add a chain and you're done!

Merry Christmas!

Happy Birthday Jesus!

Merry Christmas, from our house to yours.

Calendar-Girl

I have made calendars for my parents and grandparents for the past few years. They are super easy to create (although time consuming) and a fun way to reflect on the previous year. Here's a peek at one of the pages (photo taken by Boo).

Edible Snowmen

As part of our teacher gifts, we made candied pecans and marshmallow chocolate snowman. I'd come across the snowman on Speckled Egg last year and thought it'd be a fun thing for the girls to make. If you want to see how they made them, click here.

To make these snowmen, you need:

Lollipop sticks

Marshmallows (2 bags)

chocolate melts (2 bags) - we used mint white chocolate

mini M&Ms, butterscotch chips and chocolate chips or other small colorful candies

Begin by putting 3 marshmallows onto each lollipop stick, making sure there are no gaps between them. Next, melt the chocolate melts in a medium bowl or measuring cup in the microwave as directed on the package. Immediately dip each snowman into the chocolate, rolling it to cover the all of the marshmallow. Any parts that are not coated in chocolate may become chewy or go stale.

Lay flat (or stand upright into a block of styrofoam if you'd prefer). Decorate your snowman with eyes, nose and buttons. You might use strings of licorace for a scarf if you'd like. I'd intended to use gum drops and life savers to make a hat but had forgotten to get the gumdrops. Oops. Once the chocolate coating sets, trim off the excess chocolate and wrap in saran wrap. If you'd like them to set faster, put them in the fridge for 15 minutes.

Cereal Wreaths, um... I mean Ornament Balls

Another good idea on paper but not so much in real life.

We were going to make cereal wreaths using Apple Jacks and marshmallows (think Rice Krispie Treat style). When we attempted to form the wreaths, they were so big that it made it almost pointless to make them so we just made ornament balls instead. Just as tasty and not quite so much to eat!

To make these, simply substitute Apple Jacks for Rice Krispies and follow the traditional Rice Krispie Treat recipe, cutting the marshmallow amount in half. We sorted the cereal into orange and green piles added a bit of food coloring to our orange as we mixed it up to give it a redder, more festive color.

Snow Globe Soap

Do you ever feel that the crafts you do never quite turn out the way everyone else's do? That's how I felt when I tried to make snow globe soaps, which I spied a short time ago on Alpha Mom. (click to get the directions)

Here's the best of our lot... not too bad, but certainly not as cute as Alpha Mom's. I'm guessing that if we do this again, we will have a better outcome now that we've learned a bit more about what works and what doesn't. Keep reading for my tips to make your try turn out a little better.


I had the kids help me grate the ivory soap and stir the glycerin. They also added the color and scent and helped pour the glycerin into the ice cube tray.

I used my Craft Robo to cut out tags and had the kids wrap the soap in cling wrap and personalize the tags. We're using these as teacher gifts for church and school.

Some tips if you try this yourself:

• Only use one drop of color... really! It might not look as dark as you think it should but it will be dark enough! The picture below shows the varying colors as we learned how much to use with each batch.

• Use solid plastic items to put inside. We used little gifts which were wrapped in some sort of colored foil and see through snowflakes. The colors on the foil bleed into the glycerin and you can't really see the snowflakes. (see above photo)
• If you can't figure out where to find items that would fit in the ice cube tray, try the doll house furniture section of your local craft store.
• Add the glitter after the glycerin has cooled a little bit, just before you pour it. We added ours almost as soon as it came out of the microwave and it didn't spread through the entire globe as much as I'd hoped.
• Put only a few flakes of Ivory in the tray and make sure it is completely covered by the clear glycerin. If you do more, the flakes will be loose when the soap is finished and it doesn't look quite as nice (as shown below!).
  

I hope that you and your family enjoy this project as much as we did!

I-SPY

Having seen the ISPY pillows on etsy for quite some time, I decided to try my hand at it. Making them is really easy!

Since many have already posted directions to make the fleece bags, I'll just refer you to According to Kelly... if you would like to know how to make them with fleece.

If you want to use flannel, there are two ways. The first is a patchwork style and directions can be found at The Enrichment Cottage. The way I did it requires that you make small diagonal cuts in the corners of the flannel where you are putting the "window" and folding the edges under. Run a seam around the window, then sew the vinyl in place.

If you have trouble knowing what to put in the bags, consider doll house sized items from your local craft store. I also included some beads, small erasers, paper clips, scrabble tiles, water balloons (empty and tied closed), jacks, dice, buttons and googly eyes. I also purchased some trinkets from HighPie on etsy.

Scrabble - Christmas Gift

One of my friends came up with this idea last spring and I immediately jumped on board! After scoring Scrabble games from garage sales, Goodwill stores and ebay, I was ready to go. I listed the family names I wanted to include and fit them in to a Scrabble pattern. Then the tiles were superglued onto the game board. I had priced out custom framing... YIKES! I ended up purchasing a large frame with a 3D mat. Chip cut down the mat to fit the board and voila!

If you have a Scrabble lover in your family, this might be a perfect gift!

Happy Turkey Day