New Designs in Store

It's been awhile since I've posted here. Oops! Things always seem so hectic and then I'm not even sure where all the time goes. At any rate, I've posted some new designs in store. I'm really excited about them.

Have a little one who loves all things that go? I know I have two like that. By plane, train or automobile, however you go, invite your guests in style!

Cookie Monster! How cute is this invitation? I think it'd be really great to actually cut out the top left corner of the invitation, just like he had taken a bite out of it.

Wild thing in your house with a party coming up? Invite your guests with this rockstar inspired design. 

I love this western and rustic invitation. Great for a cowboy or cowgirl.

Have a zoo of a party with this safari animals invitation. Design features giraffe, jaguar, monkey, zebra and lion.

I finally got around to designing an owl invitation. I know the owl theme is really popular so I'm a bit behind the times with just now listing it, but oh well. Better late than never, right?

Also, I just have to say, the first five designs have photos of my boys. Aren't they gorgeous? Yeah, I'm that mom. The one who's always bragging about how beautiful--inside and out--her children are.

Christmas Market

I know this post is a little late in coming, but I figured better late than never. The weekend before Christmas (which somehow seems sooo long ago already) we went to a Christmas market in Rudesheim. Germany and most of Europe is known for their Christmas markets, but this was a really fun one. We met up with some friends of ours and we braved the cold (seriously Mother Nature, quit making it so darn cold without the white stuff to make it worthwhile!).

To get there, we had to take a ferry across the river (the Rhein I believe). If that had been all that we did the entire day the boys would still have been thrilled. You would have thought the ten minute ferry ride was the BEST. THING. EVAR! Okay, so I was a little excited about it too.

The city didn't disappoint us either. I suspect that at any time of the year the city's wonderful to behold but it was even neater with the entire center being closed to traffic and filled with fragrant and colorful market stalls.

We managed to eat our weight I think that day. We had french fries, hot dogs (wursts), hot cocoa, kartoffeln soup (potato soup) in a bread bowl, and chocolate covered strawberries on a stick. And that's only what I remember. There may have been more, but I won't admit to it now.

Honestly it's days like these that make me absolutely fall in love with Europe all over again, even if sometimes I'm homesick and lonely. There's nothing like this back in the States.

DIY Snowglobe Ornaments

This Christmas the boys and I have had several crafty fun times. One of my favorite times was creating these snowglobe ornaments. They're really easy to make and are really inexpensive. They're made from juice can lids (the frozen from concentrate cans in the freezer section), scrapbook paper, plastic soda bottles, and some crafty embellishments.

Here's What You'll Need: knife, empty coke plastic bottle, juice can lid, drill, ribbon, glitter and glue or nail polish, scrapbook paper, scissors, 2" circular punch (optional), embellishments for inside your snowglobe (I used mini bottle brush trees and ceramic figurines, plus fake snow).

Here's What You'll Do:

Step 1: Gather the aforementioned supplies.

Step 2: Cut down your empty coke plastic bottles. You'll want to make it as even as possible. I used a serrated kitchen knife and it worked really well. You can recycle the bottom part of the bottle but keep the top along with the cap.



Step 3: With a power drill, drill a small hole into the top of the lid. Go all the way through the plastic and be sure your hole is large enough for your ribbon or string to go through.

Step 4 & 5: Use glue to coat the entire top and sides of the bottle's cap, then use glitter to coat the surface. An easier alternative is to use a bottle of nail polish. I had several that had glittery shimmerly colors, but then I embellished it by adding extra glitter (the nailpolish acts as your glue). It's really easy since the nailpolish already comes with a mini brush!

Step 6: String the ribbon or twine through the hole you drilled in the top of the bottle cap. I added a bit of hot glue to the cap to make sure the string would stay in place. You want this ribbon to be your ornament loop so make sure you have enough of a loop to be able to hang it on your tree.

Step 7: Punch or cut out a circle for each side of your metal juice can lid.

Step 8: Glue the scrapbook or patterned paper circle onto each side of your metal juice can lid.

Step 9: Glue the snowglobe embellishments onto the top of your juice can lid.

Step 10: Using fake snow, glitter, or anything else you'd like, place some into the top of your bottle cap. Then carefully (or else you'll have a mess) turn the bottle top over and place it on top of the juice can lid. Hot glue around the edges, adhering the bottle onto the juice can lid. Try to be neat about it, but you'll be covering the edge in ribbon anyway so make sure you have a good bond.

Step 11: Wrap (while hotgluing) the bottom and/or the top around your bottle cap with some pretty ribbon. Embellish it however you'd like. It really helps to do the bottom with a ribbon edge since it hides any sloppy hotgluing work!

Step 12: Hang it on your tree and enjoy!



Santa's Belt Gift Jar

Want to create a really cute and inexpensive holiday gift? I made these little beauties for my sons' caregivers at daycare. They're made from empty Starbucks mocha glasses (cleaned and sanitized of course). I washed them in hot water to remove the label and the gunk that adhered it. Then I filled them with holiday chocolates (mini Hershey's bars).

To create the Santa Bottle, you'll need scissors, paper, a printer, a glue stick, clear tape, aluminum foil, thin cardboard (like a cereal box), ribbon, and construction paper (red, white and black).

Step 1: Trim out a strip of red construction paper. You'll want it to be about 2.25" wide by 8.5" long. Wrap this around your empty bottle and adhere with a strip of clear tape at the back (have the back of your bottle be the side where they've printed the use by date).

Step 2: Trim out a piece of white construction paper, approximately .5" wide by 2.25" tall. Using the glue stick, adhere it on top of the red band (vertically oriented).

Step 3: Trim out a strip of black construction paper, .5" wide by 8.5" long. Wrap this around the bottle, adhering it with a glue stick.

Step 4: Cut out a small, square piece of  thin cardboard. I used an empty cereal box that I cut up. My square was about 2 inches square. Cut out a smaller square inside the cardboard square. My smaller square is about .75" square. Then I wrapped the entire thing with aluminum foil, just like a Christmas present. I used a sharp exacto blade to trim out the inside to create that hole in the middle of the buckle.

Step 5: I printed out the "Ho Ho Ho" label that i created in photoshop and glued it onto the top of the lid with a gluestick. You can download the free printable HERE.

After that, I just tied a bit of red ribbon around the neck of the bottle and filled the bottles with the chocolates. Super easy and super cute!

Teacher or Caregiver Gifts

So I've been MIA. Suffice it to say that some things got crossed off my to-do list. December is always a hectic month, but I have missed posting. Hopefully now that things have calmed down a bit, I can post more. Yay! At any rate, here's one thing that I've been up to lately:

Caregiver gifts for my boys' counsellors at their daycare. One of his teachers is moving back to the states at the end of this week so I had to get them finished. I think that they turned out pretty cute if I do say so myself. They're made from the drink carrier thing (cardboard) that comes with the starbucks mochas that you can buy in any grocery store. I wrapped the box with some cute wrapping paper that I had on hand, stuffed it full of goodies (more on that later) and wrapped the whole thing in clear cellophane tied with some twine and a gift tag. Drake and Lincoln loved giving them to their teachers and I think the teachers loved receiving them.

Some of the goodies inside the basket include a snowman Hershey's bar, a giftcard, chocolates, and an empty mocha jar filled with popcorn kernels.

I also included a packet of popcorn seasoning. Mmm ranch popcorn...

I turned one of the empty Starbucks mocha bottles into a Santa jar and filled them with Hershey's holiday chocolates. They turned out too cute! Tutorial coming soon.

Another overall view of my fun caregiver baskets. I'm so glad that the teachers enjoyed them. I wanted them to know that I appreciate what they do day in, day out for my kiddoes.

O Christmas Tree

Want to see what a Christmas tree decorated by one toddler and one preschooler looks like? Of course you do!

That's right. Four ornaments on the same single branch and my "love" ornament backwards to where it looks like it reads, "eval." It was decorated with love by four little hands and it's absolutely perfect.

Snowmen Hershey Bars

I'm in the process of creating a gift basket of sorts to give to all of Drake and Lincoln's preschool caregivers (I'll post it later once I have all the parts assembled). Anyway, one part of it is a Hershey's chocolate bar wrapped up like a snowman, which of course I totally stole from was inspired by a pin on pinterest.

Too cute, right? It's not exactly like the pin but I like my take on it. I think it would have looked even cuter if I had some black round brads for the mouth and eye dots, but alas the craft supplies in Germany are sorely lacking.

To create this incredibly simple snowman wrapped Hershey's bar, you'll need sheets of white paper (I used cheap printer paper), a pipe cleaner, clear tape, orange construction paper, glue, a black pen, three scrapbook brads and of course a Hershey's chocolate bar.

What You'll Do:
Cut a sheet of standard US paper into half, while holding it landscape orientation, cut top to bottom. Each sheet of paper will make two snowmen. Place your Hershey's bar on top of the piece of paper to get an idea of where the middle is. Once you have the middle, punch three brads into the paper right in the middle for the buttons. Then draw in two eyes up top and five dots for the mouth. You could conversely use small black round brads, but I had none. Cut a triangle from orange construction paper for the nose, and glue it onto the face. Lastly, wrap a pipecleaner "scarf" around the chocolate bar, meeting up the ends in the front just off-center. Let each end hang down to be the ends of the scarf and trim as necessary. That's it! Very easy and very cute.