Streamer Ruffle Christmas Trees

Can you take one more streamer ruffle idea???  How about some streamer ruffle Christmas trees?
To see the ruffled gift wrap or to see how to make ruffled streamers, go to this post:  Ruffled Streamers.

 I started with some green and white ruffled streamers, styrofoam trees, and some pins.  It took me about 8-9 feet of ruffled streamer to go over the large tree.

To do the green and white one, you should place the streamer at the bottom of the tree with the white streamer overlap on top and the white part facing up.

Pin in place to secure, then start wrapping!  Make sure you go over the bottom of the tree so that you cover the Styrofoam.  When you get to the top of the tree, form the top into a point and secure with another pin.  Done!!!

The green one is just one streamer gathered at one edge and wrapped around.  It gave it a lot more volume, so that's another technique you can try!

Of course, I had to make a snow scene to display the trees.  I decided to get out my Memere's (great grandmother) antique Christmas figures.

I displayed these every year as a child, but I'm afraid they have lead paint, so I won't put them out anymore.  They came out for a little shoot style though!

I actually think the pine cone elves would have been better, but I gave them all away!  Oh well!

A little yellow streamer star for the top!

Added to:

Christmas Planner

Yay!  It's the Christmas season!  I like Thanksgiving a lot, but I LOVE Christmas!  I can't wait to decorate later on tonight!

I'd like to share an organizational project that I made last night.

First of all, many of the ideas are adapted from the blog eighteen25 - a REALLY fun blog to read!
They showed how to make Christmas planners out of composition notebooks.  2011 Planners

I liked theirs a lot, but I wanted to change it. I wanted a notebook that would last me several years, where I could keep track of the presents I gave, etc.  I also wanted to use my Zutter machine and make it spiral bound.  Finally, several of their tabs weren't relevant to me.  I don't do the menu planning for any special events, nor do I completely understand what their "Card" tab is for. 

Oh, and I wanted to use graph paper because I hate horizontal lined paper.  I need to write on zero lines (plain copy paper) or too many lines (graph paper).  But that's just me being weird (err...quirky!).

ANYWAY...
I decided on 4 tabs - Calendar, To Do, Christmas List, and Projects. 

• I cut some 8.5x11 paper (copy and graph) down to 5.5x 7.85.  I used the copy paper for calendar and projects and graph paper for To Do and Christmas List.  I stuck a piece of scrapbook paper at the beginning of each section and attached a tab indicating the section.  The paper I cut for the tab was 2x2, but I folded it in half to make it 1x2. 

• I cut two manilla file folders to 6x8 to use as the covers.  I adhered scrapbook paper to the file folder and decorated the cover a bit. I also used some translucent plastic I had for organizing scrapbook paper to serve as a protective cover.  I cut it to 6x8 with my paper cutter.  

• I bound all that with the zutter and 3/4" coil. 

• I attached a bell with ribbon - mostly for decoration, but slightly so I could find it in my bag or diaper bag!  Sheepish grin!

• For the envelopes inside, I bought 6x9 inch envelopes at Staples, but they were a bit too big for my book.  After I bound the book, I cut the envelops on the sides and bottom to fit the inside covers and I sewed around the three edges to keep it secure.

• I printed out the calendar pages from here (same place as eighteen25, but I opted for a month calendar instead of weekly ones).

• Added a few graphics and strips of scrapbook paper, and I was good to go with my new Christmas planner!

It would be easy to recreate with a small spiral notebook or a composition book like eighteen25 did.  Their graphics are really cute, but they are year specific.  If anyone would like the graphics I used, please send me an email to quaint and quirky at gmail dot com or leave a comment with your email address and I'll send you the file!  I can put the words in black, red, green, or multicolored like I used!

I'm adding this to the tatertots and jello weekend link up party!

Winnah! (as we say in Rhode Island)

Except I don't say "winnah" because I try to fight against the New England accent!

The winnER of the custom rag doll is The Fancy Fritter!

Congratulations!  Thanks to you all for entering.  I had a great time learning about all your favorite movies.  I'm adding the hair tutorial tomorrow and I will show you which Christmas movie is my favorite (although I like many). 

Projects!

As with many of the blogs I read, I'm finally able to post about the projects I've been working on for the last...oh... two months! 

Some skirts for a friend of mine to give to her nieces.

The Josephine Apron from the book A is for Apron.

The other side of the Josephine apron.

Levi got a leather and plaid dog bed.  Here he doesn't look too thrilled about it.

But he seemed to like it later!

As always, he is a big help to me when I need to produce a million Christmas presents in three days.  He takes his role as fabric/pattern warmer very seriously!

Many *many* more gifts were made...I'll post more later!

Pine Cone Elves (subtitled: I don't have time for this)

I should be knitting, I should be wrapping, I should be sewing, I should be cleaning, I should be putting away laundry, I should be eating meals that do not involve frozen dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets, I should be sleeping. Instead, I'm going to BLOG and show you my pine cone elves! They were in the December issue of Martha Stewart Living and I think they are adorable!  These are the ones I made.  The first one was for my Irish dance teacher, so I made sort of an Irish dancing elf.  They are pretty easy and would make great present toppers or ornaments!  

Decorations

I have been having a great time reading each and every response to my giveaway.  I like hearing about the different meaningful decorations that loved ones have given you, made for you, or left for you.  Sentimentality and simplicity seem to be two themes running through the comments.  When I post a winner, I'll tell you about my favorite Christmas decoration. In this post I'll tell you something neat about my husband.  He loves Christmas.  He loves Christmas decorations too.  In fact, he loves Christmas so much that he came with a whole bunch of Dickens Village pieces.  They are set up in his bookcase right now.  They are so beautiful all lit! 

 

I love how God put us together - "Loves Christmas" was not something on my list of things to look for in a future husband, but God took care of that for me!

Christmas Goals

For participation in Holidays in Hand, I needed to write down some goals for this Christmas season.  I was totally in favor.  I find that if I write down goals, it is MUCH more likely to happen!  Here are mine:

 1.        ALWAYS remember why we are celebrating this holiday.  I love Christmas.  I love baking, buying, singing, wrapping, decorating, ribonning, garlanding, lighting, Christmas movie-ing, planning, making, sewing, gluing, eating and partying.  Really though, how much of that has to do with the birth of the Savior?  I don’t think I need to overhaul my Christmas activities, I just need to REMEMBER and REFLECT and INCORPORATE and keep Jesus at the forefront of my thoughts.

2.       Wrap presents.  No, the people on my Christmas list do not  get presents wrapped in Target bags.  However, every year I carefully plan out the wrapping paper, ribbon, tags, and other embellishments, but it’s always a hail mary effort on Christmas eve (or even Christmas Day [see #4 below]) to wrap as fast as possible because we need to leave.  I never enjoy it.  It usually lands in my husband’s lap.

3.       Be realistic.  Being out of touch with the measurement of time is an inherited trait.  I’m never realistic with the projects I take on for Christmas.  If I even think I have a free window, I just add another project.  Then everything takes me much longer and not only don’t I have that free window, I can’t finish the projects I have already started. 

4.       Finish ALL presents by noon on Christmas Eve.  Earlier would be better.  For many years now, I have been making presents up until Christmas Eve festivities, continuing them after Christmas Eve festivities, and still continuing them Christmas morning.  No wonder I feel that I’m lacking with goal #1.  I would loooooooove to sit and relax and not have presents hanging over me.

5.       Be resourceful with my current stash of raw materials.  We are using pine cones for our mass produced presents this year so that is resourceful, but I DO have a stash of fabric and paper that could be used to create many presents without the need to buy a lot more.  [Note to husband:  I didn’t say I wasn’t going to buy anything.  I said I was going to TRY to use the stash].

6.       Enjoy.  The month is so fleeting, it can be over before you say Jingle Bells.  I want to sit back and relax!

What are your holiday goals?

Eggs

Do you see when these eggs expire?  AAAAAAAAaaaaaaack!

I hope you are ready!  I'm not!

Holidays in Hand started today.  I'm looking forward to documenting this holiday season.  Did anyone else sign up?

I've got some blog posts coming this week.  Life and other Obligations have gotten in the way of blogging.

See you soon!

Christmas 2008

I'm finally recovering from crazy Christmas 2008. I was in craft prison for a while there, making LOTS of crafty things. Here are some finished projects and shots from Christmas. I'll be back with more!

First, my pile of presents from my generous husband. If you look carefully, each present has a skeleton key attached to it. He won the keys on ebay to decorate the presents!

Here is a closeup of one. Pretty....eh?

Here is Josh's pile of presents. I loved the paper I found. He objects to using "Happy Holidays" so I found paper that said, "Merry Christmas" in English, French, German, Spanish, and Italian!

I made aprons for the moms. This is my mom's apron. I found out later that it is a pattern from the book A is for Apron, but I found the pattern on the I is for Internet!

The next one is for my mother-in-law. I think it looks like she should be making cupcakes or candy! It's altered from another Internet find.

These pillows were for my brother and his fiancee. They are photographs they took in Vermont (where they live). I printed them out on fabric paper (which was a LOT of fun!) and sewed them together!

This is a leftover project from the dresses/bags order. It is a bag for a woman who has a sailboat. The nautical flags spell her initials. I think I'm going to offer these on etsy shortly.

I'll be back with more pictures from Christmas and the contents of the packages! ;)

Happy last day of 2008!

Link is announcing the winner!

Link has come to announce that the winner of the Candy Stripe Dog Collar is:

#6 - Dovie's Aprons

I really wanted to give one to each one of you, especially when you started telling me your dogs' names! Aaaaaaah! And Itunes thanks you all for giving me such great songs to look up!

By the way..... MY favorite Christmas song is "Sweet Little Jesus Boy" by Kenny Rogers. (In case anyone was wondering!)

Anyway, Congratulations Dovie's Aprons!

Monsieur Link will be showing some of our Christmas decorations over the next few days. He is holding the Christmas calendar my mom made for us last year. I had one growing up and she put a little gift in it every day. Some days it was a note, some days a piece of candy, some days a little present. Wellllll, even though I'm married now, she's still filling the calendar. Now Josh and I both get a gift. I look forward to it each morning.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a Good Night!

Ho Ho Ho Woof!

So today is GIVE AWAY DAY!

I have never done a give away before, but I was planning to for maybe my blogiversary. Sew Mama Sew beat me to it though! They created Give Away Day for all the people who wanted to donate give away items. I thought it sounded cheerful and fun, so I decided to join!

Here is my give away item:

It is a super sweet candy striped dog collar! It is pictured in size Large, but I will also send you a medium if you need that. Think of all the doggies on your list that would go bow wow crazy over a groovy collar like this one!





Specs:


Large collar: Adjustable from 15" to 21", 1" in height


Medium collar: Adjustable from 11" to 15" , 3/4" in height





Guidelines:
Leave a comment with the title of your favorite Christmas song. ;) I love Christmas songs! Or just comment! I will pick a random winner from all entries tomorrow. Please also include a way for me to contact you (through email or blog).

I will ship to the US and Canada. I'm not overly familiar with international shipping. I'm not against it, but I need to keep my costs relatively low for this one. If you do not live in the US, you can still enter, but I reserve the right to pick another winner if the shipping to your destination is high (over $10).
So, Happy Give Away Day! Thanks for commenting!

And I take custom orders on dog collars, so if you are bummed that you didn't win, drop me a line! ;)

Survival

Yes, I was very nearly drowned by report cards and conferences, but I am alive to tell my story. But it's so boring no one would ever want to hear it!

I have come out the other side, though, and am ready to craft craft craft until Christmas. I've got 95% of a bag for my husband's grandmother finished, so pictures to come. I'm working on matching sister dresses for my husband's boss. She gave me these beautiful coral-colored velvetish fabric remnants. I think at one time it was upholstery, so I kind of feel like Mammy making Scarlett's "I need money - yes, money IS green" drapery dress.

I also have 6 bags to make on my BEFORE I start Christmas projects list! Yikes! Dum dee dum! I'm not stressed at ALL!

I have two blog awards to put up later! Woo hoo! Thanks ladies!
I want to knit something. A friend (Hi Mary!) and coworker of mine fixed my knitting knowledge, so I'm ready and raring to follow a pattern (which I've never done before). I'll be back later with awards and other items!