Oh, The Places You Will Nap...

Sorry for my lack of posts lately. I've been busy working on my etsy orders! Gotta get these suckers done by Christmas and I'm stressing a little! I'll get them done though, I promise! I don't really have much to say right now, but I'll leave you with a few pictures of Bubs in his new-found napping area.

Please don't ask...

I really have no idea what is so comfortable(?) about this spot, but whatever works for him, I guess.

Helping Momma work!

Yahooooo!

I had my first TWO Etsy sales today! Aww yeah I am so excited! Now I just have to bust my ass to get these things done by Christmas! (4 stockings and a quilt) AHHHH!!! :0 That's okay. I can do it. I have confidence in myself.

I really have nothing else to post about at the moment except for the fact that Bubba currently has a circular piece of tinsel stuck to the roof of his mouth and Duglokk and I have no idea how to get it out. Hmm... any suggestions?

Stocking Stuffers

So after all the excitement of buying Bubba all sorts of presents for his first Christmas, I completely forgot to get things to stuff inside of his adorable stocking I made him! Last night I was browsing my list of craft blogs looking for something I could possibly make for him since we don't really have the money to go out and buy much for him at this point. I found the CUTEST idea ever! I really want to show you guys, but I kind of want my mom and grandma to be surprised when Bubba opens it. ;) I'll just leave you guys with a hint instead.

I know that I only have 10 days before I can blog about what I made, but I'm not sure I can wait that long. We will see!! Comment with your guesses on what it might be. (Missy, you don't count because I already told you! Haha).

Advent Calendar Tutorial

I finally made an advent calendar. I wanted to make one that involves Bubba, like a paper chain or something of the sort, but since he is too young I decided to get artsy and make one of my own that I can reuse each year. I probably looked at over 50 different styles of advent calendars before I chose to make the one that I did. I already had all of the necessary supplies on hand, so I didn't have to buy anything to make it. That's always a good feeling!

I grabbed an old cookie sheet from under my oven and cleaned it off real well. Then I painted the back side of it white with a foam paint brush.

Then I covered it with festive cardstock and drew a 5x5 grid in the middle.

I had a bunch of really cute gift tags that I numbered 1-25 and used for the countdown. I stuck a thin magnet on the back of each one so they are easy to remove and replace. 

Then, I tied hemp rope to the gift tags to spruce them up a bit. 

Once that was finished, I wrote "How many days until Christmas?" on it, like the following pictures show, and I added some buttons and a ribbon for accent.

Overall, it was a very simple project. I'm so glad that I finally got around to making it. Even if I do only get to enjoy it for 12 more days...(11 now since it is already 1AM).

Oh, I almost forgot to mention, the magnets are awesome because whenever you take a number off of the calendar, you can simply stick it to the inside of the pan. So convenient!

Places I'm linking up: The Girl Creative
                                    Craft-O-Maniac
                                    Brambleberry Cottage

Christmas Cards: Part 2

Shutterfly emailed me this afternoon with the promotion code for my 50 free Christmas cards. I was so excited that I logged on and got right to designing our first card as a family. :D *CHEEEESE!* After spending probably 2 hours trying to figure out which pictures to use with what template and what fonts, I finally created a card. Woohoo! Wanna see?

Here it is!

Elegant Black Damask Christmas 5x7 folded card

Shutterfly Christmas cards

View the entire collection of cards.

I think they are so cute! And there are more pictures on the inside of the card along with a little greeting. It was a super awesome deal to get 50 free. I believe the total savings in my cart was $119. Chaaa-Ching! That's what I'm talking about. :)

I definitely think I will be ordering from Shutterfly from now on. 

Just to Boost Dug's Ego ;)

For all of you that have been reading since the first couple of posts, Duglokk is now a level 85 shaman level 100 awesome dad. He's moving up in the world (of warcraft). Maybe I should throw him a party.

I could make him this awesome cake.

Or these cupcakes...

Oh, and I could make everyone these sweet shirts that tell whether they are Horde or Alliance!

Okay that's enough of that nonsense. In no way will I EVER be throwing him a WoW party. I just wanted everyone to know that he has been working so hard to get to level 85 and he finally did it. WOOFREAKINGHOO! Ha, I love you babe. I hope the random stupidity of this post makes you smile. :)

My First Wreath! (My First Tutorial Too!)

As most of you are finding out, I'm kind of going with a handmade Christmas theme this year. After seeing how nice my stockings turned out, I've been looking for other ways to create a cheap, DIY Christmas. After my car dragged me to Michael's today, (Yes, my car just automatically goes there. Even when I tell it that I have no money.), I was searching through the aisles wondering what kind of magical item I could find to decorate my small apartment with. I found a few cute things that I wanted, but my wallet told me otherwise. On my way out of the store something caught my eye. A foam wreath. I could totally make a fabric covered wreath! Heck yes!! Needless to say, I bought that sucker, got home to my lovely craft table, and started working.

(I am going to try to do a tutorial for this, but bare with me because I have never done one before.)

I started out by wrapping the wreath with a red knit fabric like shown. I secured the fabric by placing a dot of glue from a hot glue gun every couple of wraps.

Next, I cut several circles out of various holiday fabrics. (I used the same material that I used for the stockings).

Once the circles were all cut, I started gluing them onto the wreath to create flowers. I pinched the fabric and tried to pucker it before the glue dried to give it more of a 3D look.

Once I finished creating little flowers around the entire wreath, I used the hot glue gun to place buttons in the middle of each flower.

After all of the buttons were glued on, I simply attached a matching ribbon to the back of the wreath!

And we're done!!

This project probably took me a total of 2-3 hours. I'm really happy with the end results and I love that it matches the stockings. It really pulls the room together. Duglokk is impressed too. I've been showing him all sorts of Suzy Homemaker tricks lately. Haha.

Is anyone else doing a handmade theme this year? I'd love to see some of your creations!

EDIT: I just wanted to point out my super cute hot glue gun. Yes, I did purposely take pictures of it to show it off. ;) $3 at Michael's!

Table Food

After contemplating for a couple of weeks, I decided that Bubba was ready to start eating some table foods with us. Last night I headed to the store after my work out and I got Bubs a variety of ravioli, macaroni, chicken, and a few other pastas. Tonight was our first night with the new food (chicken and carrot ravioli) and some people might not agree with me, but I'd call it a success!

"What the heck is this stuff, Mom?"

"Can I play with it?"

"Hm, this isn't so bad!"

"OMNOMNOM!"

"What?! Spongebob?! Where?!"

"MOM! I'M DONE! YOU AREN'T GETTING ME OUT FAST ENOUGH! WAHH!!"

Handmade Christmas Stockings

Since this is mine and Duglokk's first Christmas on our own, we didn't really have any stockings or anything. I knew that I did not want those boring red stockings that you have to write your name on it with puff paint. No thank you. After searching several different stores for cute stockings, I finally gave up and decided to make them myself. I was afraid that they would turn out looking even more hideous than the puff paint, but I was actually pleasantly surprised with the results.

I would show you Bubba's, but since it has his real name on it I will refrain. I wouldn't want the sacred goddess of the mommy bloggers to think I'm a bad mother would I?! His is pretty much the same anyways, the colors are just switched (red for the main color and green for his name).

Considering the fact that I freehanded this entire project and used no pattern what-so-ever, I would say that they were pretty easy to make. Best of all, I actually had fun improvising them! I want to make some more so if you or anyone you know needs some stockings for this year, or even next year, head on over to my etsy shop and get some ordered!

Oh, Christmas Cards...

The dreaded Christmas cards. Duglokk and I haven't quite decided whether we want to send them out or not. They are so much work and money and time and everything that we really just don't want to deal with. However, we did get some super cute pictures taken of Bubba by MISSLINDY.

I wasn't sure how we were going to afford to send out Christmas cards, so I was thinking about just emailing them until I found out about this awesome deal that Shutterfly is offering to bloggers. 50 FREE cards for bloggers! How awesome is that?

I have always been a big fan of Shutterfly. Their photo books are adorable and did I mention SIMPLE to make? Seriously, all you do is upload the pictures that you want and type in your names. Shutterfly does the rest. And not to mention, grandparents practically fall out of their chairs with how awesome they are. ;)

Anywho, I was searching through their enormous selection of Christmas cards (literally, there is 805 different styles) and I thought I'd share a few of my favorites with you guys. Maybe you can help me decide which one to choose since I cannot pick one for the life of me.

 

 

They are all too cute. I can't choose just one. The nice thing about Shutterfly is that you can put your picture in and see exactly how they will look. That makes choosing a little easier! Go check out all of the different Christmas card designs for yourself! They also have really nice address labels that you can get to match your cards, and if you want to go all out you can even get matching gift tags. Seriously?! How cute is that?!

If you have already sent out your cards for this year, you may want to check out some of their photo gifts instead. Family and friends would love to get a personalized photo gift of the loved ones in their life. Another one of my favorite gifts is the photo calendar. It is such a neat way to keep your loved ones in mind while at work.

(If you're a blogger and want to get 50 free cards click here).

I think I'll do a post later about my handmade Christmas stockings so check back in a few hours! ;)