DIY Christmas trees

Hello All-

I wanted to share a Christmas project with all of you that got a bit of attention on my Facebook page last week.  With a new house and new spaces to decorate, I have been spending a fair amount of time at various stores scouring through their decorations for "the perfect ones."  I noticed that one type of decoration that kept popping up in my search was small decorated Christmas trees.  Not decorated with ornaments and lights, but instead, feathers, paper sheet music, beads, you name it.  A quick search on Pinterest and you'll see countless variations.

I decided to give this new trend the old "DIY try".  So far I have made two trees for our mantle, and if time allows, I will add a third to the set. 

(I apologize that I don't have step-by-step photos, but they are quite easy to make. I didn't expect to be blogging about them until numerous people started sending me messages with questions about them)

The first one I made was the button tree.  I have quite a large button collection, but I wanted some variety and I picked up a few bags of mixed buttons at Michaels.  I will warn you, these can get costly, so this would be the perfect time to get your hands on one of their 50% off coupons!!  Not only do you need lots of buttons, but you'll also want to pick up a Styrofoam tree and lots of push pins.  I decided to go with red and green tipped pins for a bit more color, but any large headed pin will do.  I suppose you could also glue your buttons, but I wanted the ability to change mine around and potentially use some of them in knitting projects. 

You'll want to start pinning your larger, more basic buttons, around the tree.  I found that on the larger ones, using two pins was more helpful in keeping them still.  From there, you keep building up the layers and adding more of the smaller and more unique buttons.  Keep going until you feel that enough of the tree has been covered (you don't want a lot of holes and Styrofoam peeking through).  For buttons with shanks and not holes, simply bend your pin into an "L" shape and poke it through that way.  Also, when you get toward the top, be careful!  My pins started poking through the point of the tree and I had to take a break to let the bleeding stop!!

The next tree I made was a ribbon tree.  To make this one, you again need a Styrofoam tree, and pins, though flat headed ones work best on this project.  You will also need ribbon.  I went with four different patterns and one roll of each.  Depending on how full or colorful you want your tree, you may have to adjust how much ribbon you use.  I used every last scrap I had, and I probably could have used another roll for good measure. 

To make the tree, you simply cut your ribbon into 3-inch lengths.  From there, you fold the ribbon pieces in half and secure them to the tree using pins.  Once you finish your row, you start the next one, slightly overlapping the ribbons to cover the pins from the row below.  Keep going in whatever color pattern you choose, again being careful not to poke yourself as you near the top of the tree.

See, pretty simple!!  I have one more tree that is taller than the other two, and I think I will be covering it in yarn.  A friend suggested pompoms, and if I can get them to stick, that may be an option too.  Hmmm...so many ideas!!

Well, I'm off to ready the little one for school.  Tonight we are decorating our tree, so stay tuned for some photos of that!!

Cheers!
Sharon

Salt Dough Ornaments

Hello Everyone!!

I have been getting some questions lately from friends looking for ornament ideas that would be good for their little ones to make.  I did this post last year for "Kids in Cowtown" and I thought I would re-run it here.

Enjoy!!

I recently received my December issue of Canadian Living in the mail, and I couldn’t wait to try out one of the craft ideas, Salt Dough Snowflakes. I used salt dough for school projects as a child, so I was excited to use it again after all these years.
This project is great for doing with little ones. I had my 3 ½ year old help with every step, and she did a great job! I must also say that I had originally thought I was in for a big mess, but it wasn’t bad after all.


First, you need the following ingredients (Tip: I cut the ingredients in half for my first try and it worked fine):
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup salt
1 cup warm water
Mix the flour and salt together in a bowl with a wooden spoon. Add the water a bit at a time until your mix starts to look like cookie dough. Turn out onto your work surface, knead it a few times and roll it out to approx ¼ inch thickness.



After that, use cookie cutters to make your shapes, and place them on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Before you put them in the oven, poke a hole in the top of each one with a drinking straw (this hole is for a hanging ribbon). Bake at 300-degrees for 1 to 1 ½ hours. Once they cool completely, you can paint and decorate them any way you like!






Here are some tips I figured out along the way:
* You don’t have to use just snowflake cookie cutters…we used some that I already had in the house, and my daughter came up with the idea to use her Play Doh cutters. They worked great and made for some really fun shapes!









* I don’t have a lot of “kid-friendly” paints in my home, so we used washable markers. I found that they created less mess and Hannah was able to use more colors on each ornament. We also used glitter pens from one of her coloring sets to add some sparkle to each ornament.







* We split this project into two days…one to make and bake the ornaments and another to color them. I found that not only did it give me two days of crafty fun, but my daughter’s attention span wasn’t stretched too far this way.

We had so much fun making these! While creating them, I thought of a few other uses for the ornaments…wouldn’t they make great place cards at a holiday meal? Guests could keep them as favours and remember a wonderful time at your home. (Be sure to add the year on the back of them with a permanent marker) Also, I can picture these as cool gift tags. With cookie cutters coming in so many different shapes, you could really personalize them to the gift recipient. Finally, do you have a lot of children that visit your home during the holidays? You could make the ornaments ahead of time, then make goodie bags with an ornament, a few markers, a glitter pen, and a piece of ribbon. Place everything into a clear bag with a gift tag, and you have a quick, easy gift that costs only a few dollars. The possibilities are endless!!!

Have fun making your salty new works of art, and I would love to hear other uses that you can think of!

Cheers!
Sharon

Fresh from the Oven: Thanksgiving!

Hello All-

I'm in the process of writing some new food posts (since I have been cooking/baking up a storm lately).  In the meantime, I thought I would share the menu we used at Canadian Thanksgiving this past weekend.  All in all, I think the food was quite successful.  Since many of my readers will be celebrating US Thanksgiving next month, I thought I'd throw out some food ideas.  Stay tuned in the next week or so for more elaborate posts regarding some of the items we made.

The guests we had for Thanksgiving stayed with us two nights, so on top of dinner, I also had to think of breakfasts.  We went out for lunch both days, so that helped. 

Thanksgiving Dinner

Appetizers

Wild Mushroom Pate on Pita Chip Crackers

Baked Crab Rangoons

Manila Clams steamed in beer

Homemade Cheese Crackers

Dinner

Lobsters (for the boys and Hannah)

Steaks (for the ladies)

Grilled Asparagus

Corn

Crispy Baked Onions

Homemade Bread

Dessert

Baked Apples and Vanilla Ice Cream

Sunday

Breakfast

Blueberry Breakfast Cake

Lunch

Dim Sum at Cha for Tea Palace

Dinner

Lobster Rolls (for the boys)

Steak Subs with leftover steak, onions, and garlic mayo (for the girls)

Dessert

S'mores Croissant Rolls

Monday

Breakfast

Cinnamon Buns

Lunch

Famoso Pizza

So there you have it.  A bit unusual for a holiday weekend menu, but since none of us are big fans of turkey, we decided to go with something different.  The biggest hits of the weekend were probably the blueberry cake, the onions, and of course those who had the seafood were quite please with it too.

Have a great rest of the week!!!

Happy Cooking!!

Sharon

Christmas Knitting Update

Hello!!

Happy New Year's Eve!!! So, I thought I'd write a quick post about all of the handmade presents I made this year. Olivia lucked out with the most "stuff". She seemed to really like her American Girl sweaters, and she loved the hat that I made. I held up the legwarmer I made to her crazy long legs, and I was right...WAY too short!! Thankfully I went with my gut and didn't finish the second one!!

I gave my Mom her angel, even though I never got a chance to make it stand up...she liked it just the same, and might get out the fabric stiffener on her own.

I think that's it for gifts I made. I had a lot more planned out, but they never happened...oh well. I did manage to start a new sweater while I was in New England. Our friend's little guy is turning one in a week or so, so I thought he needed a sweater to keep him warm this winter. It is coming along nicely, and I am hoping to have it done and some photos taken shortly.

As for new projects on the horizon, I have another WCOBBS blanket headed my way. I started Pooh Bear and Friends back in July, and I'll be finishing him up as well. I also found out that Craig's cousin is expecting a little girl in March, so I figure I should make something to send to Boston. I was going to make another blanket like my Willoughby, but when I looked at their registry, I noticed that they had chosen pink and green as the nursery colors...hmmm...now I'm tempted to finish up The Floridian instead.

I also got lots of knitting related stuff for Christmas!!! I couldn't resist and I bought myself a teddy bear pattern book called, The Best Dressed Knitted Bears, by Emma King. The bears were too cute to pass up!!! Then, the hubby bought me all three Susan B. Anderson books!!!! I'm super psyched!!!! Finally, my In-laws spoiled me with an electric ball winder!!! I would have been thrilled with a hand crank one, but this thing is slick!!! I had to mail it to myself since it didn't fit in the luggage with all of our other new items, so I am chomping at the bit until it gets here! There's hope that my stash will some day be organized!!!! WooHoo!!!!

Well, I better end this post...the Diva is napping, the food is all cooked for our New Years Eve party at a friend's house, and I have a sweater that needs finishing...oh yeah, and I need to jump in the shower!

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday, and that 2010 brings you good times, great health, and lots of fibery goodness!!!

Blessings!

Sharon