Monday, December 9, 2013

Santa and his Reindeer

You all know that I had to do something with the kids for Christmas right? We're hosting Christmas this year, so I thought I would do a fun little craft project with the kids as the invite. After searching pinterest...for 6 seconds, I found this and this and thought, let's put them together!

I ended up typing something up on the computer for the invite and attaching it to some scrapbook paper. Worked out well. Now I just need to get them in the mail. Although, everyone already knows we're hosting, so this is just a little bonus for them.


I had a mini kid sweat shop at my house, I ended up doing 12, cause that's all the patience Baby Fox had for his hand print. Mini Fox didn't really have a choice and she didn't seem to mind, although painting her feet made her giggle a little.

Thursday, December 5, 2013

Door Christmas Card Holder

Remember when I made this raindeer clothes pin holders and this Christmas tree clothes pinlast year? Well I figured out this year a better way to display all of the beautiful Christmas cards. Last year I ran out of room on our mantel, so hopefully this year I've solved that problem.

This is a "door" to our heater. I decided to decorate the door and wrap it like a present and then display all of the Christmas cards on it. Solves two problems, hides the ugly "door" in the wall for a month, and a great place to display cards. Win-win in my book.



I bought some wrapping paper at Home Goods for $2.99, it happened that the width of the roll was exactly what I needed, what luck! The back of that door has a cork board which makes this project super easy, I stapled the wrapping paper to the top then wrapped it under the door and stapled to the bottom of the cork board.





Next I wrap ribbon vertically down the door, again stapling it to the cork board.


 
 
Next it goes horizontal
 





If you want to make a bow, then follow the directions below. I find that we get so many cards that the bow just gets in the way, but I do like the way it looks way better.
 
To make a bow, decide how wide you want the bow, and then wrap the ribbon around that size a lot. When you think you have enough layers, wrap it 4 more times at least, trust me.
 
P.S. This tutorial part was from a different year, so the paper does not match.


Then cut slits on both sides to form sort of a "V"

My Mom's hands, not mine


Then tie a ribbon or floral wire around the middle like this:


Then you just fan it out, go back and forth, fan one way then fan the next layer the other way, continue to do that, and then when you are done, start to fluff and make it look pretty. It's a little harder to do with a really big bow like I made, but I used the stuff with wire in it, so it was pretty easy to make it do what I wanted.


My bow all done and ready to be put on the wall


But first I decided to really tape down the ribbon that I put up. Initially I just stapled the ribbon to the cork board on the back, but decided that I should really tape it down elsewhere to give it extra strength to hold all those cards!




Then I tied the ribbon down, and used some tape too. Doesn't it look pretty?


Then I added the Christmas tree and Reindeer pins and there you have it, what it would look like with the bow. I had to use Baby and Mini Fox's birth announcements, because we had no yet received any Christmas cards the day after Thanksgiving (when I put this up), but you get the picture.


What it looks like without the bow. In the end with this one, it becomes a wall of cards, because, for us, we get so many that it covers the door.


There you have it a simple DIY Door Card Holder.