Santa Box

Without boring you, I will just say that I have not posted on my blog in the last few months due to some insanely busy times in my house.  I love being busy and keeping my days full but what I don't love is when I miss out on some of my favorite things because of the crazy day-timer!  When I say favorite things I mean, of course, reading, sewing, baking, and BLOGGING!

With Christmas around the corner, and my Pinterest addiction in full swing, I have been motivated to get into the spirit of the season.  I've been signing up for potlucks and secret Santa's, buying and hiding special gifts, and planning out my baking list for this year.

My eldest daughter is currently in pre-school and is big time into making crafts.  I had some free time this afternoon (what?!) and decided to spend some quality (holiday inspired) crafting time with her while the little one was sleeping. I have a big box of "kid-friendly" crafting supplies - not to be confused with my "mommy-spent-too-much-on-these-supplies-so-don't-touch-them supplies" - that I pulled out and we looking around the house for some motivation.
Before long, I had gathered an empty cereal box, a toilet paper roll, and brown paper bag.  We decided to go with the cereal box and worked out a Santa Clause idea.  I love what we came up with because it was so easy and was something a four year old could easily work on by herself.

The supplies we used were:

1. An old cereal box;
2. Construction paper;
3. White glue & tape
4. A pair of googly eyes (dollar store); and
5. Some white puff balls (dollar store).

I had my daughter trace out the red paper and we covered the cereal box, using white glue.  We then traced out and glued on Santa's belt (using sparkly construction paper for the buckle). Next we put together Santa's face and curled up some white construction paper for his beard (we used tape to adhere this to his face because the white glue was not strong enough to hold it in place).  After this, we glued on his hat and the white puff balls along its edge.  To make his legs, we just folded up paper and taped it onto the bottom of the box. The shoes are black construction paper with a piece of the sparkly paper for little buckles (also adhered with tape).  Voila, a super simple and fun craft - my daughter was beaming with pride when we were done!  

If you have a bunch of empty boxes, you could also make other holiday inspired figures - a reindeer, an angle, or a gingerbread man are a few ideas!

If you are looking for more Christmas crafts, check out a post I put up last year for cinnamon scented ornaments!  They make your house smell A-Mazing when you are making them!

Cheers!

Chocolate Covered Wow Factor (in no time flat!)

Today, sadly, my daughter had her last music class.  I say sadly because the whole experience with this program has been so positive.  She has learned a lot, met new friends, and even got to showcase what she learned earlier in the month, when the kids were part of an adorable play (the Three Piggy Opera).  I've loved going to the class with her and sitting with a group of moms while we waited for the kids (the teacher was absolutely awesome too); we were a group that really jived together well and I'm sort of sad that our weekly meetings have now come to an end!  Of course we have exchanged numbers with promises of play dates and I really hope that we follow through and continue meet up every once in a while in the future.
Because it was the last class, we had a recital of sorts, where the kids sang little solos and "played" the piano to various songs.  I was proud of Scarlett, who did so awesome!
We all brought some treats for after the performances, I opted to make some chocolate covered brownie bites.
I wanted to share this with you because they were so yummy, so easy to make, and they give off a great wow factor!  As you know, I'm back at work full time, so I don't have a lot of extra time to be baking things in the middle of the work week.  These, however, were perfect for me and my tight schedule.

Here's how you can make some of your own:
1. Bake a pan of brownies (from a box is even better because it is so very quick - you don't even need to pull out your mixer, just hand mix the ingredients). 
2. After they've cooled, break up the brownies into a bowl and then form them into balls (rolling them with your hands).

3.I put the sticks in at this point (which I bought at Micheal's craft store) and then put them in the freezer for 15 minutes to set.

4.I melted some Wilton Melts chocolate in the microwave (according the the package instructions) and then dipped my brownie bits.

 5.Apply your sprinkles of choice and let the chocolate harden on a piece of wax paper (approximately 20 minutes).

6.I tied ribbons onto each stick for a little extra whoomp!

They were perfect and quick.  The brownies are soooo very moist and very yummy.  I love these because you can change up the colour of the chocolate or sprinkles to match your own party's theme.  And, it looks like you've created something amazing - which you have - but no one needs to know you whipped it up like nothing! ;)

Like I said, we love our music teacher and I only hope that we are lucky enough to be in one of her classes again in the future.  We brought her a little gift - Scarlett coloured her a picture (lol - a self portrait!) and then I went to an amazing chocolate boutique I know of (one of the benefits of working downtown!) and got her some uberly delicious chocolate coconut disks and butter crunch.  I made a little tag for the chocolates, which was a picture of a lollipop with the words "you are so sweet" on it.

I know that as my kids get older, and are involved in the various different activities they will undoubtedly be a part of, I will meet a lot of different parents and teachers/coaches/instructors, etc.  If every experience parallels this one, I will be very happy, and will make a lot of friends along the way!

Kid's Christmas!

I'm excited this Christmas because my oldest daughter is finally old enough to start doing some of those fun holiday activities I remember doing as a kid! We went to a Christmas carol sing-a-long, we've been baking together, wathcing old classic Christmas movies on t.v., and doing crafts!

One of my favorite activities we have done together so far this month has been making some awesome, DELICIOUS smelling Christmas tree ornaments (seriously, these things smell like Christmas!!)! I love these because they are simple to make, so much fun for kids (I think you could even do this craft with a 2 year old...as long as you were giving them some supervision), and they smell awesome. Also, I love that because it is my 3 year old decorating them, they turned out so perfectly gaudy, something to look back on 20 years from now and smile! The ingredient list for these babies is short! All you will require is the following:

Apple-Cinnamon Christmas Tree Ornaments

1 cup of cinnamon

3/4 cup of applesauce (any kind)

2 TBSP white craft glue

Combine all the ingredients together to form dough (should make consistency you see below). Roll out dough on a piece of wax paper, slightly thicker than you would a pie crust.
Cut out your desired shapes and place on a cookie sheet, lined with wax paper (we did Christmas trees, gingerbread people, hearts, and three little wiener dogs!)At this point you can either let your ornaments dry by leaving them on the cookie sheet for about 2 days, flipping them over every once in a while.

We decorated ours right away, however, using pompoms, "gems", and googly eyes from the dollar store. You really could use whatever you wish to give your ornaments some style!

After we decorated the ornaments, because ours were still wet, I used a straw to poke out a hole wherever I wanted my ribbon to go through. Don't forget this step, otherwise you won't be able to hang your ornaments!

After 2 days our ornaments were completely dry. I used some satin ribbon as the ornament hangers and sealed the ends by running a flame, from a lighter, over them for about a second or so.

And there you go...you are done! These ornaments smell just like their ingredients (cinnamon and apple) and they are so much fun for a little one to make. Obviously, just remember, because they have glue in them: do not eat!!!

If you don't have any little ones, you could still make them and put them into some potpourri or in a drawer to make everything smell like Christmas!

Since we had made so many, we saved one for our tree (you can write on the backs of them with a jiffy marker to note the year and which child made them) and then wrapped up all the rest in some festive paper, topped off with some tags I printed off on-line. We put them all in a basket under the tree and my daughter is SO EXCITED because she actually has gifts, just from her, to hand out to people she loves on Christmas eve!

It's in the bag!

This year, like every year at Christmas time, I kick myself for not starting some homemade gifts a little earlier in the season. I would love to serve up some awesome sewn, stamped, or baked goodies to ALL my friends and family but there simply isn't enough time in the day/month/year!!

With that said, however, I have managed to prepare a few handmade goodies for some special people in my life. I came across some awesome fabric on Etsy (of course) for my sister who loves the colour orange (do you know people like this? People who like orange REALLY like orange...it's a strange obsession!!). I decided that I wanted to make her a bag to go along with some of the other items I had already gotten for her. Below is a picture of what I came up with for her!

I found a tutorial on-line (who buys patterns these days?!) and used it as my inspiration for the bag I ended up with. If you want to check out the actual full tutorial, I found it on a blog called Thimble here.

I started by cutting out 2 large pieces for my outer shell, 2 large pieces for my inner lining, 2 outer shell and 2 inner lining U-shaped pieces (for the top of the bag), 2 different shapes for inside pockets (which are also lined) and then one long rectangular piece for the handle. The dimensions that I used were the same as the tutorials but you could really use any dimensions you want - depending on how you want to shape your bag!

The first step to start with on your sewing machine is to create the pleated look for the outer fabric. On the wrong side of the material, measure and mark a small line at 3",4", 7",8", 11",12", 15",16", etc. until you reach the end of you material. Once you have them marked, pin your fabric (as shown below) and then stitch down about one inch.

Next I took my U-shaped pieces and applied some medium weight interfacing, which is sandwiched between the outer and inner fabrics (I used the polka dots material as the outer fabric in this case to act as a contrast to the larger part of the bag). The very bottom part of the U-shaped section will be hidden when the bag is complete so don't' worry about how perfect it looks right now. Next, I sewed the U-shape section to the top of the larger bottom piece.
After this, you are nearly done! I stitched two pockets (a square that closes with a button and a large pocket that could hold a water bottle) on the inside lining pieces. Sew those two pieces together along the sides and bottom but make sure to leave a hole in the very bottom of this piece that is big enough to pull the outer shell through later. Next place the inside lining inside and the outer shell piece (with the right sides facing each other) - the U-shaped piece should be facing down, sandwiched between the outer fabric and the lining fabric. Sew along the top raw edges. Once that is done you can pull the outer fabric through the hole you left in the inner lining fabric. Hand stitch the hole close to finish!

And finally, I took my long rectangular handle piece and finished all the raw edges. Then I stitched it to the top part of the U-shaped piece and voila, done!

Like I said, I just winged most of my project, based on the original tutorial. The instructions that I have provided are only a guideline so if you would like a bit more instruction, please check out the tutorial link I have provided above!

This is a great bag because it is large and can be used for some many different things! I love matching up contrasting materials too so I really loved the design. If you happen to make this bag, please attach a link because I would LOVE to see what you came up with! :)

p.s. Only 11 more days of crafting until Christmas is here!!! Good luck! :)