Christmas

Basswood Trees with eat.sleep.make.

1 · Dec 12, 2013 · 1 Comment

Hi all! Shannon from eat.sleep.make. here! So excited to share this inexpensive and easy project with you! All you need is a sheet of basswood, a craft knife, a rule, pencil and some paint!

First – Decide how big you want your tree to be. My first one I made 6 inches tall and 4 inches wide. Mark the wood and draw your triangle

Second – Use your ruler and craft knife to cut along the lines you drew. It may take several scores with the knife to get through the wood. Don't press too hard or you may crack the wood.

Third – Draw a line half way up from the middle of the base on one triangle. Then draw a line half way down from the tip of the triangle on the other. Use your craft knife to cut a slice about 1/16 to 1/8 inch where the line was.

Fourth – Slide your pieces together to make sure they fit.

Fifth – Paint a fancy little design on it!

These take little time to make, but turn out so adorable! It would even be fun to cut them out and let the kids paint/color/glitterfy them.

Stop over at eat.sleep.make. and check out some of our other Christmas projects!

Celebrate the Light Canvas

DIY Rosette Tree

DIY Snow Globe Necklace

Gingerbread Granola

3 · Dec 10, 2013 · 2 Comments

I’ve known for some time that I want to recreate this recipe. Gingerbread has been on my mind a lot recently with the holidays. My two flavor staples for this time of year are gingerbread and eggnog. So when I tried out a granola that incorporated one of those I became giddy with the thought of building a recipe around the product! This gingerbread granola is now a staple in our home. Mainly because it’s so quick to prepare and packages up beautifully for last minute neighbor treats!

4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1 1/2 cups pecans, finely chopped
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 cup melted butter
1/3 cup real maple syrup
1/4 cup molasses
3/4 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line a large baking sheet with parchment or a baking mat.

Mix all of your ingredients together in a large bowl. Spread into an even layer on your prepared pan.

Bake for 30 minutes, stirring halfway through the baking time. Allow to cool completely and enjoy!

While this bakes you get the wonderful smell of the Holiday’s floating through your home. It is so wonderful to wake up to and seems to last for days! We like to double the batch otherwise it never seems to make it to our friends and family!

Try it out on top of cereal, yogurt, fruit… or just on it’s own. It is unbelievably delicious and helps spread Christmas cheer whenever you decide to share! If you liked this recipe, check out these:

Coconut Macaroons // Easy Orange Blossom // Cranberry Bliss Bars

DIY Jingle Bell Ornaments

29 · Dec 9, 2013 · 8 Comments

DIY Jingle Bell Ornaments // One of my favorites at this time of year are jingle bells! I love the songs, the stories and the bells themselves. One time last year I walked into a beautiful shop in Colorado called Old Glory Antiques and they had a giant rustic German bread bowl FULL of jingle bells… I was in Heaven! Here is my Instagram collage of the place…

I knew I had to make something with jingle bells. It needed to be beautiful and easy to make, so I created my DIY Jingle Bell Ornament…

DIY Jingle Bell Ornament Supplies

48 inches of red 1/4″ wide grosgrain ribbon

24 inches of 2″ wide decorative ribbon

41 medium size jingle bells

2 inches of masking tape

hot glue or floral wire

DIY Jingle Bell Ornament Directions

Take your 48 inches of small red ribbon and cut in half (24 inches.) Then using the masking tape place little pieces of tape around all four ends. You are essentially making needles at each end of the ribbon. This will make it easier to feed the bells onto the ribbon.

Take one of the bells and feed it onto both of strands of ribbon.

This is going to be your center bell so, pull it to the middle of both of the ribbons.

Next, spread out the four different ends and add one bell to each end and pull to the center.

Now all you have to do is continue to add bells to each strand. Ten total on each strand.

Now, scrunch them down so that they are over lapping and close to the center.

Gather each of the ribbons together and arrange the bells to your liking and then gather the ribbon together and tie with a large loop at the top.

Make sure the knot is really tight and then trim the ends pretty close to the knot.

Tie a bow with the large ribbon and either hot glue the ribbon to the knot or use floral wire to wire it to the knot. I don’t actually tie the bow on the ornament because of the bulk of the wide ribbon. Voilá, you are finished!

It’s perfect for your Christmas tree, they are so easy, you can make a whole bunch for your tree. Or, you can use it to decorate a wreath. Either way, it’s super fun.

What’s your favorite holiday item? Are you a jingle bell lover too?

Want more do-it-yourself Christmas ideas? Get them below.

Yo, yo, yo... I'm hanging with my Gnomes this Holiday season! LOL!! This is actually a fun Christmas tradition that comes from our favorite Nordic friends up in Sweden & Norway. Gnomes have always been a big part of their Holiday traditions and I thought it would be a fun one to add to our family's Christmas this year. These cute gnomes are so easy to make and to add them to a yarn wrapped wreath form is a quick and easy way to introduce some new friends to your home. I grabbed all of my supplies at Michaels, my favorite creating store and set to work. Here's how I made them.

DIY Paper Fan Photo Ornaments

52 · Dec 8, 2013 · 7 Comments

Hello everyone! December snuck up on me…but I'm grateful Heather is so sweet to still share my photo ornament project! Hopefully some of you are like me, and still doing holiday crafting and decorating. Anyone? Buhler?? haha! I love subtly incorporating photos into decor…as seen here. 🙂 I made quite a few photo ornaments this year…and hope to carry on the tradition in years to come, making just a few more ornaments each year to add to the collection, displaying sweet winter memories.

Supplies you'll need:

Cardstock (I used gold glitter cardstock from Joann Fabric & Craft)

White Cardstock (or whatever color you'd want to frame/outline your photo)

Hot glue gun (with extra glue!)

Scissors

String/twine/yarn

Photos!

You can print/create your circular photos a few different ways:

–> I used two apps on my phone–Afterlight to get the photos into frames, then Diptic to put the circular photos into a collage (I put one picture in one part of the two-picture collage, and printed them out as 4×6's)

–> Print a bunch of photos (I liked mine black and white) and then use a cup or something circular to trace circles onto the photos….just make sure they're as uniform as possible.

–> Or you can use an online photo editing site like PicMonkey to create the circular pictures.

Then cut!

You'll want to reinforce the sturdiness of the photo by hot glueing the photos to card stock, then cut them out again (I left a thin frame/outline around the edge).

To create the paper fans, I used a tutorial Heather actually shared a few years ago over on the lovely Stephanie Lynn's blog, Under The Table and Dreaming. 🙂 Go here to see the how-to. Just be sure that the width of the paper strips you cut out (you'll need two strips per ornament) are a little more than what the radius (half the width) is of your circular photo.

Heather's tutorial for the paper fan has you glue a piece of paper to back, which I did here–and I wrote the month/year of the photo that would be on the front. And with the thicker card stock paper, I needed more than just a drop of glue, so I put about 3 or 4 circle/swirls of hot glue (moving quickly, as it dries fast) on each cut-out circle and pressed them onto the paper fan and held for a few seconds to make sure it was secure.

**A photo is hot glued on the back of the lower fan already…that way I didn't have to hold it for the picture I was taking. But you'll need to hold it tight and flat on your work surface until you hot glue your paper to it.

Then you'll hot glue the photos…it's coming together! Again, quickly swirling the hot glue around the back of the paper/photo to make sure there is good coverage, then press it onto the paper fan and give it a good rub down to make sure it stays put. 😉

Next, put the "hangers" on. I just cut pieces of the string/twine and, with a dab of hot glue, glued the two ends to the back, in one of the folds). And I used a pen to push the string down and get it nice and stuck in the glue. Remember to make sure you're putting the loop at a spot in the back where, when it hangs, the picture will be straight. 🙂

Voila!!

Then trim your tree and deck yours halls!! I used ours as ornaments…but I'm thinking I may make more and create a garland for over our mantle. Lots and lots of possibilities. 🙂

Thank you Heather! And thank you WhipperBerry readers! Happy Holidays everyone!

Haley

PS – Here are a couple Christmas projects I shared last year:

Go here for our Christmas box advent calendar…love this magical season and the sweet traditions that come with it!!

Go here for stencils to create these Christmas photo booth props. We used them for our Christmas card, as well as at an Ugly Sweater party and a company holiday party! SO FUN.

Christmas

DIY Jingle Bell Ornament Supplies

DIY Jingle Bell Ornament Directions

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