We gave the Santa to Madelin's teacher. The snowmen were distributed among the principal, coordinator, expressive arts teachers, librarian and counselor.
If you click on the Martha Stewart link, you will see that they used yarn instead of ribbon and Madelin and I used black crafters paint for the eyes and mouth as opposed to black ink and I used cream felt for the beard and the top of the Santa hat. The labels are also from Martha Stewart.
Maybe you can give it a try next year...
A week or two ago the Schwan's lady (yes, lady!) brought a catalog to our door. I was flipping through, not looking to purchase, just drooling over the yummy pictures (and found this yummy Santa)! ;) Pancake face, whipped cream beard and hair, strawberry hat, m&m eyes, cherry nose and banana ears make for one good looking Santa!
Santa is getting chocolate covered pretzels at our house. As Madelin informed me, "You know Santa only likes cookies!" Oh well, these are just as tasty and cause me alot less stress!!!
Now that's my kind of reindeer food.
Christmas m&m's, raisins, marshmallows, peanuts and chocolate chips. You're welcome, Rudolph!
Gingerbread kit from Trader Joe's. Madelin enjoyed decorating it and Anders enjoying sneaking the m&m's off of it. If you like the taste of sweet cardboard, it's for you. ;) No really, it was fun to do.
The Garnet Hill stockings are made of felt, so I thought that would be easy enough. As you can see from the high quality (or not) photo I bought green, brown, red and white felt from Hobby Lobby. I can't remember how much (perhaps a yard or so) I bought but let's just say it was more than enough because I still have some left over.
Please focus on the stocking "pattern," not the sweet sponge painted block walls (yes, this is my basement-don't judge ;)). Chris helped me make the stocking pattern, we used cardboard and the measurements (11x20) from the Pottery Barn Kids stockings (plus, 4 1/2 inches for the cuff). 
I cut 2 stocking pieces from each color of felt and then pinned the matching pieces together. The white piece of paper has an initial on it (C, K, M or A).
These are all of the pieces that I cut out; some from a pattern but mostly free-handed. I used crafter's glue to adhere the felt.
I pinned all of the pieces to the front stocking pieces.
I folded the front piece of felt down 4 1/4 inches and pinned the initial onto this flap.
After sewing the initial down, I un-pinned the 4 1/4 inch flap and laid it back on top of the back piece.
For the tabs, I cut a total of 8 strips (1 x 6 ). As you can see, the tabs are a double layer of felt (for strength and durability). 
On the sewing machine, I sewed (on both sides of the tab) the two strips together .
After, all of the pieces were sewn on and the tabs were made, I sewed the front and back stocking pieces together. From the top of the stocking to 4 1/4 in. down (on both sides of the stocking), I sewed 1/8 in. from the outside; this is to prevent bunching when the top is folded over to create the cuff. From the 4 1/4 in. down, I sewed 3/8 in. in from the outside around to the opposite side of the cuff. I know this is confusing and it's difficult for me to explain but it worked! Once that was done, I hand-sewed the tabs on. It was then that I "saw the light at the end of the tunnel!!!!!"
The stockings are hung and just in time for Santa to bring lots of little treasures! 
Madelin posing on the slightly-too-small rocking horse; she HAD to pose on it.
This just screams, "DISASTER!!!!" Luckily, all ended well! :)
We thought "Buddy" could "help" Anders smile and cooperate. Wishful thinking!
One of my favorites of the "Hansen duo."
And then there's this one! I think to myself, "Is this photo session really that horrible, Anders?"
I enjoy this one, too. That little boy ADORES his sister.
This sums it all up...Anders was not enjoying being photographed (if that wasn't already obvious). And then there's Madelin who loved the spotlight! You've got to love it! :)
We love to receive Christmas cards at our house. Every year, we seem to get a few more than the year before and finding the space for them can be tricky. I was flipping through a Pottery Barn Kids catalog and came upon a page that showed Christmas cards hanging from some kind of string. I thought to myself, "I can do that...for cheap!"
I nailed a nail in the wall, tied twine around the nail and then nailed the nail in completely. I did the same on the opposite wall. The twine is about 16 ft. long. We have received one card, thanks Laura. :) I used a binder clip (purchased at Office Max) to hang the card on the twine.
I used to place and hang the cards on the mantle, but as you can tell, it has been over-taken.
I also used to tape them above the archway between our entryway and dining room but I wanted to try something new. 
I was at Target with a few friends last week and one of the friends showed us these ornaments. I remembered the ornaments and had to go back and buy them!! They were $1 per set of ornaments; in the $1 bins.
I used clear fishing line to tie them to the light fixture. The tying process took a little while but it was a cheap and easy decoration, you can't beat it!Thanks for stopping by!
We used green and red paper and pinking shears.
I folded the width of the paper into eighths.
I cut a majority of the strips and Madelin cut the rest.
Our pile of 24 strips...the number of days until we will be celebrating Christmas at our house. I did not want to take the chain on the plane with us!!
I looped the strips through each other, making sure to overlap each loop and then Madelin stapled them.
Our Christmas Countdown Chain!
To finish off the chain, I used a strip of felt to tie the chain to the curtain rod.
Here is Madelin's new winter coat. The picture is lacking quality and detail but you can still tell the coat is a pretty buttery color. The afternoon Chris brought it home, the kids and I went to Target to hunt for some matching pieces. Unfortunately, there weren't any pieces that had the pretty buttery color in them (lots of pink pieces, though). So, I told Mad to pick out a solid hat and matching mittens and I would make the scarf (an idea I got from http://www.noodleheads.blogspot.com/).
Here are all of the pieces. As you can tell, the hat and mittens are made of two different solid purple pieces of fleece. I figured, "Yeah, the purples might be hard to match but I'm sure I can find something that closely matches the two purples." Boy, was I wrong...I checked Hobby Lobby, Hancock Fabric and Joann's (a little overboard, I know) and they all carried light purple or "Crayola" purple. I ended up picking a bright pink and I was fortunate enough to find a matching buttery yellow fleece. As you can see, I cut-out (6, 2 are hiding on the backside of the hat) yellow stars and (hand-sewed them onto the hat and mittens). The stars on the scarf were done using a different technique.
As I said earlier, I got the scarf idea from a Noodleheads tutorial titled fleece neck warmers tutorial (I know that there is a way that you can click on "here" and go straight to the tutorial, but I don't know how, so please enlighten me) . You should head on over there for an in-depth description on how she made the scarf. Her pictures are fabulous, too!!! 
Gymboree hand-me-down jeans for Madelin. The heart pocket was my inspiration for the knee patches.
These jeans were just too cute to get rid of, plus Madelin wore them less than a handful of times. After coming home from school one afternoon with a hole in one of the knees, I decided to make some patches...an idea I got from I am Momma Hear Me Roar. I folded the knee area in half and cut-out 2 different sized hearts. I pinned the pink fabric (an old shirt of Madelin's) on the underside of the cut-out hearts. I then used white floss to secure the heart to the jeans, it took 2 DAYS!!!
After the patches were created, Madelin wore the jeans to school and came home with a hole in one of the patches. I still couldn't let go of the jeans! I used purple fabric from old pair of pants to create the small heart to cover the hole (I used an iron-on adhesive to adhere it). I guess if she comes home with another hole, it's time to say good-bye to the hand-me-downs!!!!
This was a hand-me-down outfit that I used for some of the pieces on the penguin.
Here is the finished product; to the right is the penguin shirt from Boden. The shirt is from Target. It was white but I used brown Rit dye to change it up a bit. All of the penguin pieces were created from scrap fabric. I put the pieces together using iron-on Pellon transfer adhesive and then I hand-sewed around each piece (I'm still not confident enough to sew around small, curvy areas).
years and now I am lucky be a full-time stay-at-home-mom (SAHM-as I have learned in blogland). I now get to use all of my creative energy on things at home. After being inspired by two creative blogs: I am Momma Hear Me Roar and Made, I decided to start my own. It is my desire to share all things creative; I hope you will be inspired by what I share. Please bare with me as I (slowly, as I am teaching myself) perfect my sewing skills and my photos won't be exactly blogworthy (as our camera is less than desirable). Enjoy!
