Christmas wreath card holder

Today is the 14th day of Christmas and by now most of us are starting to get a collection of Christmas cards and if you are anything like me every year I seem to struggles with where to put them. Especially now that we live in a very small house. So today I have a great tutorial on how to make a Christmas wreath card holder. Even your cat will want to help.

You will need:

Strong cardboard ( I used a large cardboard box)

2 different sized circles objects (I used a large plated and a smaller one)

marking device pen or marker

Scissors and Stanley  knife

hot glue gun and glue sticks

green spray paint

Wooden pegs (approx.  68  )

a 50 cm length of ribbon

and a bow


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To start with trace out your larger circle onto your cardboard and cut out and as usual if there is  a box in town the cat will be around.

  Then trace out your smaller inner circle and cut out. I will look like this when you have cut both circles out.

Then you will need to spray paint all of your pegs and cardboard. With your pegs make sure you spray paint them all over like so.

Once your paint has fully dried start hot gluing your pegs on the cardboard like so until your pegs reach back at the beginning.

Leave for about 10 to 15 mins for you glue to full cure. Then you can add your ribbon to the top and tie it in a bow so that you can hang your wreath. Also add your bow to the bottom of the wreath where you open the peg using some hot glue. Here is what your finished product will look like.

Hope you enjoyed todays tutorial and happy 14th day of Christmas crafting.

Christmas (free) printable's DIY

 Today I have a DIY tutorial for you that you can use as part of your Christmas decorating or you could turn it into a great gift idea for someone.

You will need to print out some free printable picture's or sayings. I won't add any links for you as there are so many available out there on the internet all you need to do is Google free Christmas printable (if you are after a Christmas one) or free printable picture's or quotes and there are plenty to choose from.



You could simply add these into the appropriate sized picture frame but I have decided to take my decorating a little bit further. I have used some 6mm MDF which I had cut to size ( you want your MDF to be larger than the size of the print). Then I spray painted them with a white background. On the MDF this takes about 3 coats of paint with dry time in between each coat.

Then I have 2 options that I am going to be using. The first option is to take a foam sponge dotting paint brush and some acrylic craft paint of your choice. Then dab your dotting brush into the paint and paint random spots on the painted MDF. Let that dry before you move onto the next step.

Then you will need your printable and some PVA glue and a paint brush. Brush a thin layer of the glue on the back of your printable and position it into place where you want it to sit on the board. I then put a book on top of it overnight so that the edges wouldn't lift.

If you want it to be hung on the wall simply take some string and a staple gun and staple gun the string across the back. Or you could some picture fame hangers that you can buy from hardware stores.



For the second option you will follow the same basic steps except instead of painting on the dot's you will use some lace. Cut a strip of lace so that it covers the length of the board and can extend past so you can tape it to the back of the board. You can cover the whole board or you can just do a strip at the side it's up to you. Then spray paint over the lace the rest of the board and allow to dry. Once it has completely dried remove the lace and add your printable in the same manner as before.

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial and you could certainly use this for any other time of year not just at Christmas time.

Happy 13th day of Christmas. XO

Christmas cookie bark

Today we have a yummy sweet treat for you that I hope you will all love and it's nice and easy and quick to make.

Ingredients:

 approx. 16 Oreo's or chocolate ripple biscuits
 1 and 1/2 cups Pretzel's of your choice. (I have used pretzel sticks)
 1 cup M&M's and some extra for sprinkling on top
 650g White cooking chocolate
Christmas coloured sprinkles
crushed candy canes
Also a cookie baking tray lined with a baking sheet or some waxed paper

Method:

1. break biscuits and pretzels into pieces and place into mixing bowl.

2. Add 1 cup of M&M's to mix

3. spread your mix out over you baking tray.

4. Melt your white chocolate in microwave. I put mine on at 30 sec intervals and give it a stir until it has completely melted.

5. Once your chocolate has melted pour over the top of your cookie mix. If you get too much in one spot just spread it out with your spoon a little bit.

6. sprinkle on top of the white chocolate before it has melted some extra M&M's, sprinkles  and crushed candy canes.

7. leave at room temp until chocolate has hardened ( about  1hour)  You could refrigerate if need be if it's way too hot. Then break up into pieces.

I packaged mine in these cute little biscuit boxes ready for Christmas gifts.

Hope you all love this little Christmas treat for something a little bit different.

ENJOY.......

Surviving Christmas with chronic pain

December is such a busy crazy time of year even when you are feeling well and healthy let alone when you are suffering from a chronic condition or chronic pain. I know for myself that life feels like it has gone crazy this month between even more than normal scheduled doctors appointments and my retail job feels even busier than it normally does for this time of year. So for me that has flared my pain level up to a point where there are days that I can't manage anything other than my 4 hour shift at work or the appointment that I have scheduled for that day. The last few year's have been similar with either a surgery involved or other things so I came into this year with a plan of attack to make life that little bit easier at Christmas.

 (1)  Firstly I used to start planning and Christmas shopping from about July onwards but I feel for me that it's still not enough time. So this year I decided to make mostly handmade stuff and I started making presents in may. ( I think for next year though my plan is to start from about February because I still feel like I have run out of time).

(2) Secondly I like to wrap my presents a little bit a day for the whole month of December. So I will usually give myself a number like 5 presents a day. Obviously on those bad days I may not do any but on the good days I try to and that way I don't have to sit and wrap all of the presents in one hit on one day. For me it helps because  just sitting in that position wrapping presents for an extended period of time can really flare up my pain.

(3) Thirdly is all of the baking and cooking.  I like to be prepared with this too and anything that can be done before Christmas eve I do. Like the Christmas pudding and even some of the prep work for some things. The less that you have to do all on Christmas eve or Christmas day the better. Especially when you are suffering from chronic pain or the likes you don't know what each days holds as far as your pain levels and tolerance. Also get as many people to help you as possible if you can. Don't feel like you have to do it all yourself. I also start buying any of the baked goods that can be kept weeks before  Christmas so that I don't have to go and do as much shopping when the shops are crowed.

I have been doing some more research and have a few extra things that I would like to implement for next year. I would like to organize all my gift wrapping and make up a wrapping station and also some printable gift lists.

I hope everyone is well and happy 11th day of Christmas.

A quilty christmas tradition

I started quilting almost 3 years ago. In January 2013 and that year I decided to make my first Christmas quilt. I made myself this String (strip) quilt using Christmas fabric's and I added a little bit of aqua and turquoise into it because I added that to my Christmas colour scheme that year. It was my first large quilt that I had completed since I started quilting earlier that year.

After that I decided to make it a Christmas tradition to make at least one Christmas quilt each year so that eventually I would have them to pass on to my children and grandchildren ( down the track).


Last year I made this quilt. Dec-ade the halls which is a free pattern from Fat quarter shop and you can find the link HERE if you are interested in making that quilt. I had so much fun making that quilt and I am so pleased as to how it turned out. Last year I had this quilt hanging on my wall through the month of December.

This year's quilt is "have yourself a merry little Christmas" from Lori Holt. I did cheat  a little this year and I had all the blocks pieced together and all I had left to do was the borders, quilting and binding. I love this quilt and how it turned out, it's so cute. This year this was the winning contender to be hung on my wall for the month of December.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But this I have also managed to make 2 more Christmas quilts this year. They were nice quick ones which didn't take too long to put together.

I put together this quick little '12 days of Christmas' quilt by using a quilt panel and adding a couple  of borders. I love how it turned out and it's so fun and bright.

Then I also made up this quilt for our bed "Merry snowball" which was my own pattern design. It also came together really quickly.  I love how I have managed to add 3 new Christmas quilts to my collection this year and I am hoping that next year I can make just as many by working on Christmas projects all year round.

I plan to continue this tradition hopefully as long as I am quilting and hope that it will be something special that will get passed down through the generations and become a keep sake.

I am interested if any of you have a special Christmas tradition. So please leave me a comment below and let me know I would love to hear it.

Take care and I hope you are all having a great month leading up to Christmas and things haven't gone too crazy and hectic for you.

Happy 10th day of Christmas. Take care and be merry.