In anticipation of some obstacles during the holidays, I was prepared well in advance of Thanksgiving this year. Gifts were purchased and wrapped before we left for our Colorado holiday to visit family and friends in the Boulder area. After returning, we discovered that the anticipated obstacles were moved, leaving me free to enjoy the holidays without the worry of overwhelming details. So much so, that I forgot about a family Christmas party until 2 days before it was to happen, at my house too!
I managed to squeeze in quite a few craft projects this season, partly to stretch our gift funds, but also to use up a large stockpile of fabric and other baubles. Christmas with my husband's family has also taken on a crafty theme referred to as Johnson Christmas Camp. A way to keep little children busy and build fun family memories in the process.
New Stockings:
I used the same curtains that I made EOP's Halloween costume out of to make new stockings for our little family. I found the green fabric and trimmings at JoAnn Fabrics and Hobby Lobby. I found a free pattern online and then used this tutorial to figure out how to sew them with a lining, although my cuff was done a little differently.
Homemade Vanilla:
There are so many tutorials on how to make your own vanilla, but I was still so surprised at how easy it was. I went an extra step and made sure to purchase Fair Trade Vanilla beans, but everything else was the same. The beans and the brown bottles were purchased on Amazon. I used chalkboard vinyl and permanent chalk pens to create the labels.
Button Gift Tags:
Buttons can be used for so many fun projects. These tags were a nice easy project to do with our preschooler. She loves to choose the buttons we use and to put them down into a glue line. A little embellishment with scrapbook pens and a ribbon tie, and voila, gift tags. In the past, I've used embroidery floss and little brads to make them even cuter, but that is beyond a preschooler project.
Fabric Tissue Carriers:
My aunt made one of these for me one year for Christmas. They seemed pretty simple, so I played around with my fabric scraps to make some of my own. After I figured out how easy they were, I made 22 of them, in 2 days. It was a great way to use up all of the scraps from the diaper bags that I've made, plus Christmas fabric from projects of old, and more buttons.
I didn't take pictures of the process, but this tutorial is pretty close to how I made them.
Felt Flower Wreath:
I got into felt flowers a bit this year (thanks to my sister-in-law), so I redesigned an old grapevine wreath using less than $2 in felt in Christmas colors. I really like how it turned out. So much so that I don't want to take it off of the front door, so it stays until the Valentine wreath goes up.
Johnson Christmas Camp:
JCC had a snowman theme this year. We ate snowman pancakes for breakfast, made snowman ornaments, sock snowmen and powder donut snowmen. We created a family Christmas board and we can all pin ideas to it. Then we pick the best/most doable projects for the time we have together.
Chalkboard Décor:
Of course, I had to change the chalkboard on the door to have a Christmas theme.
Joy to the World is one of my favorite Christmas Carols. The words carry so much meaning to me during the Christmas season (and year round). We taught EG the first verse this year, partly so she knew more than just the chorus of Jingle Bells, but also to embed these important words into her heart (let every heart prepare him room). It was so much fun to see EG's excitement every time the song came on the radio, or we sang it at church. She would light up and immediately sing along. She would, in so many words, repeat the sounding joys of Christmas.
