Traditions of the christmas kind

Let’s talk about traditions for a moment, shall we. As a person “new” to parenting, it is funny  to think that we make up the traditions our children will remember. As a child my sister and I got to open one gift on christmas eve prior to santa coming. Every year we opened a gift from out faux grandmother and every year it was books or a gift card to get books. We discovered many book series because of this. 

For the last eight years, P and I have been together we have a ONE ornament a year rule. For the last several years they have been sentimental in one way or another. Well, this year we had a baby.. so what other way to show that in years to come. Our little theme this year seems to be her hands. It seems themes may be a tradition we may keep in the future, as this is the second year with a true theme. Last years theme was houses which you can find here. 

So, this year we used a hand making kit we received at our baby shower to make an imprint of Miss Willows hand into an ornament. It is quite the perfect way to remember her being so small for her first christmas. I am quite infatuated with all of her little parts lately, they grow up so fast. 

        

 

Our christmas cards also include little Willows hand in a glove. The glove was already cut out from the Paper source and I used a regular stamp pad to get the hand print. Tied a little string around the glove and it was that easy. 

I am really happy with the way things turned out.

      

What are your family traditions, especially around the holidays?

Christmas cards

Big ones, little ones, bright, ones, snowflakes, houses, santa, reindeers, ornaments, lights, and trees

Yup, christmas cards have so many varieties and say so much about your personality and your year.

In the crafting world your christmas cards are admired by so many through all the media services. 

I know that I start looking for inspiration in August, I usually use Pinterest (duh!) but there are plenty of other sources such as the the paper source catalog

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These were this years contestants..

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So as you know from my previous post here that I got inspiration from the latter 

and.. here it is. 

I love the simplicity and cuteness of this card. It was pretty simple. Just cut out the house and glue to a background. I used card stock for the house so it was a little thicker and than a gray background. I like gray and I like neutral holidays. I used a red envelope and it is a good card no matter what you believe. 

Are you making your christmas cards this year?

It's not to late to share

about CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS!!

I know I am behind on what feels like everything in life including but not limited to blogging 

So, here it goes..

The sign in the living room I made out of red scrapbook paper and glittery letters

The top of our bookcase aka "our mantle"

filled with various trees and a nutcracker

Our christmas tree

Walking into the dinning room with dollar store snowflakes

Dinning room tablescape (aka my husbands homework area)

Wall of cards in the dinning room

The infamous window in the dinning room

and the kitchen chalkboard

and kitchen tablescape.

What do you think?

A new ornament

This year has been a world wind of excitement

For our ornament this year I wanted to do something related to that of P getting a real flying job

(to learn about our little christmas tradition go here)

So we looked at different stores for a pre-made ornament and were not to happy from the selection so we decided to go diy.

We went to a hobby store and found a model propeller for $1.50 

and painted it and made a hanger for it

This is what we came up with

We painted the tips silver

and P added the "company name" and year to make it look more authentic

Do you make your own ornaments? Are they sentimental?

A little christmas tradition

In 2009, we bought our house here in Central IL and we also wanted to make our own little christmas tradition. We get a real tree every year because its just so fun to go pick one out together, but we decided that we were only going to get one ornament a year.

I know, I know, what your thinking, but its our tradition. 

So, instead of covering our tree with cheap ornaments that have little to no meaning and can add up, we spend our money on ONE ornament and have it mean something or reflect our year, etc. 

The first two years we choose because they are pretty and unique looking and just go together. The third is this glass ornament I made. It says just married and has a paper flower that was used in the wedding. 

Yes, we will only have 4 ornaments on our tree this year. 

Do you have any christmas traditions?

Stay tuned for this years ornament. 

How to make your own ugly christmas sweater

As you can see here, we hosted our ugly sweater party the saturday before christmas. 

As the tradition of ugly christmas sweaters becomes more popular it is harder to find ugly sweaters at the last minute. So I decided to make my own ugly sweater vest. 

I searched Ravelry for vest patterns. I tried one, but I didn't like it. So I tried this one

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This is what I came up with

I bought the trim on clearance at Michael's, the ornaments and pom poms are from the idea store and the yarn I already had. 

I paired the sweater vest with a goodwill skirt and sunglasses without lenses, a walmart turtleneck and target socks. 

The final product with P.

What do you think? 

I love dressing up.

Ugly Christmas sweater party 2012

 This years party was pretty epic in my mind.. If you miss the ugly christmas sweater of the past you can take a look here

Our winners

Best outfit on the top and best sweater on the bottom

Our winners

Best outfit on the left and best sweater on the right

If you remember my trophies here

So, what do you think of our sweater ugliness? I think i am in love with this party.

The evolution of ugly christmas sweater parties

  It started in the December of 2007, We went to (perhaps our first) ugly christmas sweater party.

We waited till the last minute and couldn't really find anything.. 

This is what we came up with

too cute? I know.

After we got our own house we decided we wanted to throw our own annual ugly christmas sweater party.

It started in 2010 with a limited amount of people

This party has evolved from there to an annual tradition. 

This is a recap of 2011

This year was a whole new world of awsomeness, I will post later with pictures of that party and how I made my own sweater vest this year. 

Did you go to any ugly christmas sweater parties this year?