Wee Wonderfuls

Dec 6, Santa sent us Snowflake

Dec 5, birthday break

Double digits for Oscar!

Dec 4, glittered clothespin ornaments

Dec 3, perler bead elf ornament from very merry advent

I started to cross stitch this little elf from the very merry advent but my aida cloth was too small count and the elf was turning out super tiny. So the kids and I decided to get out the perler beads. Perfect advent activity for day 3! 

Dec 2, embellishing my holiday cards from Minted

Last year I ordered our Christmas cards from Minted and I just loved them. Their cardstock & printing quality are the best I've ordered and their designs -- submitted by designers from all over the world -- are amazing. So this year when they asked if I'd be interested in doing a diy project with their cards I was beyond thrilled. And they'd read my mind. Since catching the journaling bug I've been obsessed with stamps, punches, tapes, etc and I knew I was going to have to do embellished cards of some sort this year. The only challenge I had was picking which design to go with. Oh, and taking a photo of the kids that wasn't terrible. I'll tell you what I've discovered the secret to that is for me, not caring so much. Every year I obsess over are they making weird faces, is Phoebe's hair doing some nutso thing, is everything perfectly in focus. I finally realized no one is looking as closely as I am and to relax! So, yes, picking the design. I favorited so many, love this love one, this watered colored hand lettered one is amazing, I so want to glue tiny red poms on this one, I hope they have this one next year because I adore it, I have a great pic of the kids in elf hats that would be so cute with this design, and I could do this all day**.

Merry Scriptmas won out this year. The script is just lovely and it worked so well with the photo I ended up using. I love how you can move the design elements around on the cards when putting them together. We were able to nestle the greeting right in the center of the tree with the kids on the side and it just came together so nicely. 

I've been really into sequins lately. After sequining 24 little ornaments for our an advent calendar I got addicted to seeing their sparkle everywhere so I knew I had to sequin some cards. These I just glued on the cards and I love how they look so much. sparkle sparkle!

We send so many cards to friends in town so I figured I could just hand deliver these and the sequins won't pop off in the mail. For the ones I will be mailing I thought I'd sew the sequins down with beads to the cards. Another thought I just had though was to stamp them with tiny snowflakes. I'd given up on that idea because I couldn't find any teeny tiny snowflake stamps (or punches or sequins) anywhere but then I realized, looking at the one snowflake stamp I have, that I could cut the stamp and separate the flakes. So I stamped up some cards and I love how they look. More subtle than the sequins but I love some sneaky sparkle too. 

Oh, and I was able to round the corners myself this year with my corner rounder. Scrapbooking tools are so awesome.

Thanks Minted for another year of wonderful cards!

**and retro awesome and oh how great is this one, and this is adorable and that shot would be so easy to recreate with your kids.

Even their packing sticker is cute. I'm going to save that for the scrapbook!

Dec 1, trimming the tree

Elsa doll as the Sugarplum Fairy

I really should be cleaning my house for Thanksgiving but I was distracted by finishing up this fairy doll I started in August. You might remember her, I was sort of doing a step by step with her hair.. one, two and three. She was supposed to be a regular fairy but seeing as she was delayed into the holiday season I decided to make her the Sugarplum Fairy. Now she can be buddies with Clara. Both made from the Elsa pattern. Maybe after this pesky turkey holiday is over I can make another Nutcracker character, Snow Queen? Mother Ginger?

one week til December

Luckily I have little elves working on these projects when I leave the house.

my project life

I love journaling right on the photos in my Project Life pages. I have to because I'm terrible at editing photos and want to cram in as many as I can. Sometimes though it bugs me how sloppy my journaling looks so I decided I needed little borders to keep the writing tidy. I'm still looking for the perfect stamp set that has just little bordered boxes and tabs (if you have any recommendations I'd love them!) so in the meantime I cut this one myself with some leftover mastercarve. 

Giveaway! A Very Merry Advent

Congratulations Diane P! You're our lucky winner. But wait! Heidi emailed me and we're all lucky ducks because she's given us a special $2 off coupon deal! Enter WW2OFF when ordering your own Very Merry Advent and then we can all make that cutie Santa softie together.

 

How's your holiday prep coming along? What fun holiday activities do you have planned this year? I love Christmas and always want to squeeze every last bit of fun possible out of the month of December. But even the word advent has always stressed me out. A fun activity planned for every single day of December? 24 little meaningful trinkets wrapped and ready to go by Dec 1st? That elf and his hilarious hijinks? I've never been able to pull any of it off in the past but this is my year because Heidi and Amanda have created the very thing I've been needing... an all in one place list of super fun, super cute, advent activities along with all the details you need to get them done. In one place. That is the most important part for me. They organized it, a master list of activities, crafts, ideas, videos, patterns, recipes that you can then pick and choose from. I never buy anything and I bought this before I'd even finished reading the description. I love it very merry much. I have my favorites sheet filled out. My calendar ready to be filled. My supplies bought for our first craft - cupcake ornaments that we're going to make for teachers gifts! Can't wait! Done, bam! Bring it on December. 

Heidi has very generously allowed me to give away a copy of a Very Merry Advent here on the blog. Just leave a comment below to be entered. Let the merry-making begin!