Arts and Crafts

One of my hobbies is making things for our home.  K refers to this as "arts and crafts" which I think sounds like something you do at summer camp with popsicle sticks and glue.  I think I'm a little more advanced than that and I refer to it as "do-it-yourself decoration."  Christmas is the perfect time for d.i.y. decoration and I have been engrossed in creating all kinds of things to decorate our home.  The living room has pretty much been taken over.  K sighs every time he wants to sit down and watch tv because the couch is usually covered in paper, ribbon, scissors, containers of glue, and any other craft supply you can think of.  (In my defense, he has taken over the office with his schoolwork, computer stuff, and music... I don't even know what he does in there.)

The first project I created for the holidays was this wreath.  It is a floral ring with a tinsel garland attached.  It's really simple, all you need a is a glue-gun to attach the tinsel to the floral ring.

Front

Back

The second project, and the one I'm most proud of, is our advent calendars.  We never had advent calendars when I was growing up, but a few of my friends had them and I always thought I was missing out on something.  So I decided to make us some of our own this year.  These are also made on floral rings.  I wrapped the rings in red wrapping paper first, and then attached small metal favor tins.  The tins have Christmas-y paper that I cut out and popped into the lids, and then put stickers on each one to mark the day.  They turned out great and we love opening them together every day.  I feel like we just hung them up and we're already on day 7!

K's calendar:

close up

My calendar:

love the little gingerbread men!

The final product!