Tagged: holidays

Dec 05

DIY Christmas cards.


Is it bad etiquette to blog about your Christmas cards before they are even in the mail? Hope not!

This year, I was all set to buy a Shutterfly photo card with our family photo on it, but when it came time to send the order in, I just couldn’t. So expensive! And with postage, sheesh! So, I set out to make something a little less expensive. In the end, I did that – AND I was happier with the design than I would have been.

I had never used Washi tape yet – so I was super excited to find a use for it. So cool! All I did was tape our 4×6 photo to a piece of Kraft card stock. I also used some glue to keep the photo from popping up. And for the envelope, I just slid the card into a brown paper lunch bag, folded it over, and wrapped more Washi tape around it.

My kids even helped me with the tape – it was super forgiving and a perfect way for them to “help out”. And as a BONUS – The Washi tape can be “strategically” placed – notice how it masked Mommy’s hips?! :)

The cards only cost about 23¢ a piece. And if you printed your prints for free (here and here) – they would only cost 13¢. Not bad, compared to the $1 I would have spent per piece at Shutterfly. Yes, they did take considerably more time, of course. But, I really enjoyed it. Handmade is always better, right?

Photography by: Sarah Kaiser Photography
Paper: Hobby Lobby (Pack of 50 8.5×11 sheets for $2.50 <1/2 off>)
Envelopes/Bags: Walmart ($1/bag of 50)
Washi tape: I bought locally at Cottage Collective, but you can find online anywhere

Merry Christmas to you!

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Posted in craft

Dec 03

DIY Ornaments.


My sister-in-laws and I started a tradition last year for Christmas – we have an ornament exchange. I decided to try to make mine and planned to create small felt rosettes to cover existing ball ornaments. Seemed simple enough.

And it was. But multiply one simple rosette x 30 x three ornaments and you find yourself burning your fingers on the hot glue gun, watching Home Alone and cussing rosettes the night before Christmas. In summary – simple can also mean time consuming.

But it was worth it! I got three great ornaments to add to my tree. One was a plain ball ornament wrapped in beautiful yarn and embellished with ribbon and a sweet tag. My other sister-in-law added monograms to store-bought ornaments – they were beautiful!

I have been on the hunt for a new plan for this year’s exchange – thank goodness for Pinterest, right?!? If you’re looking for DIY ornament ideas, check out my board here.

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Posted in craft

Mar 08

Project No. 9 – St. Patrick’s Day art


Finally got the Valentine’s décor down! Luckily, I designed my “LOVE” signs to just be flipped around for the next holiday – St. Patrick’s Day! If it’s not super easy, it may not get down around here, ya know.

I also wanted to replace the heart art that I made last month. So I put together this little sign. And I thought I’d share it here too. The quote beneath it reads “A best friend is like a four leaf clover: hard to find and lucky to have.” Who doesn’t feel that way about the people they love?


CLICK HERE to download a printable version of this for your home.

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Posted in craft

Feb 14

Project No. 7 – Heart art




Happy Valentine’s Day!!!
Want a super quick, super easy Valentine’s project? This is for you!

I recently got together with some girlfriends and wanted to do some kind of craft together. Since I barely had time to plan anything, this idea popped in mind. I had been eyeing this work by Ali Edwards for years always hoping to replicate it somehow. This was the perfect opportunity, so I picked up a heart punch, pulled out my paper scraps and made plenty of snacks to get us through the night.



Everybody got into and made several. It was really cool to see how the style evolved through the night. We all started off with red and pink versions but by the end, there was every color scheme imaginable. A few girls even got out the circle punches and were making art for their kids’ rooms.

Brady got me the best Valentine present EVER – a clean house!!! He hired someone to come in and clean our house and it was FABULOUS! He was worried that it wouldn’t be “romantic” but I feel like that’s exactly what it was. It lightened my load and gave me that relaxed feeling. Especially because we were having Graham’s birthday party and lots of company.

This morning, I made the kids pink heart-shaped pancakes again. My favorite part was when Lilah asked if they were pink because I put lots of love into them. Why, of course!

Hope you are having a sweet day filled with lots of love!

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Posted in craft

Jan 31

Glow stick Valentine’s


Kids’ valentines ideas are all over the web right now. I especially love all the ideas that aren’t sweets. Like the homemade heart-shaped crayons, felt bookmarks or bouncy balls.

For both of my preschoolers, I ended up putting together these little glow stick Valentines. I was inspired by this blog and found the glow sticks in the dollar bins at Target. (15 for $1) They are incredibly simple to make and I know my kids love glow sticks, so surely they’ll be a hit!


Download your own printable here.
PRINTABLE GLOW STICK VALENTINE PDF

Some of the other ideas that I thought were awesome are below. Click on the image to go to the source.


Happy Valentine making!!!

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Posted in craft

Dec 15

Project No. 2 – Teacher gifts



So with Christmas right around the corner, I have been busy, busy. With two kids in preschool, that gave me five teachers to come up with some sort of small gift for. I saw the idea for this adorable santa hat snow mix on Pinterest and decided to give it a go. I knew the little santa hats would be some work and boy was I right! If you decide to make these, you’ll need plenty of time, patience and maybe a favorite romantic comedy playing in the background to get you though it!

I jarred it up and used bakers twine to tie on some gift card envelopes I made. Each teacher got a gift card to Orange Leaf – can’t go wrong there, right? The kids help put it all together and were proud to give it away today. Although Graham was a little disappointed that he didn’t get to eat it himself.

Another gift I whipped up was for the four nursery workers at church. I just picked up some Ghiredelli’s chocolates and used wrapping paper and ribbon for a quick solution. That’s a staple at the top holding it all together.


The kids here are super excited about the upcoming holiday and we have no less than three countdowns going in the house. One of them also was inspired by Pinterest and has turned out to be a favorite. I collected all of our holiday books, wrapped them up and labeled them each with a number. We let them unwrap and read one each night until Christmas. I think this may be a new tradition, I like it so much! You don’t have to have 24 Christmas books, just start with however many you have. I picked up a few at the dollar store and we started with 20.


And here is a shot of us having a weenie roast in the fireplace this week. We had never done this before but it was lots of fun! One of my favorite things about winter is getting to burn our fireplace – just feels so cozy.

Hope you guys are all having a great holiday season!

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Posted in craft

Nov 01

Coming down from a sugar high.


Well, we survived the week of Halloween! The kids loved it and I am exhausted! They were so cute trick-or-treating last night that I seriously wasn’t ready to stop. Each holiday that comes and goes, I become more aware of how much holidays are all about the kids. Guess my perspective has changed some.

Over the past month, I have found myself wishing away these last weeks of my pregnancy. But then I think twice and realize that I am wishing away a holiday season with Lilah and Graham. Plus, I realize that carrying an unborn baby in my tummy, despite all my complaints, is way less work than caring for a newborn. All the diapers and feedings and laundry and willing the child to sleep! I think I’ll take the indigestion and back pain for a few more weeks.

I have been VERY busy lately with my freelance work, so I have been trying extra hard to keep the kids busy. Now, I wouldn’t say that it’s worked, but I think they like the new activities. Here are a few that I took pictures of.

When I was a kid, I was VERY into rubber stamps. I still have a huge tub of stamps and ink pads that I never use. I let the kids pick a few out and stamp their little hearts out.

About 10 minutes in, they decided that it would be more fun to stack them up and build towers. Knocking them over was just as much fun as getting ink all over our hands and arms.

Last week, during the Halloween madness, I thought I would let the kids attempt to make some treats. My first thought was sugar cookies, which Lilah and I did last year, but remembered how much work that was for me. So I decided I’d try some other treats that looked simple enough. It went pretty well, but again, their attention span wasn’t nearly as long as I hoped. They had the most fun placing eyes on whatever treats we made.




We made ghosts (out of Nutter Butters), spiders (out of chocolate cake mix cookies, pretzels and M&Ms), witches hats (out of Keebler cookies and Hersey Kisses) and “spooky” eyeballs (Bakerella’s cake balls).

And because Lilah has been interested in sorting things lately, I got out her boxes of crayons and let her sort them by color. We used a muffin tin and she sorted through them all two times. Graham “sorted” too, but not with much method. This drove Lilah up the wall but kept them both occupied as she “taught” him how to separate them.


So, keeping them busy often keeps me busy. But at least I feel better about the hours that I don’t give them any attention because I am stuck at my computer.

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Posted in family, parenting

Jul 06

The Fourth, firecrackers and floods.

Happy 4th to everybody! If you live anywhere near me, you probably had the same Forth of July experience that we did: WET. A couple months ago, we had booked three nights in cabins at Cheney Lake for this holiday weekend and were very much looking forward to it. Might as well have stayed at home because we didn’t even ONCE get in the water. It rained and rained and rained!! The rain wasn’t too big of deal for the first day or so – we made the best of it by playing cards and games of washers and french darts in between the rain showers. But by the third day, Sunday, we were tired of it. So when the water started flooding the campground we were in, we bolted. Sad, but much better to be back on dry ground. So we celebrated my baby brother’s 16th birthday (16!?!?! What?!?!) at my folks’ house.

We still had a great time + we got to light fireworks, which were prohibited at the state park. We even painted faces and got some decent pictures of the little kiddos. They were all kinds of cheesy, which was a nice change!

Next up, a week of birthdays (Brady’s, mine, and hopefully a new Krehbiel baby!) and four whole days with no kids! Brady’s kind parents are keeping them for us…Yay!!!!!

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Posted in craft, family

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