"Adore"--ing Christmas with Craft Goodies

So did you read in Melinda's post yesterday about this being a really busy time of year and forgetting the important things? (Fortunately, I did remember it's my turn to post today before the day was over!)
It's Wendy here today to wrap up this fun week of ornaments and exchanges. I love that I got to be last, it's always so fun to see what the other ladies come up with, but more so this time because they came in real life first!

My little guy is a smaller version of a letter set I put together a few years ago. I loved it then, still love it, an couldn't pass on making a mini version.
I used 1/8 inch mdf just to keep it light and then mod podge and scrap book paper to add in the details.
It was a fun evening spent putting them together. A night full of thoughts of Christmas and good friends. Nothing better, right!
Merry Christmas to you all!

Each of us is an Innkeeper {Under My Umbrella}

Merry Christmas everyone!  Melinda here from over at Under My Umbrella.  I wanted to keep my ornament simple and let it speak for itself.   Christmas is such an important and busy time of the year.  I think we often find we don't have time to remember what it's all about.   Making this ornament helped me remember especially because I made 4 different ones trying to figure out what I really wanted to do.  I think it might be my process of learning.  I go big and then have to step back and simplify. 

I grabbed some 1/4 inch MDF.  I cut out a circle, small oval and a small circle.  I used a cup for the circle and a dime for the smaller circle.  Items to use as patterns are all around us!  I painted the circle and oval a creamy white.  I left the small circle it's natural color because it seemed perfect the way it is!

I designed a circle with one of my favorite quotes and printed it on scrapbook paper.   The first time around I tried the wax paper thing.  You know where you print it out and then transfer it to the wood.  Epic fail!  It worked but it was really hard and sometimes the writing was hard to read.  Plus if it gets wet the ink smears.   Now you might be thinking why would an ornament on my tree get wet?   Anything is possible in my house....anything!!!!

I  used mod podge to glue the paper to the wood and then used a hot glue gun to attach the other pieces.






Simple, easy and fun!   Tonight my group of activity day girls are going to make these also.  Two of Wendy's (from Craft Goodies and my neighbor) girls are in my group so Wendy is going to end up with more of these than she ever wanted!

I hope you all have a happy and safe holiday season.  Make yourself some ornaments and hot chocolate and sit back and enjoy the beauty all around!!

Star of Bethlehem- Sassy Sanctuary

Hello everyone!  Krystal from Sassy Sanctuary here today and so excited to be back for another round of WYLTC!  Now I have a confession to make.  I have never made a Christmas ornament before.  I know...crazy!  What kind of crafter am I?!

Now I have seen several versions of clothes pin snowflakes and just love them, so I knew I wanted to do a spin off of that.  But in order to make it fit our baby Jesus theme I decided to make it the star of Bethlehem instead.  Here is what I came up with.

Pretty cute right?!

It was a pretty fun little project too.  Here is what I did...

1-  Gather supplies.  You need one wooden star cut out, 4 regular clothes pins, and 4 mini clothes pin, per ornament.  (You should be able to find everything at most craft stores)
2-  Deconstruct your clothes pins and hot glue the larger sized pins together so the back sides are together.
3-  Leave the small pins apart and give everything a quick coat of white paint.  If you have a 6 year old daughter laying around, this is a perfect thing to have her help you with.
4-  Give everything a quick sanding to distress slightly and to even out the less then perfect paint job done by the 6 year old.
5-  Then hot glue all the pieces together to form your star,  You can see in images 4 & 5 how I lined everything up and how they look from the front and back.
6- Then its time for the fun part!  Embellish! I added rinestones to the center star and on the ends of each large clothes pin.  Added lots of glitter, and a nativity sticker I cut from vinyl to really drive home the "star of Bethlehem" thing.

And thats it!

I hope all the WYLTC ladies enjoy it!  It was fun to make and I'm so excited to check my mail all week as the fun goodies from the other ladies start coming in.  How fun!!!

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!

Baby Jesus Ornaments from Crafty Sisters

Seasons Greetings from Crafty Sisters!
We are so glad to be back with Wood You Like To Craft and
December's theme of Baby Jesus Ornaments! Krystal, Wendy, Melinda, Candace and I thought it would be so fun to do an Ornament Exchange with a common theme.

We are so excited to share our little ornament with you!
Each year I make a new Baby Jesus ornament to give to my Primary kids I teach at church.  Sometimes it gets a little challenging because there's only so many ways to do a cute little pink face and a brown manger right?

This year I wanted to do a lighter theme and use some spray glitter!
Here's the little pattern I came up with.

The finished size is about 3 1/2" tall by 2 1/2" wide.

I cut both pieces out of 1/4" MDF.  This thickness is just right for ornaments and gives you enough thickness to be able to screw in a tiny "i" hook to attach either ribbon or ornament hooks.  Make sure you pre drill your holes because MDF can split easily when you put in those hooks.

Once cut and sanded I painted them a really light buttermilk for the swaddling cloth and a a light tan for the manger.  Again~make sure you paint the back~it makes the perfect place to either write in a Christmas greeting or to date the year you created the ornament.

Remember our great tip for painting all those little baby heads?  Stick them onto some masking tape that you can stick to your counter.  It makes it so easy to paint all those heads but even easier to dot all those little eyes with out them rolling off under your oven to find next year!  The perfect size head is a wooden 1" plug found at your local craft store or home improvement store.

After everything is painted and dried I always sand of a bit of the edges to create a highlighted look.  I glued everything together with hot glue, running a strip of glue along the bottom of the swaddling edge to stick a bit of excelsior onto.  Then if you are in a glitter mode do a light spray of glitter followed with a bit of clear craft spray to seal everything in.  

There ya go~a perfect little Baby Jesus ornament.....now I only have about 80 more to make......

We are so excited to see what Krystal, Melinda and Wendy come up with and I'm even more excited to get one in the mail to hang on my tree!  Make sure to come back each day this week to see what they create!  

Merry Christmas!

crafty sisters summer garden stakes

It's still Thursday somewhere right?

In my mad rush to head out of town to a Lacrosse tournament,  I was barely able to get my pictures uploaded to post for this month's summer project!  I even forgot to upload my original wood cuts for a full tutorial.  Sorry!

OK...to get to the point of my project...I love summer!  I love love love being out in my yard in the heat but most of all I love gardening!  There is honestly nothing more I enjoy then digging in the dirt.  So my daughter and I made some quick and easy garden stakes made from a fence board.We cut our cat heads into various squares and rectangles about 8 and 9" high, did a few rough cuts to add some ears and sanded down the rough edges.  For the noses we used left over pieces of wood lathe which was the purrrrrfect width.....sorry I couldn't resist that one!

I found these cool little screw on caps in the electrical department that I used to hold my stake in place.  I used my miter saw to cut different lengths of metal stake that was 1/4" in size.  Watch out when you do this cuz sparks will fly!

We used acrylic craft paint to customize replicas of our own kitties, nailed on the noses, sanded off the edges for a little pop and then sealed with a couple of coats of polyurethane to protect them from the elements.

Super easy and a fun project you can do easily in an hour with your kids!  

I see some more to be made in our future.....ducks....squirrels.....options unlimited!

Happy Summer from Crafty Sisters!!

Phoebe, Fluffy, Callie & Morris.  Four very spoiled kitties!

Summer Fun Stand from Craft Goodies

Summer can't seem to get here fast enough! I've been ready for it to get here for at least the last month. Hey there all, it's Wendy from Craft Goodies here to share my take on our ongoing "Summer" theme. 

I have to admit, this one had me stumped for a bit. Summer is just so many things, I just wasn't sure where to go with my project. But, leave it to my girls to help me with that! Every summer, without fail, they ask if they can have a lemonade stand, or popsicle stand, or cupcake stand, or whatever they can sneak out of the pantry stand. I decided to finally be the good mom and help them out with a "Summer Fun Stand" of their own.

 

This one was a recycled project of sorts. As life is super crazy right now, I ended up shopping from my pile of "left over" pieces in the garage instead of the hardware store. I ended up using a few 1x3's, a 1x10, the side panel of a torn apart armoire, and the trim that was once on my bathroom wall. I used wood screws and staples to put it all together.

Here's the quick how-to:

1. Cut the pieces to size. My girls aren't tall so the overall height of this is 45 inches, the counter is 27 inches from the floor, and the counter is 33 inches long and 19 wide.

2. I used the wood screws to create the base.

3. I added the roof support, notched out where the support fit on the counter top, and then attached the counter top pieces with more screws.

4. The roof pieces went on next--again screwed into place.

5. I cut the trim to fit the sides, front, (the back is open for foot room) and roof, and then stapled them all into place.

I left the trim the color it was, so just had to paint the counter top and roof supports. And last, added a bit of generic sale décor so that no matter what they are selling, it will be easy to change--namely a clip board to post the days wears and a fun rag garland.

Summer is off to a tasty start here at the Craft Goodies house! Come on over and say hi, you might be just in time to grab a quick.....(who knows!)

Happy summer crafting-

Wendy