Reindeer Head and Block Nativity

These are our fun and...interesting crafts for Christmas this year.

So, my family owns a plumbing supply business and occasionally they have random things, or too much of something that they can't sell or whatever...like white porcelain faucet handles. :) Well, back in October I was given two boxes full of these handles and told to figure out something creative to do with them. A month and some days later a Reindeer epiphany occurred. And Viola', Rudolf the Faucet Handle Headed Reindeer has emerged.

He was actually really easy to make, once we figured out the system, and busted out trusty old glue gun. The handle is hollow with a hole at the top and bottom, so what I did was string the ribbon through a red wooded bead, and pulled the ribbon up through the handle. Then I folded brown pipe cleaner in half and stuck that down the top of the handle until it butted up with the bead at the bottom. I glue gunned the bead to the pipe cleaner AND the bottom hole of the handle so they didn't move around, and tied a knot at the top of the ribbon so he could hang. I cut little pieces from the pipe cleaner to use as the antlers and folded them on the larger pieces. And of course, don't forget the googly eyes!
Easy peasy. . . if you happen to have some random faucet handles laying around. Hee hee!

Our second project is wooden block Nativity Scenes. These are all over the internet and pinterest, etc. so I'm not taking credit for them, I'm just telling you its another craft we are doing.
I found the Me And My Big Ideas brand Nativity stickers at Hobby Lobby ($1.99 for 3 sheets), bought some 3 foot planks of wood from Home Depot and cut them to the sizes I would need, stained them with whatever random stain I had laying around, then put the stickers on them. Yes, I know my instructions are awesome. If you want more ideas and better instructions, there are some---> HERE and HERE. I'm not sure there is a wrong way to do these. You could use ink and stamps, or hand drawings or clipart and mod podge. It's just a fun little project and a great little gift for a family with kids.

Birthday Treasure Hunt

For my daughter's last Birthday, she wanted to have a treasure hunt around our neighborhood.

I was able to talk some of my neighbors into giving out the clues as the kids came to their doors... I was even allowed to bury the treasure in the sand box of one of my awesome neighbors. It was a fun party and the kids had a blast running around the neighborhood in their different groups.

I made my own invite in photoshop and sent it to Costco to be printed, but the original idea came from zazzle.com. They have tons of options that you can add your own text to. I usually make my own stuff, if I can, since I have graphic design degree and need to use it for something, but I get that not everyone has that ability or option!

Going Away Party Invite

Are you planning a going away party for a friend or relative?

Are you moving yourself and want to announce it?

Here's a fun idea. 

Teacher Appreciation Week!

Door Decorating idea.

Well, I'm not going to say this was an easy idea for a door, but it was fun.

The monkey was made in a few different pieces using brown and tan poster boards. I cut out a circle for the head and smaller circles for the ears. Then just kind of used the head circle to create the tan face design, and made smaller circles for the insides of the ears. The hands I traced from my five year olds hands and attached them to the arms which were just cut strips of the poster board. The belly isn't much bigger than what you see hiding behind the leaves (it was a weird egg shape, with a smaller tan egg shape over top). 

The leaves were made from green butcher paper. I folded pieces of butcher paper in half and drew what I thought the leaves should look like, then cut them out, unfolded them and viola'... leaves. For the bushes I also used butcher paper and just made random bushy scallops. 

If you have a Cricut Machine then making the letters will be easy for you, if not, I would recommend just finding some paper letters and using those. I did use a Cricut machine for the letters AND the bananas, although I had to tweak a moon shape because I didn't have a banana.

Overall, it was a pretty fun door to make...a little time consuming, but fun!