The stockings were hung...

I don't have a mantle and nothing cute to display our stockings on. I'm sure some of you have seen this floating around on Pinterest. It totally spoke to me.

I used that pencil stencil technique again here and used a black sharpie to color in the letters.
Then I got some cabinet knobs at Walmart (two for $2) and hot glued them to the board. (I wanted the option of removing them in case our family grows).

Nativity Board

Do you remember this Christmas board make-over I did last year? Yeah, it's cute and all but it wasn't doing it for me this year. I don't have a nativity at all and I wanted a way to display it without having to worry about losing any of the pieces over the years.

An idea I got from Pinterest here  helped me accomplish this.

I used Google to help me find silhouette Nativity images and printed them. Then I had to cut them out by hand onto white contact paper. (I would not recommend cutting this many detailed images by hand...)

 I also learned a great trick through Pinterest (can't find the source though) that has opened up a whole new world of crafting for me. Pencil transfer stencil is a good name for it, I think.

First, print out your desired phrase and font and cut out

On the reverse side, color over the words with pencil

Lay your phrase on your project and trace over the letters

The pencil scribbles on the back get transferred onto your project!

I used glitter gold 3D Paint over my letters. SO pretty!

Fleece tree skirt

I've been wanting to make a tree skirt for a long time. I heart Pinterest for giving me some ideas. I found this cute little tutorial here and knew I could do it! She uses an already made fleece throw from Wal Mart and I was planning on doing that but in the fabric section at walmart I found a piece of "Fleece remnant" as they called it for $1.75 that was the perfect size. I bought 2 yards of the pom-pom trim for $2.50 (I should have gotten 2.5 yards) and decided to hot glue it to the fleece. I also decided to sew on some bias tape to the circle in the middle to make it look nicer. Otherwise this would have been a no-sew project.

 I love it so much!!!!!

Halloween Costumes

I made Brandon and Katy's costumes this year and it was so fun! Brandon was a pumpkin (tutorial here) and Katy was a ghost (tutorial here and here for the tutu). I would recommend the Make it and love it tutorial for the amount of tulle you need and the other link for instructions.

Rag Doll

Katy's birthday is coming up and I wanted to get her a doll for her birthday but I couldn't find the type of doll I was looking for. Per inspiration of my sister Alecia (thanks, leash!) I decided to make Katy a doll. I found a tutorial and pattern from Martha Stewart here. I also found another tutorial for the same doll that had better step-by-step instructions here. I'll do my best to add instructions for this doll. (Mine won't be as in depth so I would look at one of the other tutorials if you plan on making this.) Oh, and for the face I got the idea for that here.

Trace the pattern piece onto a piece of flesh-colored fabric and cut out. For the arms and legs, sew right on the line...

Then cut out around the line.

Using something long and skinny, turn the arms/legs inside out

With right sides together, sew head piece to dress.

Do the same to the back

Sew hair piece to face

Make a doll sandwich (arms, legs, pigtails going toward the inside)

Pin and sew as close the edge as possible, leaving an opening at the top of the head

Find the legs and pull them through the opening

I was going to use paint for the face but then Sean reminded me that Katy puts everything in her mouth and we would hate for her to eat paint so I chose to embroider the face. If you do choose to embroider, I would do this step before sewing the doll together.

Stitch the top of the head closed (a tutorial I found for that here) and there ya go! She needed a friend so I made another one. The pink one is Katy :)

Crayon Tinted Embroidery 2

Ever since I did this crayon tinted Fall embroidery I've wanted to do the same thing to my Salt Lake Temple embroidery I did a couple of years ago. But I was afraid I would mess it up and since it took me so long to do I didn't want to risk ruining it. Until a couple of days ago. I re-did the embroidered words at the bottom and this gave me a chance to  take a stab at coloring the temple. It was scarey but I am so glad I did it! It turned out beautiful :)

Diaper Cover

Why don't they sell these in the store? I would totally buy them. But I did find some great tutorials here and here on how to make your own. So I used left over fabric from the baby skirts I made and made some matching diaper covers.

I took apart a diaper cover she already had and used that as my pattern.

These were a lot more work then I was expecting. I probably did it wrong. But I'm glad that she has some, now. Maybe I will just buy some little girl panties and use those as diaper covers next time...