Mini MiniBooks: Holiday Edition

I made a few more of the Mini MiniBooks using Holiday scrapbooking papers. I have a bunch of vintage Christmas cards and children's books (damaged, but some pages were salvageable!), and included those in each of the books :) Super easy to make yourself - think old Christmas cards, or wrapping paper adhered to cardstock, a couple sheets of Christmas-y paper, and cardstock and you'll have a lovely little book to jot holiday notes and memories in. These are also available in my shop. 

New in Shop: Holiday Goodies

Happy Monday :) I've updated the shop with a few Holiday Journal Kits (!!!!!!!), embellishment kits, Holiday scrap packs, vellum numbers and vellum stars (think December Daily!), October afternoon stickers, Studio Calico journaling cards and more. I will be adding some more embellishments this week, as well as some more Holiday Journals (different than the ones below). Quantities are super limited this year, so be sure to snag one early :)

Recap: A Very Merry Ornament Exchange

Happy Christmas Eve! Several weeks ago, I hosted a Very Merry Ornament Exchange via the blog. I was so excited when I got a ton of response (I must admit I was kind of afraid no one would want to do it ;))! Thank you to those who participated and took time during the busy holiday season to create two ornaments, pack and ship them off to someone they've never even met ;) 

It was such a fun little activity and I am happy to say that I definitely plan on doing this again next year! :) A few of the participants also sent me an ornament or a picture of the ornament - Thank you Amy, Cheryl, Julie, Claire, and Susan!! :)

I am also working on developing another type of exchange, a lovely paper exchange, if you will. Details in the next several weeks.

Have a wonderful Christmas Eve! We are busy making cookies, drinking wassail, singing, snuggling and reading the Christmas story at our home today :)

Holiday Journal 2011 :: Finished.

Yay! My holiday journal is complete. I am in love with how this journal turned out. Love it. Some of the pictures didn't print that well (printed at home, which usually works well, but my printer was acting up ;)), but I'm still happy with it. I blurred out a few photos for privacy reasons, but I feel like you still get the idea of the layout of the page. I plan on adding a few more photos to the back of when my sweet in-laws were here the day after Christmas, but am calling it finished for now :)

For the patterned paper on the left, I printed out a sheet of this free printable wrapping paper.

For Day 18, I printed this gorgeous free printable by Emily of Jones Design Company, found (via pinterest) here.

Go here to see the first half. So glad to have another one of these finished. I loved looking back through this one from last year (2010). And this one from the year before (2009). It's neat to see how my style and approach have changed each year. I'm loving it :)

Merry Christmas!

Image found via flickr here. Image published before 1923 (from the Library of Congress).

last minute DIY gift ideas

A roundup of a few last minute DIY gift ideas. Perfect for the "I have no clue what to give this person" :). All of these cute ideas are thoughtful and practical, and not to mention - economical :)

1. Life Through the Lens Paperclip Fabric Bookmarks
2. AmbrosiaGirl Tiny Polaroid Magnets
3. Design*Sponge Paper Scrap Pencils
4. The Purl Bee 20 Minute Tote
5. Cooking with My Kid Cinnamon Sugar Popcorn Gift
6. The Creative Place Tile Magnets
7. Good Housekeeping Cute Cookbook
8. Rashida Coleman-Hale (via SewTimeless) Snappy Coin Purse
9. Delightful Distractions Fabric Covered Book (Think: Sketchbook to go with the Paper Scrap Pencils!)

from the archives.

Happy Monday! I hope you had a lovely weekend :) My hubby returned home safe and sound Friday night and we are enjoying catching up and hearing stories :)

So for today, a couple links to some DIY projects from the archives: Paper Lantern Ornaments, an ornament roundup and a roundup of free printable Christmas tags.

Paper Lantern Ornaments

DIY Christmas Ornament Roundup

Printable Christmas Tags Roundup

Handmade Christmas: Ornaments

*SPOILER ALERT: If you are in my immediate family, please refrain from reading the rest of this post. Christmas gifts are being shared here today :)

I am making a lot of the gifts for our (large) family this year. Not only are handmade gifts super fun, thoughtful and personal, but usually they are quite economical :) This year we decided to make several different little things, including Christmas Ornaments. I am making one for each family (or couple). I purchased a set of 6 clear glass ornaments from my local craft store the other week when they were on sale for about $2.50. These would also be great for ornament exchange parties, teacher gifts, hostess gifts, etc.

I made several different types and am loving each of them. They were super quick to make, and I made all 5 of them during my little ones naptimes. I had been wanting to try this idea I found on pinterest, and also wanted to use some Christmas ribbon I had and some I recently found. For the others, I kind of went with whatever was on my work table and ended up filling one with leftover Christmas confetti, and the other with Christmas garland.

Ornament with the garland - since the paper rounds were sewn together, they "fluffed up" nicely instead of falling flat once inside the ornament.

The invitation from my littlest sis' wedding. This one is one of my faves and I am going to make a few more like this, only with Christmas paper and vintage book pages. I will be adding one to our tree this year :)

I will also be writing a small "2011" on the bottom of each one in permanent marker to commemorate the year.