What I'm Digging ~~ A Handmade Christmas

I can't believe Christmas is only a few days away! I've found so many amazing D.I.Y. projects that I wanted to try. I made a couple, but I ran out of time for most of them. Oh well, there's always next year! Here's some that were/are on my to-do list:

1. Paper-Mache Letters  2. Hanging Paper Trees  3. Baby's Handprint Ornament  4. Felt Rosette Wreath  5. Tinsel Tree  6. Cookie Cutter Ornament  7. Ornament Wreath  8. Tissue Paper Trees  9. Santa Belt Ornament  10. Ruffled Tree Skirt

Have you come across any cool tutorials or made any of your own?

Fish Scale Christmas Ornament D.I.Y. Tutorial

I was looking at Christmas ornaments at a store a couple of weeks ago and came across a really cool one that was covered in little discs making it look like fish scales. I loved it, but they only had it in silver and I wanted it in a few different colors so I decided to try making it. It ended being really easy!

What I used:
- foam ball
- glue that works on foam - I found this one on clearance at Michael's
- 12 x 12 scrapbook paper
- circle punch (5/8")
- small piece of wire (ornament hanger might work even better)
- paintbrush (optional)

1. I started by cutting out lots and lots of circles, around 100.

2. I used the paintbrush to put the glue on the discs to try to keep it a little cleaner. I started by gluing one circle down, and then glued six circles around it, each one overlapping the previous one as well as the first circle.

3. Each row will end with the last circle being completely uncovered by any other circles, that's where I started each new row.

4. Once I got closed to being finished I put my wire in the top. An ornament hanger would work perfectly for this, I had some extra wire close by so I just twisted that into a loop and used it instead. Before pushing the wire into the ball I fully covered it with glue to help ensure it stays in place.

5. Then I continued with the rows until all of the white was covered.

And there you have it; a little time-consuming, but super easy and so pretty! Let me know if you give it a try!

We have these weird cutouts in our living room wall, I hung the ornaments and used the leftover paper to cut out bigger circles; it filled the space nicely!

Birthday Bunting Banner D.I.Y

Last weekend we had Riley's family party for his birthday (because one party wasn't enough?!). I've been loving all of the adorable bunting banners that are pretty dang popular right now and decided to give one a try. There's about a thousand different ways to make these; this was super easy, and I think it came out really cute!

What You'll Need:
 - Felt
 - Yarn
 - Embroidery Floss
 - Needle
 - Scissors

I can't believe I've never really used felt much before, it's so inexpensive and easy to use. I'm definitely going to use in more projects in the future.

For this I found these 8.5 x 11 sheets at Walmart for $.20 each. The first thing you need to do is cut them into triangles, I got two triangles per sheet. I cut a total of 30 triangles to make it double-sided.

Then you cut out your letters.

  

  
Stitch your letters onto your flags and then stitch the back on.

String some yarn through (it's a lot easier to use a safety pin to guide it through then a needle - my brilliant hubby recommended that when I kept getting the needle caught!) and then it's ready to hang. What's great is you can slide the flags back and forth on the yarn so it stays completely adjustable.

As soon as Riley told me he wanted his party colors to be red, white, and black - the same as his bedroom - I knew I wanted to make this double-sided so after the party was over he could hang the side with his name on in his room!

These buntings are so cute and easy to make, I think I'm going to do another one for above Ava's crib. Leave me a link if you decided to give it a try!