Homemade Christmas

Per a previous post about what I quite frankly ain't got time for around the holidays, I thought I'd share with you a few projects that I did find the time to tackle. And to be honest with you, they were some of my favorite holiday touches this year, although I do think my hubby might worry that he married one of Santa's elves due to the level of excitement I reached upon their completion, and how for a few days our home slightly resembled santa's workshop.

Project 1- A Vintage Button Reindeer-
Thanks to good ole Pinterest, I stumbled across a button reindeer and knew in that moment that I simply had to have it! So on Thanksgiving day, after our amazing meal, my grandma, aunt, my mom and I all sat around the table and sorted through my grandma's button collection. That hour or so might very well be my favorite part of this project. It was fun just to sit and chat while sorting through about 40 years of buttons.

Once I had the buttons, the challenging part was fitting them all together to resemble a reindeer. After only a few hot glue burns, some burlap for the matte and bow, a vintage frame for $7, my "button buck" as one cousin called him, was complete. And I just love her mismatched self!

Project 2- Mason Jar (Waterless) Snow Globes-
After spotting a few of these mason globes, with mark-up prices of $15-20 a pop, I decided that it wouldn't be impossible to make my own for WAY less. Seeing as how I'm already a mason jar hoarder collector, I stopped by one of my favorite antique spots to hunt down mini trees and props, grabbed some fake snow and busted out the ole glue gun once more. The fun part of these guys was creating each scene itself. I was so proud of my "noel" bunting too, since it was so teeny tiny and anything tiny is oh so fun, especially when you make it yourself. Some trees got ornaments, while others just collected a few snow flakes for that still in the woods kind of feel. In the end, I yet again, love my project results and I hope you do too!

Project 3- Felt Animal Dolls-
After inheriting a niece through marriage, I wanted to try and start a tradition of making her something special and girlie every Christmas versus just running out and purchasing something off of the shelf. So to kick-off this tradition, I decided to try my hand at felt animals with a sassy little wardrobe. I was super pumped with how they turned out seeing as how I didn't have a pattern to follow and I am NO artist.

I had so much fun designing their outfits, with some of my favorite touches being black heels (every felt piggy needs a pair of black heels, duh), pink bikini for the beach, a tutu and matching glitter bow, an 80's-ish over sized t-shirt dress and headband, and a yellow hat with a black feather touch for those days when the frog might need to catch a train to California in her black and white summer dress set. Can you tell I day dreamed about where the animals might wear their new wardrobe?! After it was complete and my chest was swollen with amateur pride, I signed the back for her our names and Christmas 2012 and wrapped up my little handmade memento. I'm not 100% she loved it as much as I did, maybe due to her only being 4, but I'm hoping she'll sit down with it someday and give it a whirl. It'd be a shame for that piggy to never get to be the ballerina that I envisioned;)

All in all, I'm so pleased with the projects that I did lend my time to and I've learned that with every homemade project that you complete, you leave your thumbprint on that item and you just can't find that in a store. There's something special about creating something from scratch and watching it unfold before your very eyes. It's priceless.