Merry Christmas and Jewelry Christmas Tree

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! I hope you are having a great day and enjoying your families.

My mom made this jewelry Christmas tree years ago, it has been a favorite of mine. I loved every Christmas going into our living room and staring at it and looking at all of the jewelry and having my mom explain what each piece was and who it belonged to.

I started with a foam board and covered it with black velvet.
I then traced a pattern of a tree with chalk onto the velvet.
I don't have a picture of this next step, but you will need to hot glue a strand of white beads following your chalk line. (the chalk wipes off). Then following your tree pattern poke holes to put in your lights. You will need a 35 count light set. Once the holes have been made push your lights into the holes, starting at the top and working down so the cord will end at the bottom, making it so you can plug it in easy.
This is what the back looks like after the lights have been pushed in.
Now start filling in your tree with jewelry. I started this project years ago and ran out of jewelry. My mom gave me some of my grandma's jewelery. I was so excited to finally get this project done and display it, just like my mom.
This is what mine looks like all done. I love it, it has my jewelry, my mom's jewelry, and my grandma's jewelry on it.

This is what it looks like all lit up. This picture doesn't give it justice. My camera broke and I'm using a camera that's not the best. But believe me when I tell you that it is absolutely beautiful with the lights shining on the jewelry.

The next two pictures are my mom's tree. She has jewelry going down the tree and eventually I want mine to have the same thing, but I ran out of jewelry. So some day mine will be completely done, but for now I am extremely happy with how it turned out and done in time for Christmas.

Linking to:

Lil Luna

Wooden Candles

I made this candle trio for my Christmas decor using old barn wood. I created a candle template, and then traced the template onto the wood and cut it out. I painted the candles and then glued them to a square base.
I added greenery a bow and a pine cone to the base.
It was super easy to make and love how it turned out.

Have a great weekend!!!

Christmas Countdown Socks

My sister Cameo (craft critter contributor) gave me Christmas countdown socks for Christmas last year. She made the clothes pins and with it was ideas to go with each day.


I put little knitted socks, mittens, a hat and long johns. I love how vintage it looks.
I decided to combine this with a couple of our Christmas traditions.

1. open a book a day until Christmas.

2. Christmas daily activities. I started this last year, we had so much fun with it, we are continuing it this year. And will be awesome with our new Christmas sock countdown.

Each day has a theme so I coordinated our books to match the theme along with the activities.

I love the packet that my sister gave me to go with each day. It talks about each theme and the history behind it. This is some of the things we will be doing:

Elf Day - I have elf crafting activities we will be doing, we will be Elfing our neighbors, watch the "Elf" movie, and reading "Always an Elf"

Christmas Tree Day - We will be going to the Festival of Trees, (you could put your tree up on this day), making a lot of Christmas tree crafts, doing different tree activities: rolling a Christmas tree, playing a Christmas tree board game, Christmas tree sizing, alphabet tree mats, and reading "The Lonely Christmas Tree"

Sweater Day/Christmas Stocking Day - Talking about how warm clothing makes us feel and how we should make others feel the same way. Doing a kind deed. Playing Stocking dice game, making paper stockings with cotton balls, and Reading "A Christmas Dress For Ellen"

Snowman Day - Making snowman crafts and snowman food, snowman dice game, if there is snow we will make a snowman. Watch "Frosty the Snowman", and reading "Snowmen at Night".

Star Day - Making star sugar cookies, talking about how the wisemen followed the star. Doing star crafts and reading "Penny's Christmas Jar"

Grinch Day - Having a "Who Feast" with roast beast, potatoes, corn, "who" pudding" and green foods (green jello). Writing a letter to the Grinch to convince him of all the reasons he should like Christmas. Making a grinch mask, Whoville's word search, Reading "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"

Snowflake Day - Making paper snowflakes, snowflake sorting, and reading " A creature was stirring, one boys night before Christmas"

Reindeer Day - Telling the kids how Rudolf the red-nosed reindeer came to life in 1939. Making candy cane reindeer's, making marshmallow reindeer's, roll and color reindeer, reindeer Christmas addition, reindeer paper plate craft and reading "Reindeer Christmas" and Laughing all the Way"

Santa Clause Day - Making Santa pancakes with a can of whip cream for the beard. Going to see Santa, making Santa's cotton ball beard, Santa dice game, watching "The Santa Clause" and reading "The Night Before Christmas.

Wreath and Holly Day - Having a night of "circle of love" - by have a family game night, making wreath crafts and wreath bread, reading "Mr. Finnegan's Giving Chest"

Manger Day - Manger activities, talking about the manger, making a manger with Popsicle sticks, reading "Little One"

Candy Cane Day - making crafts with candy canes, playing Christmas Dominoes, Candy Cane Matching game, making a candy cane ornament, making Christmas candy, and reading "Mary Englebert's , A Merry Little Christmas"

12 Days of Christmas - Tell the story behind the 12 days of Christmas. We have a tradition to do the 12 days of Christmas with our family so we will start today.

Letter to Santa Day - Write a letter to Santa, reading, "A Letter to Santa"

Wiseman Day - Talking about the wisemen, making king crowns, handing out neighbor gifts and reading, "The Miracle of the Wooden Shoes"

Christmas Lights Day - Christmas Light ABC, Christmas light pattern, going to see Christmas lights, and reading, "A Candle in a Window"

Bell Day or Polar Express Day - Playing Silver Bells Game, Making a jingle bell bracelet, having a Polar Express Pajama Party! We will have tickets to give to the "Conductor", we will have hot chocolate and cookies, and watch the movie. We will make trains out of candy and reading, "The Polar Express"

Nativity Day - Talk about the nativity, my mom has made a wooden nativity for each of my kids, we will use that to play with, we will color a nativity page, do a Nativity Shadow matching activity, doing a nativity puzzle, watching "Mr. Krougers Christmas" and reading, "God Bless Your Way"

Ornament Day - We will be talking about some of the ornaments on our tree and where they came from. Having a family discussion about our favorite ornaments, favorite Christmas memory, favorite Christmas food, Christmas smell, and what they are most excited for Christmas. We will be making an ornament, doing ornament sorting - with tree mat, watching "The Forgotten Carols and reading, "The Forgotten Carols - A Christmas Miracle for Isaac and Eliza"

Angel Day - This is the day our daughter became an angel three years ago, we will be doing family things that will help us through this day. Reading, "It's a Wonderful Life"

Bow Day - Wrap Christmas presents and top them with bows, reading, "A Christmas Carol"

Nutcracker Day - I will have M&M's and tell the story about the "M", the "E", the "W" and the "3" that the M&M makes. Eat different nuts, playing don't eat Pete with peanut M&M's, making a nutcracker craft, nut cracker number match, reading " The Nutcracker"

Gingerbread Day - Making a gingerbread house, Christmas cookie matching game, lacing a gingerbread man, making gingerbread playdough and using cookie cutters. Reading, "Gingerbread Baby"

Christmas Eve Day - We have Christmas Eve traditions we will be doing.

Christmas Day - Merry Christmas, we will also be doing our Christmas day traditions.

I wrapped all the books and put numbers on each one.

Here are the books with the daily activities ready to start tomorrow. I am so excited to do this. I think it will be so much fun. Love making memories with my kids.
I typed each theme on a piece of paper and stuck it inside the sock or mitten. So when the kids pull the paper out, they will know what theme we will be doing that day.





Linking to:

Lil Luna

You've Been Elfed

It's DECEMBER!!!! Excitement . . . panic. . . love this time of year. When I posted about our Christmas Countdown socks, I mentioned activities to go along with each day. Elf Day was the theme for today. We have done some Elf crafts, we are going to watch the Elf movie tonight and read "Always the Elf" by Kimberly Jensen. Another thing we did was Elfed some neighbors.

Have you done the "You have been booed" at Halloween time? We love "booing" and have so much fun getting the goodies together, and picking the family we want to "boo". Well, how about "You Have Been Elfed"? Love, the idea!


We've Been Elfed Printable

Burlap Bag Christmas Countdown

You all know how I love advent Calendars. Guess what? I made another one!!! I made this for my daughters boutique. (She is earning money to go to Europe as a student Ambassador)
I love the burlap bags.

Fill the burlap bag with goodies, and countdown until Christmas. I love the simplicity of it.

Linking to:

>

Match Box Christmas Countdown

For those that have missed seeing this Christmas advent that I made a couple of years ago, I wanted to re-post it so you could see it. My kids absolutely love it.

Found the match boxes at the dollar store, emptied them.

I then embellished the boxes and added a strip of paper inside each box with a scripture and an activity to do that day. I also put in a little candy inside the box. Hershey Treasures and
Hershey's miniatures work great. For the numbers I used stickers, stamps and the cricut.

I glued a magnet strip to the bag of the boxes and painted the cookie sheet.

I then mod podged "December" onto the cookie sheet, punched two holes with my cropodile, and tied a bow to the top.


It's a little time consuming, but well worth the work.




Linking to: