Make it: Advent wreath

So, I'm officially fed up with the crazed commercialization of Christmas. My kids are on complete overdrive! It seems like the second that Hallowe'en was over, Christmas advertising started.

Recently, we asked our boys why we have Christmas - their responses were expected: Santa! Presents! Christmas Tree!

Boy oh boy - we have some work to do.

I asked them if they knew WHY we celebrate Christmas? Nope. I asked them if they knew what Advent was? No clue.

We decided that this year, as a family, we would work on what Advent means to us, as Christians in today's world. It's a time of preparation, of anticipation, and rejoicing. To help remember these lessons I made an advent candle wreath for our home, which we will light with the boys each Sunday evening of Advent before they go to bed. That, along with the advent calendar of books I'm preparing (another post) we're hoping to have some real, honest, open discussions with our boys about why we celebrate Christmas, what we believe, and how to make that a part of our everyday lives.


Onto the project!
I started by gathering supplies:

  - Grapevine wreath (Michael's $4.99)
 - votive candles (Walmart, $1 ea)
 - White pillar candle (Walmart $2)
 - Christmas decorative sprigs (Michael's $1.69 ea)
 - side cutters
 - scissors
 - LED light pack (Michael's $7.50)
 - labels
 - twine or leather stringing

Step 1

 Cut apart the decorative sprigs using the side cutters and weave them into the top of the wreath for some colour

 Note the quality control inspector ^

Step 2

 Weave the LED light string into the wreath from the bottom

Step 3

 Using hot glue, glue the four votive candle holders evenly spaced around the wreath.
Step 4

 Create Hope, Peace, Joy & Love labels for each of the four votive candles. The Joy candle is the pink candle
Step 5

 Using leather stringing or twine place a dot of glue on the back of the candle holder to start to attach the string, wrap a couple of times around the votive, slide on the label, and then keep wrapping until the end of the string. Secure with hot glue.

Place somewhere in your house and put the white Christmas/Christ candle in the centre.

 Voila! Family advent wreath. :)

Here's a couple of resources for Advent and kids that I have been using to help me prepare for this season with my kids:

http://ministry-to-children.com/advent-lessons-nativity/
http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/Advent/preparing-children.html
http://simplekids.net/advent-2012/
http://www.focusonthefamily.com/parenting/holidays/making-meaningful-christmas-memories/celebrate-advent.aspx

How are you celebrating the season of Advent with your kids? Do you have any go-to resources?
Here's to the season of waiting, anticipating, and preparing.

Tea.

Make it! Skater dress to Hi/Low Peplum refashion

This Mama LURVES peplums. We've talked about this before. If you're a curvy gal like me, a peplum can be your best dang friend I tell ya. I admit, when they first came about I wasn't hopping on the peplum train right away, but once I tried one on, my eyes were opened. I had a peplum conversion... a peplumversion if you will.

Another trend I wasn't about to jump on right away was the whole hi-low thing. A lot of the dresses and such that I see out there are super short (think 60s minis) in the front and practically train length in the back. Uh... no thanks. But recently I've seen a few much more subtle hi to low options and I thought I would try it out with this refashion.

Make it! T-shirt Refashion

Don't you love the comfort of a great t-shirt? I know I do. But I can't stand to wear a big, shapeless sack of a t-shirt. I picked up a couple of shirts and refashioned one into a semi-peplum style top. It's so easy, you could do it too!
So, I've included a random paint tutorial, and I'll intersperse real pics where I can, though the paint pics do a better job of showing how to do this.

What mama Wears: 50s Housewife?

SO - I got this great fabric from Ikea a while back... and it didn't know what it wanted to be for a while... but then one day when I was browsing a pin-up clothing website (because, honestly, what curvy girl doesn't dream of looking like a pin-up girl from the 40s/50s/60s? really...) I realized that this gingham fabric wanted to be a circle skirt. It desperately wanted to. So much so that it needed to be sewn RIGHT. THEN.

So I did.

And then I wore it with killer heels, a white tee, pearls, fun rose cab. earrings and a swirly side updo thingamajig style for my hair.

I said to The Hubs - look at me. I'm June Frickin' Cleaver here! All I need is an apron... and a casserole or something.

I loved it.

So I'm sharing it with you.
Also - I've decided I'm going to post the WMW photos a little differently. I'm tired of doing all the photoshopping of the pics into one file, so I'm just going to put them up. Okay, the truth is, I'm lazy when it comes to PS. There, I said it.

Anyway - here's my 50s housewife look. And just so you know - I baked cookies that afternoon... but not in this skirt. Priorities!

 

Me: aka June Cleaver.

Winnah!

Just a quick note to say: I'm a Craftster Best of 2012 winner! Yay!

I'm sure I've mentioned before how much I adore the website craftster.org
It's awesome. There's every single kind of craft or project you can imagine, and some you never would have dreamed of on there.

And my big 'ol purse has made it into the best of for 2012!

I'm totally thrilled. And if you're interested, you can check out all the other UH-mazing best ofs here.

Tea.

Make it! Aprons!

For my birthday this year my sister decided to enroll us both in a Wilton cake decorating class. I'm super excited about it, and one of the items on the "must have" list for the class is an apron. I decided that I would make aprons for my sister and myself to wear during our 4-week class and I thought I would share the process with you!

Kids are nuts! Well... mine are...

So, I don't blog about my kids very often... it's not that I don't have things to say about them, but often I start writing about something that I think is hilarious and halfway through I start thinking "Is this funny to anyone else? Or does it just make me look crazy? Or my kids crazy? Maybe we are crazy?!" etc etc etc. And then I delete it and write about crafts instead. Which is cool - but let's be honest, it makes it seem like I have a LOT of time for crafts... I don't.

Here's the deal. I've got two kiddos: Big'un is going to be 4 at the end of June, and Littl'un is going to be 2 on Friday. 2? TWO?! Two. Ugh.

And they're funny. Well, WE (the hubs and I) think they're funny. They say funny things - they make jokes that make no sense. And sometimes, when they're MOST funny - is when they're TOTALLY serious.

Example: The big'un got new rubber boots this year. Spiderman boots. Now - we KNEW that we had fire-man rubber boots SOMEWHERE in our house, so when little'un got to pick out his raincoat, he picked out a fireman coat because we had (foolishly) told him about the boots. Well, we couldn't find 'em. And he kept trying to wear the big'uns boots. Fights ensued, and last night, miracle of miracles - we found the fireman boots.

Mama's got a brand new bag!

Crafting up a storm lately, and among sewing a mini skirt for my sister before she goes on her honeymoon at the end of the month, and figuring out how to sew a shield, sword, tunic and belt for my littlest one's 2nd birthday next Friday (oh, that's a whole other post). I just wanted to share something that I've finally completed for me! That's right boys and girls - Mama's got a brand new bag!

Construction is basically the same as the Ulti-mom bag with a few design changes. Different shape, single pieces for the outside of the bag, grommets to hold up the straps (cool!) and a zipper added to the center pocket. Throw in a few coordinating little pouches and mama's ready to go!
Check it out:

 Sweet fabric I picked up from Ikea!

Grimm swapping

I've been participating in and organising a swap on my fave website Craftster for myself and other fans of  NBCs new show Grimm. There was a fair amount of interest, but due to timing etc, we've had a relatively small group for the swap. I'll admit - since it was my first time organising a swap on Craftster, I was relieved to have a small-ish group.

I did, however, go BIG when it came to crafting for this swap.

I LOVE fairy tales. I LOVE Grimm's stories, and I LOVE the new show Grimm which draws a little upon those stories, but gives it a quirky kind of twist. And I am completely, hilariously in love with one of the characters: Monroe.

Now, Monroe is the "big bad wolf"... only he's not so big, and he's not bad anymore. On the show they call them "Blutbad" (which is German for bad blood) but he says he's "reformed". Whatever the case may be, he's got some of the best lines I've heard on TV in a while.

I decided to make a few things for my partner:
1) A shell necklace similar to the one Nick buys for Juliette from the street kids in the episode Organ Grinder

For the love of the Doctor - Craft-o-rama

I've just participated in a One Tiny Thing swap on my fave crafting website Craftster. The theme for the swap was Doctor Who - which I've recently become a HUGE fan of.

In any case, my partner received today and now I can post pics here of the Doctor related crafts I made :)
*I am not affiliated in any way/shape/form with BBC, Doctor Who or anything of that ilk. I do not sell these items, and they were made in the spirit of fandom pure and simple*

The most difficult craft I managed to put together was an honest-to-goodness "Bigger on the Inside" TARDIS tote. How? A foldable tote of course! I lined the bag as well, box stitched the straps to make sure they were strong and secure, made sure that the pouch was still useable as a pocket pouch when the tote was in use, and freezer paper stencilled on the TARDIS on the pouch and "Come Along Pond" on the other side.

I don't know what to say.... but thanks Craftster!

I'm a Craftster Best of 2011 Winner! 

I was a little shocked! But there it is boys and girls! I won for the freezer paper stencil dress I made for baby sis' birthday this past year.
Here's the link to the actual topic:
The MADNESS 

So.... yeah! Awesome! I'm pretty psyched!

Tea.

Incentive...

Just a quick post:
I've discovered an incentive to get the kiddos to clean up their rooms/playrooms.... apparently standing at the door with a garbage bag in my hands is great incentive to get moving and start putting things away....

I wonder if it would work with the hubs?

Ha ha. But seriously. Some incentive is definitely needed to keep them from sabotaging my KTP on a regular basis.

Well 2012 - let's see what'cha got!

SO.... I took a little break from blogging - mostly because I was crafting my lil' fingers right down to the bones trying to get everything done for Christmas. It was a hard slog - but we made it. The grand total?

• MANY jars of jam, pickles, sauces, etc. Too many to really count
• 1 pair of knit socks, men's size 12 for my brother-in-law - the FIRST socks I have ever knit, especially considering I just learned to knit in the round this past year. They fit - hallelujah!
• 3 freezer paper t-shirts - 2 for my other brother in law: a Star Trek inspired red t-shirt that says "Expendable" and a blue shirt that says "I'd agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong". (If you know my b-i-l, you'd understand). And one black on black tee with the batman symbol and the words "I'm Batman" in batman font in the middle (batman/big bang theory fans) for my hubby
• A gaming pillow for my sister's boyfriend. He has a bad back and needs something a little bit more supportive to lean on when hanging out at home. He called it a torso pillow because I made it out of a sweatshirt - hey - as long as he likes/uses it - he can call it whatever he wants!
• 2 super hero capes, personalised with freezer paper, and 2 super-hero utility belts with flashlights, noise stick thingies, and pouches for my two lil'heroes 
• knit infinity cowl for my super-fash sister who works downtown (and knew what it was right away - thank goodness - since my Mother looked at it said "What IS that")
• 1 knit slouchy hat (by request) for baby sis plus a huge vinyl purple flower pin, hand sewn
• 1 pair of knit mittens for my sister-in-law
• A knitting loom - made by hubby for my mother-in-law
• A rain stick, made out of abs pipe, filled with kidney beans, and modge-podged like crazy for my Dad
• A knit cardigan for my Mom (my first ever real garment)

PLUS I made all of our Christmas cards
PLUS I did the requisite amount of Christmas baking

I. Was. Exhausted.