Thursday, January 2, 2014

36 and 99

In tidying up end of the year bloggy stuff I wanted to post a few fun pics of some crafty Christmas love.  And yes, I know this is Day 2 of a brand new year, but in my mind it's still December.

One item on my 101 in 1001 list (#36) was to make homemade Christmas ornaments for my extended family.

Check.

These turned out super cute, and were fun to put together. I'd seen the original idea on Pinterest with a link to instructions here. I bought my letters pre-painted (A.C. Moore), but you could buy them unfinished and paint them yourself if you didn't have a list as long as your arm like I did in December.  I chose wintery themed scrapbook paper and mod podged til it stuck.


I had a little help from Daughter1, who is an actual crafty person as opposed to just playing one on her blog, and she designed the tags for me. I've scribbled the names out with my magic computer, but the tags read 'The Smith Family' est. 1984. Except of course  I used actual family names and dates.


I bought charms at Michael's and modpodged the tag to the charm.  I tied it on with a coordinating ribbon, added an eye hook for hanging from the Christmas tree or anywhere, and BAM-homemade ornaments.


I found cute sparkly bags at The Christmas Tree Shoppe to package them in, and I think everyone really liked this little gift.

Another item on my 101 in 1001 list (#99) was to put all of our Christmas card letters through the years into books for my girls. Originally I imagined scanning all the letters and creating a photo book,  mixing Christmas photos with the letters. In the end I went old school and made them binders. They're more user friendly and can be easily added to in the future.


I am so pleased with this little project, and my girls absolutely loved their books. I bought binders at Staples, along with plastic sleeves for the letters, and photo sleeves for the pictures. I found a free printable for the cover, a saying I particularly love and relate to at Christmastime, and I ordered copies of Christmas photos via Shutterfly.  We didn't send a letter every year, but most years we did, and I printed all of those onto card stock.  


In addition, I got some cute holiday recipe cards from Current and added our favorite family holiday recipes to the back of the binder. My girls already have a lot of my recipes copied, so they can easily add the holiday themed ones to their books.


This is one reason I went old school as opposed to a bound photo book. I definitely think it's nice to have your mom's recipes in her very own handwriting.


This took some time and planning, but once I got everything together was simple to assemble.  Best of all, it's a gift I know they'll treasure.

13 comments:

  1. Way to go Joyce. I've been thinking a lot about getting all the family favorite recipes into books for the kids to have. Love the ornaments you made and the book of Christmas letters. I'm still living in mid December too....it all went to quickly and I'm not ready to start my new year!

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  2. Both were such great projects! Thank you thank you for my binder.

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  3. I love handwritten recipe cards :-)
    Really nice gift for your girls!

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  4. I love the crafty letter ornaments! Lovely! And, the binders too - sweet! A couple of years ago I bought each daughter a small recipe box for Christmas and then made up cards with family recipes on them...like Nana's mac & cheese, and Milheim cookies, etc. They loved them!

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  5. WOW! Both of these projects look great, but that book for your daughters is just priceless. How I would have loved to do something like that. But my ability to have kept old letters organized is even worse than old pictures, so it will never happen....but what a NEAT thing. And you are soo right about the hand written recipe cards. I kept my mom's old recipe box, not because most of the recipes are things I MIGHT want, but because it is all written out in HER handwriting...priceless now. I am glad you shared all this.

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  6. Those ornaments are adorable, Joyce. Good job! You've given me an idea for next Christmas. And I am sure the girls will cherish their handwritten
    cookbooks from momma.

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  7. We did the same with our family Christmas letters last year. Well, not NEARLY as adorable as what you did, but same idea. :)

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  8. Wow!!! I love those ornaments and thanks for the idea! Your girls look so happy with their books - another amazing project!! Thanks for sharing!

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  9. Love both ideas. The ornaments are really sharp.

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  10. What beautiful gifts! I especially love handwritten recipes, those are a treasure. Happy New Year!

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  11. Oh wow, wish I had something like that! You're a cool mum!

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  12. Those Mod Podges alphabet tree ornaments are really neat!

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