Fun Christmas Ideas

My Christmas presents are totally coming together and I'm very excited about them... BUT since I'm giving them to some of you guys I can't show them on here yet :) SO right now I wanted to share a couple fun Christmas projects that I've stumbled upon in blog land. I will give correct credit to each of these since in no way are they my ideas!

This one is called Button Trees. I think it's absolutely adorable, especially if you have tons of buttons laying around, all different colors & sizes. I first found this idea on {a}'s site right here
and I just love it! I love the colors she chose.
She first found it on Two Peas right here where she gives all the instructions. She chose to do an all pink one which I think turned out cute.
I also thought this Christmas Advent Wreath was adorable with such fun colors. I found it on Pine Feather and you can click here to see her post on it.
And to leave you with one of the many projects from {Capture the Moment} that I'm in love with is this.... click here. I love how she packages it all together.
Okay one more from {Capture the Moment}... another snowflake project with cookies inside:

SO CUTE! Hope you enjoyed them, let me know if you guys have any others that you are inspired by!

Christmas Tags

Tags are done that will go on the package! My xyron worked perfectly for all this stuff! LOVE that machine!

p.s. A xyron is a machine that you feed your paper into and it puts either a sticky back on it, laminates it or can make it a magnet! I used it to make all my layers stickers!

Christmas Cards 2008!

I thought I would go ahead and get started on our Christmas Cards and Present Packages! Here is what I did last year, which I had a ton of fun doing. This year, I think I'm going to do a new sort of package, but still give people a dessert and recipe for it! Here is a sneak peak of this years project:

Recipe cards for packages:

Christmas cards:

Fabric to go on our packages:

We'll see how it all ends up! I'm still on a budget so we'll see how it turns out! I love doing this kind of stuff!

Jenn's Baby Shower Invitation

I designed my first baby shower invitation a little while ago for a shower that my sister was hosting for her friend Jennifer! All the hostesses loved it!

Reversible Purses

Here are some pictures of my latest sewing project, the reversible purse. I actually found these two fabrics from the Pottery Barn Outlet... they are just pillow cases that I liked! I bought the solid fabric for the insides from JoAnne's and made them following the pattern from Martha Stewart.com of course! I thought this pattern was neat, since the purse locks inside itself, to wear on the subway or someplace that's real crowded.

Fronts:
Backs:
Handles Locked Together... you wear them around your wrist or forearm!

Pillowcase Bags

Here is a quick & easy way to take an old pillowcase and make it into a quick bag, either to go green and use for groceries or an overnight bag! Once again I found this on Martha Stewarts site.

I lined it pretty!

Instead of lining it the normal way, I pulled the liner on the outside and did a zigzag stitch.

Pillows

My first sewing project was to make pillows... SO EASY once you get the hang of it! These are all the ones I made for our home!

Inside our living room:

Our Save the Date

My husband and I had our wedding, December 16th, 2006. I did not want to do the traditional green and red, so we went for a winter wonderland color scheme. Here is our save the date:
I punched a hole in the top, and threaded a semi-transparent, ice blue ribbon through the top and tied it in a knot, to hang like an ornament!

Baby Announcements.

I designed my sisters baby announcements almost 2 years ago. Since then, a bunch of her friends have asked me to do almost the exact same layout for them!

Creighton:

Emily: (I just added all the text on top of the picture)

Peanut Butter Haystacks in Christmas Box

Last year for Christmas Gifts I decided to do something home-made for our friends, since we have a lot of expenses from the office and school to pay for. I came up with the idea to bake goodies, put in a box, and then attach the recipe to the top. Sounds easy, but leave it to me to make it complicated! I found these cool red envelopments to slide the recipe cards in, but they were $3.00 each - which was too much on the Leah scale. SO I made my own :)

And they slip inside:

I bought one sheet of thick red paper and cut to make my own... Which came out to be about 15 cents each! I then went to work and made & printed my own recipe cards and Merry Christmas stickers to put on the envelope. I tied some brown raffia around the card and held it with the stickers I printed!
Kyle and I made peanut butter haystacks for everyone, and put some shredded paper around to help them not bounce around. I found these cute boxes at a local art store, which came out to be a little less than $1.00 a box (that was the most expensive part). Decorate the outside of the box with raffia strands and you get a home made gift for around $2.50 each! I really enjoyed doing this and getting to be creative in this way, so I thought I would share!