Crazy Crafting Mama

This past month I have been a crazy crafting mama making gifts for school teachers, and new decorations for our house.  It's been fun to make new things and include the kiddos too!

Earlier this fall I looked on the internet to find things to do with left over broken crayons.  The boys and I melted some in molds, but I still had many crayons left over.  I had seen a cute idea of using green crayons as grass or stems of flowers.  So I picked up some canvases, and decided these would make great pre-school teacher gifts.  Evan helped me paint them, and then I glued the crayons on and melted them using a hair dryer.  I used scrapbook paper and my own made up design for the flowers. I had some bumblebee felt stickers left over from making hair bows, and they looked so cute up in the corner of each picture.  I think they turned out so cute!  I kept the first one we made because I loved it so much.

 

Mrs. Stanford's picture;
 I discovered that Crayola's melt much better
and are more predictable.

Mrs. Wilson's picture

I had an extra canvas left over so I decided to use my left over black and gray buttons to make Trevor's teacher gift.  Miss Reynolds is in her first year of teaching, and I thought it would be fun to celebrate her with her initial in Beaver School colors.

I went on the web and found an R shape I liked, and enlarged it in Microsoft word.  Then I cut it out, and traced it onto gray scrapbook paper.  I then hot glued all the buttons on.  So cute!  All the gifts were a hit with the teachers :)

Since it is Ava's first Christmas at home, I wanted the house to feel extra special.  The past few years I haven't decorated much for Christmas because we had either just moved in or we were traveling.  So it was fun to get creative and change things up.

Fireplace all decorated

I bought new greenery for the mantel, and made all the decorations.  The cone trees are covered in coordinating scrapbook paper that is cut with zig zag decorative scissors and curled on the ends. I also made the wreath above the fireplace and the 6 scrapbook paper trees to put over top of the candles above the bookcases.

Whimscal Scrapbook paper trees

The Joy sign was fun to put together, and evolved as I went along.  Originally I was going to put the letters on the mantel, but they sat too low.  Then I remember this oak picture frame that Grandpa Bell had made me many years ago.  It was sitting empty in a closet.  I took some cardboard, cut it to fit and wrapped it with snowflake paper.  The newly painted paper mache Joy letters where then hung with ribbon to the back of the frame.  Voila....a great center piece for the mantle.

I picked up this cute little tree at a local craft store.  I added the berries by hot gluing them on, and then used a star ornament shape to create the paper star.

The kiddos got in on the creativity too.  When the boys saw my cone trees they really wanted to decorate their own.  So I picked up a few more cone trees, and they had fun painting and decorating them.  They turned out so cute!

 

I used the boys completed trees on the sofa table.  They used white buttons and glitter to decorate their trees.  I love that they each choose their own color of green.

Evan's tree (left) and Trevor tree (right)

I also bought some triangular paper mache trees, and decided to cover them with ribbon.  They also turned out super cute.

Before I could cover them with ribbon, we needed to paint them.  Ava was up for that task! So glad we got snowed in that morning.  Painting those trees will always be a wonderful memory.  As we were painting, the song "Kings and Queens" came on the radio.  Standing there watching her paint and knowing that she had once been an orphan was almost too much.  She once 'was the least of these' but she is dearly loved by her heavenly Father and now by her forever family.  So humbled that she is ours. The next song to play was "Oceans" where it talks about stepping out in faith.  So glad we took a leap of faith and followed His calling to adopt.

I had been looking for a family ornament to represent this year.  Another adoptive friend posted a picture of an ornament a family member had made her.  I loved it, and stole the idea.  Here is our Family Tree ornament for 2013.  

"Adoption grows a beautiful family tree"

the back

So excited to celebrate Christmas at home this year as a family of 5!