Christmas Advent Calendar

Advent calendars can be fun to make if you have the time to do it. It will also brighten up your home if you use it as decor. As well as helping you count down the days until its time for the big celebration. You don't have to spend alot of money to make these as you can buy the little boxes at dollar tree. You can also use other items to add the numbers to your calendar not just what I have here. This calendar would still look awesome with the numbers painted on, stickers, bead numbers, etc.

DIY Mens Apron

  Every year I have the hardest time coming up with gifts for guys. My husband and Dad are so hard to shop for. They never tell me what they want and I always have the hardest time coming up with something.

To get started you’ll need an apron… I found this one at Jo-Ann’s!

Then I pulled out my Silhouette and cut out “CAUTION: EXTREMELY HOT” with heat transfer. If you will be doing this with your Silhouette make sure to mirror your image horizontally before cutting.

If you don’t have a Silhouette you can easily use  freezer paper or stencils for this as well. They sell packs of stencil letters at most craft stores. Just lay the letters down and brush over them with fabric paint.

Once I printed out my heat transfer I stuck it on the apron and ironed it on. Make sure to put a piece of fabric over the applique before ironing so it doesn’t melt. With the Silhouette heat transfer you’ll have to hold it for about 45 seconds. Just peel up a little edge to make sure it has stuck. Once the heat transfer has fully adhered you can peel away the top layer.

That’s all! Simple as that! Such an easy gift, and perfect if your husband loves to grill! 

DIY Tea Cup Candles

 These candles will be perfect for mothers or mother-in-laws as well as aunts, cousins and sisters!

MATERIALS:

• Nested pans
• Partially burned candles
• Candy or candle thermometer
• Tongs
• New wicking
• Teacups
• Wick sustainers
• Wooden skewers
• 
  

STEPS:

1. In a small pan set over a larger pan of simmering water, melt down old candles; clip the thermometer to the upper pot, and keep temperature at about 185 degrees. Remove old wicks with tongs.
2. Cut a piece of wicking to the cup's height plus 2 inches. Clamp one end to a wick sustainer; tie the other end around a skewer. Dip wicking and sustainer into melted wax to coat them. Remove and stick sustainer to cup's bottom.
3. Pour in the wax, stopping 1/2 inch below the cup's rim. Allow wax to set, about 1 hour. The candle will harden with a well in the center. To even it out, use another skewer to prick a circle of holes about 1/16 inch deep around the wick. Pour in melted wax until surface is 1/4 inch below rim. Cut wick.

DIY Dollar Tree Centerpiece

 Need a festive Christmas centerpiece?! 

No one will be able to tell this little tabletop tree is actually from Dollar Tree after this easy makeover! Use faux snow and a few holiday floral embellishments, also found at the dollar store, to dress up this inexpensive $1 Christmas tree into a pretty centerpiece to be proud of.

Supplies Needed:

• 18 inch tabletop Christmas tree (Found in-store at Dollar Tree for ONLY $1!)
• artificial snow spray
• faux berries, small pine cones, and any other floral embellishments (Dollar Tree)
• Christmas bow for topper (Dollar Tree)
• hot glue gun and glue sticks
• floral foam (Dollar Tree)
• 7 inch planter, or some type of basket, box, or container

Directions:

1. ) Take tree out of box and separate each branch. Instead of setting up the stand I used a piece of floral form to support it.

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2.) Spray faux snow all over each tree branch, and let dry. (I found my can at Walmart for $1.50).

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3.) Cut faux berries into smaller bundles and hot glue them to tree branches. Glue any additional embellishments. Try to make them evenly spaced throughout the tree.

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4.) Place tree in a flower pot, basket, decorative box, bowl, or any other desired container. (I had these pots leftover from plants on my patio this summer. Look around the house for something to use!)

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I’m passionate about decorating for Christmas without spending a ton of money, and these trees can be transformed into boutique looking decor with just a few easy supplies! I love how mine have kind of a farmhouse look to fit in with my house. You can customize them with any colors you’d like!

Easy Last Minute Christmas Decor

 Holiday Decor!!!!!!!

because my holiday season has gone by in a FLASH. i've had to try to incorporate some last minute holiday decor around the house...with things i have.

case and point this center piece was made of all thrift-ed finds of the past.
i've used this glass candle holder cupcake stands before. so i thought why not a bowl?
placing the bowl on top creates a cute holder of things

                                    like leftover christmas ornaments.

DIY Glitter Lip Gloss

 Whose lips couldn’t use a little more shimmer?! This winter surprise the young girls in the family with this DIY glitter lip balm!

Supplies:

• Coconut oil
• Beeswax
• Essential oil (peppermint and lavender are my favorites!)
• Edible luster dust/edible glitter
• Cosmetic container

Step 1: Combine about 3 tbsp coconut oil and 1 tbsp beeswax in a small bowl. Microwave in 30-second increments until completely melted. Let cool 5 minutes.

Step 2: Mix in several drops of the essential oils of your choice.

Step 3: Add in about 1 tsp luster dust or more to reach your desired color and shine.

Step 4: Allow the glitter to settle in the mixture before dividing it into small cosmetic containers. Allow the glitter lip gloss to set before using.

DIY Christmas Candles

 If you want to try something new this year then making candles might be something you find yourself interested in and with the holidays coming up now would be a great time to start. 

Ideas for Decorating the Mason Jars

Part of what makes these Christmas candles so fun to gift is that you can get extra creative with how you decorate and wrap them. A few of our favorite ideas include:

• Dipping the jars in a coat of glitter (be careful – this gets messy, fast!)
• Wrapping the jars in a festive wide ribbon
• Hot gluing on a strip of burlap and a sprig of pine (my favorite!)
• Create labels and print them on sticker paper

Which Essential Oil Scents to Use

The fun thing about this DIY is you can easily swap out the oils and change the fragrance profile of this candle completely.

 Pine and Frankincense

I chose pine and frankincense essential oils for these Christmas candles because they are just a lovely combination for this time of year. Plus when you smell the frankincense, it reminds us of the historical miracle that is the reason for the season! You can also use these:

• Pine Essential Oil
• Clove Bud Essential Oil
• Cinnamon Leaf Essential Oil
• Cedarwood Essential Oil

Supplies Needed:

• Soy Wax for candle making – I ordered this
• Natural Candle Wick
• Pine Essential Oil
• Frankincense Essential Oil
• popsicle sticks
• 8 oz glass jelly jars or other small jars or glass votive candle holders*
• glass measuring cup
• decorative holiday or burlap ribbon (optional)

*You can make these DIY Christmas Candles in a variety of sizes, such as glass votive candle holders or mason jars.  You can even use cleaned out glass jars from your recycling bin for this project!

 Instructions

Melt Soy Wax

The first step in making these candles is to melt your soy wax in a double boiler. Start with 3 cups of soy wax pellets. This is enough for one 8oz mason jar and 2 votive candle holders.

You can simply put your glass measuring cup in the saucepan with a couple of inches of boiling water. I recommend a glass measuring cup because of the easy-to-pour spout.  After using just a glass bowl myself, I wish I had the spout!

 Add Oils

While the wax is heating up and melting, you can add the essential oils to the wax. I recommend at least 30 of each pine and frankincense essential oil for the 3 cups of wax.

If you want a very potent smelling candle, then up your oil amount to 45 drops of each! With 30 drops, the aroma is subtle and not overbearing. It was not as strong as a Yankee Candle smell would be and some may say it was just a little too weak.

So play around with the amount of oil you use depending on your scent strength preference.

Add Wick

When the wax is melted in the double boiler, take a plastic spoon and drip just a little bit of wax at the bottom of your glass containers. While that bit of wax is still liquefied, quickly “glue” in your wick.

Hold the wick in place until the wax is cool and hardened.  If you do this step first, it will help hold the wick in place and keep it in the center when you fill up the rest of the jar with hot wax.

Pour in the Scented Wax

Pour in the melted and scented wax to fill your jar. I use 2 popsicle sticks to keep the wick in place while the wax is cooling and hardening. You could also keep it in place by very carefully wrapping the wick around a pen that’s laid across.

Let Harden

It will take a good 45 minutes or so for the wax to cool and harden.  Keep your jar in an area that will not get bumped while it is cooling.  You can stick this in the refrigerator to speed up the cooling process.

Trim the Wick

Once your candle is back to a solid state, go ahead and trim the wick.

Kids Christmas Poems

 

I Like to See Christmas

Author Unknown

I like to see the stockings
I like to see the gifts
I like to see the bells
I like to see the tree
And I like to see Santa
Looking at me!     

Little Pine Tree

Author Unknown

I’m a little pine tree
As you can see,
All the other pine trees
Are bigger than me.
Maybe when I grow up
Then I’ll be
A great big merry Christmas tree!

A Christmas Angel

By Denise Burke

Oh, I wish I was an angel on the tree
Oh, I wish I was an angel on the tree
I’d give every girl and boy
Lots of Christmas peace and joy
Oh, I wish I was an angel on the tree

Five Little Reindeer

Author Unknown

Five little reindeer playing in the snow
The first one said, “Can you see my nose glow?”
The second one said, “Listen to me sing!”
The third one said, “I can hear the bells ring.”
The fourth one said, “Let’s eat the pie!”
The fifth one said, “I’m ready to fly.”
Then clomp went their hooves
And the snow fell white
As the five little reindeer flew out of sight.

Kids Christmas Story

 

THE SNOWMAN 
SHORT STORY

"It is so delightfully cold," said the Snow Man, "that it makes my whole body crackle. This is just the kind of wind to blow life into one. How that great red thing up there is staring at me!" He meant the sun, who was just setting. "It shall not make me wink. I shall manage to keep the pieces."

He had two triangular pieces of tile in his head, instead of eyes; his mouth was made of an old broken rake, and was, of course, furnished with teeth. He had been brought into existence amidst the joyous shouts of boys, the jingling of sleigh-bells, and the slashing of whips. The sun went down, and the full moon rose, large, round, and clear, shining in the deep blue.

"There it comes again, from the other side," said the Snow Man, who supposed the sun was showing himself once more. "Ah, I have cured him of staring, though; now he may hang up there, and shine, that I may see myself. If I only knew how to manage to move away from this place,—I should so like to move. If I could, I would slide along yonder on the ice, as I have seen the boys do; but I don't understand how; I don't even know how to run."

"Away, away," barked the old yard-dog. He was quite hoarse, and could not pronounce "Bow wow" properly. He had once been an indoor dog, and lay by the fire, and he had been hoarse ever since. "The sun will make you run some day. I saw him, last winter, make your predecessor run, and his predecessor before him. Away, away, they all have to go."

"I don't understand you, comrade," said the Snow Man. "Is that thing up yonder to teach me to run? I saw it running itself a little while ago, and now it has come creeping up from the other side.

"You know nothing at all," replied the yard-dog; "but then, you've only lately been patched up. What you see yonder is the moon, and the one before it was the sun. It will come again to-morrow, and most likely teach you to run down into the ditch by the well; for I think the weather is going to change. I can feel such pricks and stabs in my left leg; I am sure there is going to be a change."

"I don't understand him," said the Snow Man to himself; "but I have a feeling that he is talking of something very disagreeable. The one who stared so just now, and whom he calls the sun, is not my friend; I can feel that too."

"Away, away," barked the yard-dog, and then he turned round three times, and crept into his kennel to sleep.

There was really a change in the weather. Towards morning, a thick fog covered the whole country round, and a keen wind arose, so that the cold seemed to freeze one's bones; but when the sun rose, the sight was splendid. Trees and bushes were covered with hoar frost, and looked like a forest of white coral; while on every twig glittered frozen dew-drops. The many delicate forms concealed in summer by luxuriant foliage, were now clearly defined, and looked like glittering lace-work. From every twig glistened a white radiance. The birch, waving in the wind, looked full of life, like trees in summer; and its appearance was wondrously beautiful. And where the sun shone, how everything glittered and sparkled, as if diamond dust had been strewn about; while the snowy carpet of the earth appeared as if covered with diamonds, from which countless lights gleamed, whiter than even the snow itself.

"This is really beautiful," said a young girl, who had come into the garden with a young man; and they both stood still near the Snow Man, and contemplated the glittering scene. "Summer cannot show a more beautiful sight," she exclaimed, while her eyes sparkled.

"And we can't have such a fellow as this in the summer time," replied the young man, pointing to the Snow Man; "he is capital."

The girl laughed, and nodded at the Snow Man, and then tripped away over the snow with her friend. The snow creaked and crackled beneath her feet, as if she had been treading on starch.

"Who are these two?" asked the Snow Man of the yard-dog. "You have been here longer than I have; do you know them?"

"Of course I know them," replied the yard-dog; "she has stroked my back many times, and he has given me a bone of meat. I never bite those two."

"But what are they?" asked the Snow Man.

"They are lovers," he replied; "they will go and live in the same kennel by-and-by, and gnaw at the same bone. Away, away!"

"Are they the same kind of beings as you and I?" asked the Snow Man.

"Well, they belong to the same master," retorted the yard-dog. "Certainly people who were only born yesterday know very little. I can see that in you. I have age and experience. I know every one here in the house, and I know there was once a time when I did not lie out here in the cold, fastened to a chain. Away, away!"

"The cold is delightful," said the Snow Man; "but do tell me tell me; only you must not clank your chain so; for it jars all through me when you do that."

"Away, away!" barked the yard-dog; "I'll tell you; they said I was a pretty little fellow once; then I used to lie in a velvet-covered chair, up at the master's house, and sit in the mistress's lap. They used to kiss my nose, and wipe my paws with an embroidered handkerchief, and I was called 'Ami, dear Ami, sweet Ami.' But after a while I grew too big for them, and they sent me away to the housekeeper's room; so I came to live on the lower story. You can look into the room from where you stand, and see where I was master once; for I was indeed master to the housekeeper. It was certainly a smaller room than those up stairs; but I was more comfortable; for I was not being continually taken hold of and pulled about by the children as I had been. I received quite as good food, or even better. I had my own cushion, and there was a stove—it is the finest thing in the world at this season of the year. I used to go under the stove, and lie down quite beneath it. Ah, I still dream of that stove. Away, away!"

"Does a stove look beautiful?" asked the Snow Man, "is it at all like me?"

"It is just the reverse of you," said the dog; "it's as black as a crow, and has a long neck and a brass knob; it eats firewood, so that fire spurts out of its mouth. We should keep on one side, or under it, to be comfortable. You can see it through the window, from where you stand."

Then the Snow Man looked, and saw a bright polished thing with a brazen knob, and fire gleaming from the lower part of it. The Snow Man felt quite a strange sensation come over him; it was very odd, he knew not what it meant, and he could not account for it. But there are people who are not men of snow, who understand what it is. "'And why did you leave her?" asked the Snow Man, for it seemed to him that the stove must be of the female sex. "How could you give up such a comfortable place?"

"I was obliged," replied the yard-dog. "They turned me out of doors, and chained me up here. I had bitten the youngest of my master's sons in the leg, because he kicked away the bone I was gnawing. 'Bone for bone,' I thought; but they were so angry, and from that time I have been fastened with a chain, and lost my bone. Don't you hear how hoarse I am. Away, away! I can't talk any more like other dogs. Away, away, that is the end of it all."

But the Snow Man was no longer listening. He was looking into the housekeeper's room on the lower storey; where the stove stood on its four iron legs, looking about the same size as the Snow Man himself. "What a strange crackling I feel within me," he said. "Shall I ever get in there? It is an innocent wish, and innocent wishes are sure to be fulfilled. I must go in there and lean against her, even if I have to break the window."

"You must never go in there," said the yard-dog, "for if you approach the stove, you'll melt away, away."

"I might as well go," said the Snow Man, "for I think I am breaking up as it is."

During the whole day the Snow Man stood looking in through the window, and in the twilight hour the room became still more inviting, for from the stove came a gentle glow, not like the sun or the moon; no, only the bright light which gleams from a stove when it has been well fed. When the door of the stove was opened, the flames darted out of its mouth; this is customary with all stoves. The light of the flames fell directly on the face and breast of the Snow Man with a ruddy gleam. "I can endure it no longer," said he; "how beautiful it looks when it stretches out its tongue?"

The night was long, but did not appear so to the Snow Man, who stood there enjoying his own reflections, and crackling with the cold. In the morning, the window-panes of the housekeeper's room were covered with ice. They were the most beautiful ice-flowers any Snow Man could desire, but they concealed the stove. These window-panes would not thaw, and he could see nothing of the stove, which he pictured to himself, as if it had been a lovely human being. The snow crackled and the wind whistled around him; it was just the kind of frosty weather a Snow Man might thoroughly enjoy. But he did not enjoy it; how, indeed, could he enjoy anything when he was "stove sick?"

"That is terrible disease for a Snow Man," said the yard-dog; "I have suffered from it myself, but I got over it. Away, away," he barked and then he added, "the weather is going to change." And the weather did change; it began to thaw. As the warmth increased, the Snow Man decreased. He said nothing and made no complaint, which is a sure sign. One morning he broke, and sunk down altogether; and, behold, where he had stood, something like a broomstick remained sticking up in the ground. It was the pole round which the boys had built him up. "Ah, now I understand why he had such a great longing for the stove," said the yard-dog. "Why, there's the shovel that is used for cleaning out the stove, fastened to the pole." The Snow Man had a stove scraper in his body; that was what moved him so. "But it's all over now. Away, away." And soon the winter passed. "Away, away," barked the hoarse yard-dog. But the girls in the house sang,

"Come from your fragrant home, green thyme;
Stretch your soft branches, willow-tree;
The months are bringing the sweet spring-time,
When the lark in the sky sings joyfully.
Come gentle sun, while the cuckoo sings,
And I'll mock his note in my wanderings."

And nobody thought any more of the Snow Man.