Christmas Garland

This Christmas Garland is so easy to make and looks great on a fireplace mantle or draped around your front door.

I love decorating our home for Christmas with real garlands, so when we got our tree this year, I used the cuttings off the bottom to make this garland.  This is just a simple garland, but it can be spruced up with pine cones, lights and ornaments.

Materials needed:

Twine

Floral wire

Cuttings from your tree

Pruning sheers

Instructions:

Cut several smaller branches off your tree and cut the twine to the length you would like your garland to be.  Starting at one end of the twine, lay the cutting on your twine and wire it in place.  Overlap another cutting and continue to wire it.  Continue this until the whole twine is used, overlapping and wiring as you go. 

That's it!  Easy, elegant and beautiful!

Fall Leaf Jar

The kids and I had lots of fun this fall looking for the perfect leaves.  We were finding them everywhere we went and collecting them for crafts and projects.

This is a simple idea using Decoupage to add our beautiful leaves to an empty glass jar for a candle.

These jars were made by my 6 year old daughter, but it was such an easy craft that even my three year old made one!

Mystery Braided Leather Keychain

I made this keychain for my Dad out of some scrap leather and a really neat trick!

Click here to see step by step instructions to mystery braid a single piece of leather.

Retro Yarn Octopus

This was a fun project my daughter and I did together one day.

All you need to make this cute retro yarn octopus is:

• Scissors
• Skein of yarn about 100 yards long
• 3-inch Styrofoam ball or a tennis ball
• 5 feet of yarn or ribbon, for tying the braids (we used rubber bands)
• Tacky glue
• Large googly eyes (we used white and black felt)

Grab another person to help and head over to this website for the instructions.

Have fun.

Easy Fabric Pumpkins

My mother and I have been making these fabric pumpkins for a few years now, but this year my six year old daughter was old enough to help me sew some too!  I just love crafting with my daughter, she's just like me!

Materials needed:

Orange and brown fabric in different sized rectangles

Sewing machine or needle and thread

Orange embroidery floss

Artificial fall leaves and berries

Raffia

Cinnamon sticks

Hot glue gun and glue
Stuffing

We started with a large rectangle of fabric, then folded it with right sides together.

Step 1. Stitch one side on a sewing machine to make an inside out tube like my daughter is holding in the picture.

Step 2.  Using a needle and thread, sew a running stitch along one end. Pull both ends of your thread to cinch up the material and turn it right side out.

Step 3.  Using the embroidery floss, sew another running stitch, this time around the whole top of your material.  Before cinching it closed, stuff the pumpkin.

Step 4.  Pull both ends of the embroidery floss to close up the top of your pumpkin and tie it off.

Step 5.  Using orange floss, make six sections on your pumpkins by wrapping it around the pumpkin and knotting it each time.

Step 6.  Hot glue a twig or cinnamon stick into the top and decorate with leaves, berries and raffia.

These are some smaller pumpkins I made with my daughter's class at school.

We started with a round piece of material about the size of a dinner plate.

The kids sewed around the edge of the circle and pulled it tight, stuffed the pumpkin and glued the stick and leaf to the top.

Witch Doctor Halloween Mask

My husband came home one night from work with a white plastic mask and said there was a mask decorating contest in his office... 

If you know me, you'd know that I couldn't let this one pass me by. 

So, I collected some twigs from our backyard that had fallen from our redwood trees, gathered up some Indian corn and some raffia and heated up the hot glue gun.

What do you think?

By the way... I won!

This is what I started with