DIY Simple Wooden Holy Family Nativity

Last Thursday, I went to a wonderful Christmas party put on by the women's organization in my church.  We had dinner, a really nice musical program (I didn't know there were so many talented people in my congregation!), and at the end of the night, they gave us these cute little nativities.

It would be really easy to make one of these for yourself.  And who wouldn't want one of these nativities to decorate their home?

You need:

Some wood  (see the dimensions in the picture above)

Three wooden knobs.  Baby Jesus's head is about 3/4" diameter; I forgot to put that in the picture.

Green, blue, and white crackle paint

Flesh-colored (non-crackle) paint

About 26" of twine

Hot glue

General painting supplies

UPDATE:  I've gotten lots of questions about where I got the wood for this project.  Like I said, I didn't make this nativity, but rather had it given to me at the end of this church activity.  I'm guessing that they got the wood at Home Depot/Lowe's/etc.

The process is pretty clear from the pictures, I think, so I won't write them out.  Here's a picture of the back, though.

Merry Christmas!

 Only six more days!!!

Snowman Wall Hanging

I made this little wall hanging last year for my MIL.  I couldn't put it up last year, for obvious reasons, so here it is, now! 

Here's the finished wall hanging.  I like how it turned out.  I think the family of snowmen is cute.  :)  (Not so much for how this picture of me turned out.  Bleh.  Oh, well.  At least Boo's cute.)  Would you like a tutorial?  I'll get one up next week at least if you do.  In the mean time, I need to go make some baby shoes!

(Is anyone else as not ready for Christmas as I am?  If so, I wish you the best of luck!)

Happy crafting!

Cousin Presents Again

So last year, I decided to make these stuffed animal elephants for Boo and all her cousins.  This year, I decided to make them all little slippers!  I made Boo's first, to test the pattern.

Yes, this is the same fabric as I used for the elephants.  I had extra.  :)

I was trying to figure out a  fun way to take pictures of these shoes.  In the tree was fun.  :)

I altered this pattern to make these shoes.  I'll get a tutorial written...but maybe after Christmas.  I have three more of these to make!  (There's another cousin on his way!  He'll be here...in February, I think.)  In the meantime,  I'd like to share this cool photography tip I found on how to take glow-y Christmas tree pictures.

Set the ISO on your camera as high as it will go, which is 3200 on my camera.  I didn't remember the rest of the tip, so I just played with the other settings until I got it right.  For this picture, I used an ISO at 3200, aperture at 2.8 (largest my lens can go), and a shutter speed at 1/13 sec.  (This picture is straight out of the camera, by the way.)  Tripods are helpful, since the shutter speed's pretty slow, but I took this without one. The camera will think the picture is overexposed, but that just means the little twinkly lights will show up better!

The Versatile Blogger Award 3: Turning a House Into a Home

This week, I'm featuring Turning a House Into a Home.  This blog, by Kristen, is all about "creating beauty on a budget"--which is definitely something I'm into!  Kristen has lots of great (inexpensive!) ideas for beautifying your home.  I found her blog from Pinterest (love that site) with this pin:

Source: decoratingdiy.blogspot.com via Jill on Pinterest

Making your own free picture frames?  Yes!

Let's see, what else...

Source: decoratingdiy.blogspot.com via Jill on Pinterest

This cool chandelier would be awesome for a party decoration.

Source: decoratingdiy.blogspot.com via Amanda on Pinterest

And this. I've been wanting to make a rag rug--and Kristen came up with this idea to dye Goodwill sheets--what a great way to get large amounts of fabric on the cheap!

So I am awarding the Versatile Blogger Award to Kristen!

If you accept this award, you need to:

--Link to and give a shout out to the award-giver.

--Share seven things about yourself.

--Send this award on to fifteen other bloggers.

Merry Christmas Ornaments

Remember my early Christmas present?  Well, here it is--my first finished made-with-my-new-Silhouette project.  (Thanks again, hubby!)

Custom Christmas Ornaments!

This was such an easy project, and I love how it turned out!  In Photoshop, I made an 8 1/2" x 11" design filled with the words "Merry Christmas 2011" plus lots of snowflakes.  (Any image-editing program would work.)  Then I saved it as a jpg.

Then I opened the file in the Silhouette software...

Selected the Trace option, highlighted the entire design, and clicked "Trace" (which I forgot to circle, but you can find it)...

Then I saved this to my SD card, took it to my Silhouette machine, loaded my vinyl, and let the machine do its thing.

It took maybe fifteen minutes to cut out all those shapes!  (I didn't watch the clock, but it was going for a long time.)

Then all I had to do was peel the letters (and numbers, and snowflakes)  off their backing, and stick them on the ornaments I'd bought at the grocery store.  

I've already given one to my in-laws, one's on my Christmas tree, I have one for this ornament exchange I'm going to in a couple weeks--talk about an easy homemade Christmas present!

PS  You can buy vinyl from Silhouette's store, but I just got mine from Lowe's--just ask for the contact paper.  I haven't used Silhouette's vinyl; maybe it's nicer, but this vinyl I got worked well and cost almost nothing.

Happy Crafting!

Family Portraits!

Family picture time has rolled around again--gotta' get those Christmas cards done!  Since I *pretend* to be a photographer, I don't really want to pay someone else to do the job.  Especially since I don't really like the take-your-portrait-in-the-mall kind of studio shot.  Enter:  tripod and 10 second timer.  (If anyone wanted to get me a remote shutter release for Christmas, they'd be welcome.  My camera's a Konica Minolta.  Hint, hint.)

So last Saturday, we took Boo to the park.  There's this nice brick building that I knew would be great for backgrounds and providing shade.  (It was about 11 o'clock in the morning--I wanted to go when it was warm enough to not wear jackets, but middle of the day lighting isn't really flattering.)  

Boo wanted to run and play, but we got her corralled for a few shots...

If we tell Boo to smile, she opens her mouth really wide like she's yelling or about to eat the world's largest hamburger.  (Why???)  So instead we told her show us her pretty teeth...It's close to a smile.

And then I discovered this nice little alcove--beautiful.  Boo wasn't going to hold still long enough for a whole-family shot, though.  Ah, well.  Her daddy has this picture on his phone already.  :)

And a couple shots of me.  It was fun getting the camera ready, setting the timer, and running into place.  And the pictures are a whole lot more flattering than those at-arm's-lengh pictures I've tried before!

And the Mister.  I did some fairly significant Photoshopping on this one; can you tell what I did?  (Hint:  it's not on Mr. MadeIt.)

One last shot of my wonderful husband!  Thanks for indulging my need to take our own family pictures.

Versitile Blogger Award 2: Tutorial Adventures

Note to self:  write several posts in a series before announcing it.
Oh, well.  Here's Feature 2, a week late.  {Here's the first post, if you missed it.}

Tutorial Adventures

The blog's all about tutorials--what's not to like?  I found this blog from Pinterest (love that site) when a friend pinned this:

Source: tutorialadventures.blogspot.com via Jill on Pinterest

DIY fabric lables!  Look how cute her labels turned out!  I still need to make these...

She has lots of fun tutorials on all kinds of subjects, from Dinosaur Costumes to Sock Monsters, Easy Wall Art to Wooden Alphabet Blocks.

So be sure to check out Tutorial Adventures!

Happy crafting!