A Simple Nest

Christmas

My Zoe, loving her stocking stuffs:

Christmas Gift DIY-2010

While making presents for Christmas I discovered a passion for making toys.  I'm going to be opening up an etsy shop soon with "tall dolls" and balls.  And maybe a few random housewares for good measure.  Here's some of the gifts I made this season:

A rag doll for my niece with felt hair, underwear, and 3 outfits

 

 

A hand painted tea cup and saucer for my sister-in-law:

A hand-painted bowl for my friend:

A stuffed "bookworm" for my nephew (made from  Wee Wonderfuls Evelyn Inchworm pattern)

A stuffed globe ball for my niece:

I forgot to snap pictures of the monogramed mugs I made for my brothers family and the linen napkins I made for my sister-in-laws family.  I also still haven't taken pictures of the gifts to my husband and daughter, but will post those soon.  

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday season!  Welcome to 2011!!!!

Coat rack

Coat Rack love.I'm hoping to get someone handy in my family to help me make a similar one.  Isn't it just lovely?        

Danish Home

I'm loving the textures and simplicity of this Danish home.  Found via Emmas Designblogg

Another Simple Advent

Beautiful photo and project from Lykke kjerstis

Obviously it's too late to make this year, but I'm storing this in my to-do-next year file in my brain.  This Christmas has been pretty minimal for me when it comes to decorating and gifts.  I can't seem to get into the Christmas feeling yet.  I'm normally a fanatic about it.  It may be because all of my decor is in storage at my parents and I haven't been able to visit to pick it up.  It may be that I can't find my Christmas CD's.  And it may just be that I have no money for gifts this year.  Either way... I'm not feeling it.  Sad.  I think I'll put on some Christmas tunes now.

Tree Advent Calendar

 

Aren't advent calendars fun?  I especially wanted one to put daily Christmas activities on it like Jordan Ferny had suggested.  I'll also be adding a daily scripture too.  My little one is too young to help, but this would be a really great kid project.  Very easy!  They could practice their number writing skills, or cutting, or knot tying!  Yay for Christmas helping develop fine motor skills, hahaha.

Of course part of living simply means I wasn't going to go to the store to pick one up or spend hours (and dollars) making one.  So I looked through my crafting supplies and what did I find?  Green paint samples from Home Depot that I kept when deciding on colors a while back!  Yes!  FREE!!!!! (tutorial below)

Step One:  Cut 25 triangles out of paint samples or colored paper.  I used Bear paint samples from Home Depot which have 4 colors per card, meaning I needed 7.  (which is exactly how many I had, lucky)  I like to hand cut because it looks more tree like than perfect triangles...differing sizes slightly is a good thing I say.

Step Two:  Cut strips of brown paper in different widths.  I used a textured patterned paper I happened to have a scrap of, but more paint chips would be great too.  These can be taped or glued to the back of the tree and stick out for the stump

Step Three: Lay out the trees in a line so you can put them in a pleasing order.  Try not to have too many light colors or dark colors in one spot, space them out.  

Step Four: Now that they are in the right order, paint on the numbers with white paint.  You can write with a white pen or even white out too.  I like the hand done look, but if you are afraid of it, use rubber stamps or number stickers.  I actually tried to copy the font of some number stickers I had (which look a bit like stamps). Let dry before working further.

Step Five: Cut 49 pieces of 3 to 5 inch lengths string or twine.  I used thick linen string left over from a weaving project.  The longer the lengths of twine, the longer your garland will be.  Keep all strings the exact same length.  Now cut 2 foot long lengths for the ends.

Step Six:  Using masking tape (since it is easy to rip into the right size and shape) tape the piece of string to the trees so the string come right out the top.

Step Seven:  Tie Tree #1's string, one of the 12" strings, and one of the empty short strings together in one knot.  The further from the ends the knot is, the closer together the trees will be.  Check to make sure it is half the distance you want the other tree to be from it.  Then pick up tree #2 and tie it's string to the end of the short one just tied on to #1, plus a new empty string.  Keep tying 3 strings together in order until you reach the end, then use the other 12" string to end it with.  Always keep the same length of string from the end of the knot on each one so that the trees are evenly spaced.

You can be done here if you like.  I then wrote different activities to do each day until Christmas (see Jordan's blog post) like build a snowman, visit the Christmas lights as Temple Square, read Luke 2.  You could put a different Christmas scripture for each day to read too.   

VARIATION: You could put a decorated Christmas tree on the back, so that each day you have one more decorated Christmas tree.  In that case, cut two trees out at the same time back to back so that they will be symmetrical.  Same with the stumps.  Then decorate with small ribbons and paper punches or glitter glue dots.

 

Organizing fabric

image from Linens and Laurel

Is organizing your fabric stash or sheets a problem for anyone else?  I've tried book cases, drawers, hanging shelves....WHY did I not think of this?  This is simple and smart.  Use hangers!  I've got hanging room in my little girls closet (which is actually more of our storage closet).  And I am so implementing this idea.

 

Rag Rugs

Sunset Rag Rug from roses&pearls

 New England Quilter

House of Are Rugs

Coffee Dyed from Mrs. Happy Housewife

Inspired Spaces

Sunshine and Shadow from Amanda Greer

We need a rug!  But they are so expensive!  Even used!  So...rag rug?  I think so.  I'm not sure if I want to do a braided rug or a crochet rug. Don't know how to crochet, but it seems like a smoother process maybe.  And do I do shades of white and cream (like the coffee rug) which goes with everything, or should I do shades and tints of green, which is my current color scheme.    

Back with an iMac

I'm back again to the land of blog.  We moved from Provo to North Salt Lake so my husband could be closer to school, but unlike our last rental, our apartment did not include free internet unless you go down to the clubhouse for wifi.  With a toddler who is quite the escape artist and only one working computer (the laptop that my husband uses at school and for homework when he gets home) I have not had oportunity to be involved in the online world for some time.  It's really been nice in the kind of way that going to a remote cabin with no tv or electronics to distract might be....but I've missed it. A Lot.

So.......now we have internet!  AND a new (used) 21.5" imac since our ancient power mac had turrets and then imploded.  And can I say....this machine is soooooo sexy:  

 

 

Monster Feet

I came across these monster feet made by The Bakers Wife on Craft Gossip the other day and just can't wait til my little one is big enough to do kids crafts like this with me.  HOW CUTE!  Check out her tutorial!