Scandinavian Inspired Stockings

Today I am sharing my Christmas stockings that were inspired by Scandinavian folk art with you.  I think that they look just perfect hanging over the fireplace which I wrote about in my last post.  I couldn't find any stockings that I liked in stores so I decided to make my own.  I was inspired by this Scandinavian looking stocking that I saw on Pinterest:

I made the stockings following this tutorial from the Fabricworm Blog.  It was very simple to follow.  I chose natural linen fabric for the main body of the stocking and white linen fabric for the cuff.  For the designs on the cuff I used my Silhouette Portrait and red heat transfer vinyl.  I used this design for a nordic bunting and just separated the shapes and recombined them to my liking.

I used a simple font for the monogram letters.  I ended up removing that border before I cut the designs because I thought it would be too busy on the cuffs and hard to line up.  Of course I had to flip the designs before I cut them since I was cutting on heat transfer vinyl.

Finally I added pom pom trim with hot glue.  I could of sewed it to the cuff but I like the look of it glued on the topside of the cuff.  

There wasn't enough of the white pom pom trim for all four stockings at Joann Fabric so I ended up buying red trim as well.  It was a happy accident because I like the variety with the trim.

You can see in the pictures of the mantel one of the decorations that I made for my daughter Ana's baptism from this past weekend as well as the cake topper from her cake nestled into the floral.  I hope to blog on that event in the near future.  You can also see some new furniture in the last photo.  Those are Agen chairs from Ikea.  I am currently in the process of making cushions for those chairs so I hope to blog on that and the rest of the new additions to the living room soon (which includes a new light fixture and a sectional).  I have also been doing a lot of Christmas sewing in addition to these stocking which include Christmas pjs for the girls, harem pants and a bandana bib for Ana, and a soft structure doll carrier for Lyla.  So many future projects to blog about!  Handmade holidays are the best!

Lip Balm Christmas Cards

 I can't believe that I am writing my last post of 2016!  This year has just flown by.  Today I am writing a short post on these cute Christmas cards that I included in the gifts to the teachers at my daughter's daycare.  This was a quick and easy project using my Silhouette Portrait.  This would also be an easy project to complete with photo editing software and a large hole punch if you don't have a
Silhouette machine. These cards are fun because they include a little gift presented in a fun way.  You can use the EOS brand lip balm for these cards but I have also seen other lip balm brands packaged like the EOS brand recently.

 I opened up Silhouette Studio and started by drawing a rectangle in the size that I wanted my cards. I made mine roughly 4" by 6".  Then I chose my designs and message using fonts that I had downloaded on my computer.  Some of the designs I used were print and cut designs so they were already colored in but you can check out this post on custom wine labels to see how to fill in the font and designs that aren't print and cut.

Next I drew a circle which was just a little under 1.5" in diameter and placed it where I wanted it as part of my design. 

I made sure to add registration marks in the registration marks window and then I printed my cards on white card stock.  Finally I cut the cards and circles out with my Silhouette Portrait.  I made sure that I had only the circles and rectangles selected for the machine to cut.  

 Finally I unscrewed the lip balms and carefully placed the side with the lip balm through the hole and then screwed on the cover.

This card was my favorite of the bunch!

No wait maybe the holly one was my favorite...or the wreath one!  Okay I really love them all so much that I can't even pick a favorite.

The rest of the gift included a chocolate bar and a Starbucks gift card.  You can think of it as kind of a winter survival kit.  Lip balm for those chapped winter lips, a warm drink to warm you up, and chocolate-because well, it's chocolate.  I hope you enjoyed this little Christmas card idea.  This idea would work great for any occasion.  This idea would be great for Valentine's Day too especially if you are trying to find a non-candy Valentine idea like my sock Valentine's from last February.

So I have been busy with many other projects which I hope to blog about eventually but here is one that I won't be writing a separate post on.

Isn't this little baby gown adorable?  This cute Mermaid Baby Gown is by Kate of See Kate Sew. The 0-3 month pattern is a free download if you sign up to receive her newsletter.  You can also buy the full pattern here and it includes 3-6 month, 6-12 month, and 12-18 month sizes as well.  I made it for a friend's new little girl.  

Well I hope you enjoyed all my posts in 2016.  I look forward to all the new ideas that I can share with you in 2017.  I have one big announcement coming early in 2017 that I can't wait to share with you guys but it isn't quite ready yet (and no I'm not pregnant ha ha!).

Infographic Christmas Letter

Merry Christmas a few days early!  This week I sent out Christmas cards so I wanted to write a short post on our Christmas card and Christmas letter.  I used Shutterfly for our Christmas card as usual. Last year I couldn't find any designs that I loved on Shutterfly so I shared how I created my own card design with Pixelmator in this post.  This year I found a design that was perfect so I didn't need to create my own again.  O Holy Night is one of my favorite Christmas carols.  In fact you may remember this art project that I created last year that used words from the carol.  I loved the blue color of the design too because it works so perfectly with the blues of our shirts in the photo that I chose for the front from Lyla's newborn photo session.  By the way, I want to give another shout out to Josette Hayes of exposures by j. linnea for taking this and all of Lyla's lovely newborn photos.  I look forward to many more photo sessions with her!

This year I decided to include a Christmas letter with our cards.  Sometimes, I just type some info on the back of the Christmas card itself but someone I follow on Pinterest was pinning infographic Christmas letters one day and I was intrigued.  I knew it would be fun to use my Pixelmator software to create my own infographic letter so I knew it was something I had to do.  So without further ado here is my version of an infographic Christmas letter:

I chose to use red and teal as my pops of color.  The best part of completing projects like this is the opportunity to use some of the fonts from my vast collection.  I have a serious problem with downloading fonts people! The house and heart were shapes available in Pixelmator itself and I found the U.S. map and other graphics on Google.  I just used the pen tool to color in the states that we visited this year.  Hopefully you will find some inspiration from my latest project!