AUGH! Christmas Is Almost Here!

I always make an ornament for my kids

and an old high school friend.

What should I do this year?!

Welp, while checking out Autostraddle to see if they've got another

Orange is the New Black recap, I saw this article on making ornaments.

These ornaments caught my fancy...

...but I couldn't find the required plastic candy canes.

However!

I found cardstock gift tags at Target!

I tore strips of pink-striped fabric,

 glued a little bit at the tricky end curved parts......

... secured the end with hot glue,

 wrapped the strips tightly around the cardstock...

... hot-glued the end, 

and poked the sparkly thread through the hole to make a hanger.

It was speedy-quick,

and I love the end results! 

Wouldn't these look great in a variety of bright candy colors,

scattered all over a tree?

Kitties: So Cute, So Destructive

Do you have one of these?

Well, I have FIVE kitties in my house,

so ornaments tend toward the fabric or indestructible.

BUT!

My mom gave me some ornaments she and my father

bought for their first Christmas.

That makes them over fifty years old!

What to do with these fragile things?

Well, I finally figured out that I could keep them out of my kitties' reach

by putting them on the wall, instead of the tree.

Yep, now they're safely out of the way of my little beasts

so I don't have to worry about this:

Crafty Souvenirs

'Member when I headed to Ireland with my family?

 We brought back many fond memories,

but something we didn't bring back was a lot of kitschy souvenirs.

However, we did have a big ole bag of maps and pamphlets.

What to do?

Well, one thing I always make is a Christmas ornament for my kids.

And so when I saw this Pin on Pinterest...

...I though, woo hoo!

I used the die cut at work,

cut poster board for the center,

and chose pamphlets from the places the kids loved best.

The Glendeer Petting Zoo was for The Girl...

... and the Coach House for The Boy.

But there was still A LOT of maps and pamphlets left.

Then I realized, they would make terrific pennants!

So I got out my rotary cutter and ruler...

... cut them into pennant shapes....

... and strung them up to decorate my new guest room.

I love it!

So much more meaningful than a "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" beer mug.

Not Late. Just Very, Very Early for Christmas

I've made an ornament for my kids every year since they were born.  What to do for 2011?

Well, a Pinterest pin took me to this talented blogger's idea for Christmas ornaments:

Cute, right?

But I wanted to add a Dang It, Minnie! spin on them.

So this is what I came up with:

Everything is better with dancing skeletons and purple rickrack!