Sunday, December 13, 2009

December Daily 12 and 13: Handmade Holidays and the Great Christmas FAIL of 2009

The Great Christmas FAIL of 2009

Remember our not-so-perfect Chrism tree? It's now our non-existant Chrism tree.


After tightening bulbs, replacing fuses, and having another set of lights go out on us, we sucked it up and took the tree back to the store, hoping to replace it with a non-pre-lit tree. We hit all five stores in town that sell artificial trees, and they were All. Cleaned. Out.

Last year, the stores were trying to pay their patrons to take the extra trees off their hands weeks after Christmas. This year? Apparently each store stocked only two trees.

Handmade Holidays

My holiday is not completely handmade, as I would have liked. In fact, it's probably only about 30% so. The gifts that are handmade, though, I'm extremely excited about. Some were made by me; others were great Etsy finds.

I got hair clips from Two Florida Girls as stocking stuffers for my nieces, and I was thrilled with the pendants I found for my step-nieces at Purple Cactus Studios.

I made this frame for one of my girlfriends. I'm going to put pics in it of our Mary Poppins Broadway extravaganza.


**Diane, stop reading here... I'm going to talk about your prezzie next.**

(The rest of you, scroll down.)




My MIL's gifts are 100% handmade. In addition to these and a scarf I have yet to finish knitting, I'm super excited about this gift, which I finished making for her today. My MIL went to Scotland a few months ago and has all these wonderful pictures. She has often commented that she would like to scrapbook, and she even dabbled in it a bit when her first grandchild was born. Not having seen her pictures yet (or being able to get duplicates of them), I decided to make a PAS (photo album scrapbook) for her. I have to say, I'm really pleased with the way it turned out, and I hope my MIL will enjoy showing her pictures off with it.

(click on the pictures to enlarge)






Products used: photo album, Target; paper, Deja Views Home Collection; rub-ons and gems, K & Company Blue Awning; journaling stickers, American Crafts Remarks Journaling Book 1 (black); chipboard, Heidi Swapp; journaling blocks, Colorbok Vintage Sticky Journal Stax; stickers, EK Success Travel Signs; letter stickers, American Crafts Thickers Giggles; embellishments, Making Memories Neutral Jigsaw Shapes; brads, Making Memories; plastic flowers, American Crafts Greenhouse

3 comments:

Kelly Miller said...

Sorry for the tree hassle. Maybe you can find a cheap fake indoor tree to decorate. Then you could use it all year. :)

I love the frame and the photo album. I love the idea of making a scrapbook out of it!

NeuroClassyMommy said...

What a sad mess about the tree! Maybe you can bring up your Charlie Brown tree... :( What a bummer! That Mary Poppins frame is ADORABLE though!!!

Anonymous said...

ack! i cannot believe it about your tree :(
it wasn't meant to be and something super spectacular is going to happen in it's place-patience is a beautiful thing and "it" will come :)

what a great idea with the scrapbook photo album! i love it!!!!! i think i may have to pull an all nighter and add one of these to my xmas gift list for my in laws austrailia trip!

xoxo
sara