Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts

Monday, December 23, 2013

The Christmas Home Tour 2013

Merry Christmas!

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and I thought I'd give a little tour of our home all decorated. Seeing as this is our first Christmas in our first home, I thoroughly enjoyed decorating the house for the holidays.

When we first pulled our Christmas decor up from the basement, my husband said I had more than enough to decorate with. Once I had it all out and up though, he changed his tune saying, "I guess this house is a lot bigger than our apartment was." That said, I had all the excuse I needed to purchase some new staple decor items. Oh, how terrible, right?

I hope you enjoy the tour and happy holidays!
Miranda











Wednesday, December 18, 2013

December Daily Update

I apologize for that small hiatus. The holidays have been keeping me plenty busy and so has PaperLark Studio. I hit a huge milestone in November - I made more money with PaperLark than I did at the daycare. For me, this accomplishment is HUGE! I'm inching closer and closer to my goal of doing it full time. It is safe to say I have some very high hopes for 2014!

I haven't had too much time for anything crafty for two reasons - I've been wrapping a gazillion presents and  have devoted all my free time to my December Daily album. I'm absolutely loving doing a December Daily album although I'll be the first to admit it can be intense. It's kind of like dedicating yourself to working out every day except a lot more fun. I try to make myself sit down for 10-15 minutes each night and scrap a page from the previous day. Doing so, I've been able to keep up without a hitch.

I thought I'd share some of my pages, but before I do, look at the adorable presents I made my kids at work! Well, the wrapping anyway...


I found these adorable free printable tags over at Creative Index. I grabbed some washi tape and paper bags and ta-da!

Now for your December Daily inspiration...




Happy Holidays!
Miranda


Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Burlap Christmas Stockings

The following is a guest post I wrote for Sugar Bee Crafts which was published on Dec. 7th! I hope you enjoy!

Sick of the red, felt stockings from the dollar store? Me too! That's why I made these super easy burlap Christmas stockings. 



Happy Holidays! My name is Miranda and I blog over at Mr. and Mrs. Winslett. There you can find me sharing projects, tutorials, recipes and my latest Project Life pages. Be sure to stop by and follow along!

Photo

Let's get started already!



What You Need:
Burlap
Muslin
Sewing Essentials (sewing machine, scissors, straight pins, etc.)
And maybe a hot glue gun...

In the interest of keeping it real, I'll admit my first attempt at making my own Christmas stocking was a complete, epic fail. 

I used a template I had pinned a while back and it just didn't work with the burlap. Why? I can't really say, but I felt the shape was just awkward. 

Being wary of using another printable template from the Internet, I used my old felt stocking as a template and it worked perfectly! 

Also, a quick word about how much burlap and muslin you might need - I purchased one yard of both burlap and muslin. If I had not messed up at my first attempt, I'd estimate that I could've gotten 4-5 stockings out of my burlap. As for the muslin, you'll need maybe 1 1/2 yards total because you use the muslin to make the cuff at the top of the stocking. 

Woosh!

Step One. Fold the burlap in half, pin the old stocking on the burlap and cut around the old stocking leaving about 1/2 inch of seam allowance. Repeat with muslin.

[[NOTE: I advise folding the burlap in half to save you from having to cut and pin twice. Plus, the piece you cut will be identical which is crucial for a decent looking stocking!]]



Step Two. You should have two stocking shapes of burlap and two stocking shapes of muslin. Pin your two pieces of burlap together and sew leaving the top of the stocking open. Do the same with the muslin.

[[NOTE: Because of the unraveling nature of burlap, be sure to give it a full 1/2 inch seam allowance. I learned this with my epic fail stocking.]]



Step Three. Take the open top of the stocking and fold it down about half of an inch down. Pin and sew. Do this with both the muslin and burlap.

[[NOTE: Fold the muslin to the outside and the burlap to the inside as shown.]]




Step Four. Slip your muslin stocking down into your burlap stocking lining up the tops. Pin and sew.


Step Five. Cuff time!  Fold your muslin in half again and lay your stocking on top of the muslin. Leaving a good inch from the stocking's sides, cut a chunky rectangle from the muslin around the stocking. My chunky rectangle was about 6 inches tall. 



Step Six. Fold over the top widths of the rectangle about half an inch, pin and sew. Fold over one height end of your rectangle strip, pin and sew. 

[[NOTE: Make sure when you fold over the widths that you have a straight line.]] 



Step Seven. Here is where I cheat...plug up that hot glue gun and attach that cuff. After doing a couple of these stockings, I've found it easier to hot glue the cuff on instead of sewing it. Ha! To do it, glue the finished side of your cuff to the seam on the side of your burlap stocking. Continue gluing until you hit the seam on the other side of the stocking. Once you get there, let's talk about making the loop to hang your stocking.



Step Eight. Cut a strip of burlap about 4-5 inches long and 1-2 inches wide. Fold in half length-wise and sew. Fold that in half width-wise and glue together to make a loop. Glue your loop in between the stocking and the cuff on the backside seam of the stocking. If that got confusing, hopefully this picture will help.



Step Nine. More than likely, you will have some excess fabric from your cuff. It's definitely better to have excess fabric than not enough. To finish your cuff, cut off the excess fabric about 1-1 1/2 inches from the stocking. Fold it under and hot glue against the seam to close the cuff. 

There you have it! One great thing about burlap is that it's pretty pliable. Therefore, you just have to play around with the burlap in your fingers to get it to hang the way you want it. 



Now then, hang your stocking up on the mantel! I've got two down and two to go. 




If you enjoyed this tutorial, then be sure to follow me and my blog via the social media below so you don't miss anything. 

You didn't hear it from me, but there just might be a tutorial next week on a no-sew burlap tree skirt that would compliment these stocking rather nicely!

See you then!
Miranda from Mr. and Mrs. Winslett


Monday, November 11, 2013

Curator of 60 (FREE) Holiday Fonts



Being a creator of invitations, announcements and anything stationary, I like to consider myself a curator and lover of fonts - especially free fonts.

That said, I thought I'd share my arsenal of free holiday font collections. I have a handful of blogger that I follow who are always pairing fonts wonderfully so be sure to check them out: Lia Griffith, Ella Claire and Yellow Bliss Road.

Free Christmas Script Fonts

Free Display Fonts For Holidays


1. Lavanderia {here}
2. Santa's Sleigh {here}
3. Contribute {here}
4. Christmas Tree {here}
5. St Nicholas {here}
6. Freebooter Script {here}
7. Christmas Cheer {here}
8. Hultog Snowdrift {here}
9. Chalk Hand Lettering {here}
10. Always Here {here}
11. Xmas tfb Christmas {here}
12. Holly & Berrie {here}
13. FoglihtenNo01 {here}
14. Janda Cheerful Script {here}
15. Xiomara {here}
16. Happy New One {here}

12 Font Combos for Holidays Cards and Invitations - Take the guesswork out of choosing fonts with another fabulous font combos round up from Yellow Bliss Road!


If you liked my collections of holiday fonts, be sure to follow me via the social media below so you don't miss any more!

Happy creating!
Miranda





Sunday, December 30, 2012

12 Dates of Christmas: RECAP!


Greetings readers!

Hiatus is officially over. Woot woot! So, jumping right in...

The 12 Dates of Christmas were so much fun and rewarding for us. Besides the fun you have already seen, we went Christmas light seeing, baked cookies, had a mini-Christmas party, decorated rice krispy houses and went to see a Christmas play at the local theater. 

The holidays are busy - plain and simple. With our "dates," we were able to slow down and enjoy our first married Christmas together.

As for Christmas itself, we had such a wonderful one. We feasted on wonderful food:


Spent it with our HUGE and beautiful family:


And Bentley (somehow) managed to be good enough this year to earn a visit from Santa:

 

I've got a small side story to wrap it all up for you. Among the toys Bentley received from Santa, he got a Grinch toy. The Grinch slips over an empty plastic bottle and makes glorious crinkling noises when played with. Of all toys, I think Bentley's favorite was the Grinch because it gets the most playtime. 

Yesterday morning, Bentley began crying in the bathroom. When I walked into the bathroom (after relentless wailing from my fur baby), I found this:


Poor Grinch had mysteriously found himself floating face down in the potty. Bentley - being a Yorkie - could not rescue Grinch from the potty because he was too little to reach him. As you can see from Bentley's face in this picture, it is a complete mystery how Grinch ended up in the potty or why Grinch would want to swim in the potty. Bad Grinch!

Until next time!
Miranda