[Southern Lights]

We started off our day by just being lazy and hanging around the house. In the early afternoon we decided to finally get off of our bottoms and go run some errands. We ended up at Micheal's, where they had a HUGE sale on their Christmas foam crafts. I found some awesome little Christmas trees and ornament stickers for a couple bucks each, so we picked those up and had a great time piecing everything together! I punched holes in the tops of the trees so we could string them up and make a garland. M had so much fun :)

 

After we finished, M, dad, and I all hopped in the car to go to Southern Lights. They have this awesome setup at the horse park with millions of Christmas lights... it takes probably 10-15 minutes to drive through... I'm not really sure what the distance is. At the end of the driving tour, it spits you out into the parking lot for the visitors center, which is where they have a bunch of fun Christmas activities to enjoy. They have model trains, a petting zoo, pony and camel rides, a mini-train ride, arts and crafts vendors, awesome refreshments like kettle corn, hot chocolate, and funnel cakes, and you can even visit with Santa. We've been going to this for the past 4 or 5 years, and I always look forward to it! I took lots of pictures this year:

The last picture is from the mini-train ride. Can you tell that she was super-excited??

We are seriously getting into the Christmas spirit around here! I think next on our list should be making a gingerbread house. I am SO GLAD I made the choice to quit working right before the holidays. Man, it sure feels good to actually enjoy the holiday season for once!

More Gifting

I didn't realize that it had been so long since the last post. Three weeks! I'm still not in a routine. It's almost like I still think I'm on vacation, even though I haven't worked for nearly 2 months. I think that I had worked so hard for so long that it's making me want to make up for all of that now. Hah! I have been very busy, though. I'm still in serious Christmas crafting mode. I'm nearly done with my first major gift basket. It is INCREDIBLE. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but seriously. It is incredible. I made monogrammed coasters (with my amazing Silhouette SD), a coffee mug with a coordinating monogram with 2 bags of homemade hot chocolate on a stick, homemade microwave popcorn, peppermint bark, homemade playdough for the kiddo, a Santa key, homemade brown sugar scrub for the momma, and a homemade caramel sauce. Did you catch a theme? Yes, everything is homemade.

I made a cute little custom clipboard for my 5-year old niece. She's very in to school, and loves practicing her letters and numbers. I thought it would be a lot of fun to give her a personalized clipboard with a pencil attached so she can carry it around the house to have something to bear down on while she practices.

I took a really pretty piece of scrapbook paper, and measured it against the clipboard. I marked the corners with a pencil, and just made simple cuts with a craft knife. 

I used some spray adhesive and matched up all of the edges. Unfortunately I am not good  suck at cutting around the actual "clip" part of a clipboard. I've tried it before and it was a total failure. I'm playing it safe here by leaving the top part uncovered.

After that, I found some coordinating paper to trim the edge. I measured the edge and corner on the right side, then cut around the cute little flowers. Once again using the spray adhesive, I attached the border to the side.

After that, I found some polka-dot stickers to spell out her name so I could personalize it for her.

What I ended up doing with the top was wrapping some brown grosgrain ribbon around the top and tying a pencil to it with some jute. I'll add a picture soon of the finished product. So cute!

Next on my list of to-do's: more coasters, more personalized coffee mugs, felt finger puppets, homemade dog treats, and snow globes.

So much to do!! I'll finish up now so that I can get my rest! I have a very busy next two days ahead of me.