Thank You Cards

My daughter and I needed some thank you cards for some Christmas presents.  She looooooves crafts, and I thought it would be fun to try and make cards together.  Being a middle child, we really need to spend some time together.  It was a bit frustrating with the 2 y.o. and 8 y.o. around, too, but we survived.  The cards could be a little cuter, but the concept is good for the future.  I found a few ideas on Etsy, one from a painting my bro & SIL have, and one I think on Google images, but can't find it now.

I thought this one would be fun using finger prints as the leaves.

 http://www.etsy.com/listing/79906072/baby-thank-you-cards-baby-shower-birds?ref=sr_gallery_8&ga_search_submit=&ga_search_query=thank+you+card&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_ship_to=US&ga_search_type=handmade&ga_facet=handmade

 http://www.etsy.com/listing/59118375/thank-you-cards-thank-you-notes-thank?ref=sr_gallery_1&ga_search_submit=&ga_search_query=thank+you+card&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_ship_to=US&ga_search_type=handmade&ga_facet=handmade

All the parts to these little birdies was a little difficult for my daughter to glue on the paper.  So, I had her glue the other birdies on the other cards.

Christmas Dress for Me

I started this dress a while ago and finished it Christmas Eve.  I thought if my girls get to wear a new dress to church on Christmas, then I should finish up this dress so I can wear one, too.

I used McCalls 5893

but modified it to come up with this:



The only problem is that when I took my measurements to cut it out, I was a bit smaller, so I feel a bit cramped in the bust.  Oh well.  Maybe I can wear it after I'm done nursing if it's not too big.  Oh, and I forgot to show the picture with the sleeve!  The sleeve is a straight 3/4 sleeve, but I put kind of a bell-cuff on it that goes to my wrist bones.

Wood Floor Cleaner

I've heard you can make your own hardwood floor cleaner.  I hope it's true because I just made some and tried it.  I found that you can mix 1/2 C white vinegar with a gallon of water.  I broke that down to 1 T white vinegar with 2 C water.    I read somewhere else that you can mix 1/4 C vinegar to 30 oz water.  That breaks down to approximately 2 T vinegar with 2 C water.  I thought I'd try the lesser amount of vinegar, though, this time.  It seemed to work very well.  I just sprayed the cleaner on the floor and wiped it off with an old terry-cloth towel.

I also read somewhere that you can make your own hardwood floor polish from 1/2 C vegetable oil with 1/2 C white vinegar.  I want to research it just a little more, though, because I'm a little worried about putting that much vinegar on the floor!

 *** Apparently you're not supposed to use vinegar or oil soaps on Bruce hardwood flooring, which this is because it ruins the finish.  Oh well, guess I won't use it anymore.  I've probably already ruined the finish, though, by using my Murphy oil soap.  Guess it doesn't help having little kids either....

More Ornaments I Want to Make

http://chocolateonmycranium.blogspot.com/2011/12/christmas-traditions-names-of-christ.html

Neighbor Gifts - Minty Hot Cocoa Mix

I love neighbor gifts.  I think they're fun.  I like to give them, and I like to get them.  I really enjoy nice, little things and feel a bit bad when people give really nice things.  I like the gifts mainly for the neighborly socialization -- to let people know you care and appreciate them.

This year, I thought I'd go really easy and just make some hot cocoa mixes.  I'm going with 2 recipes.  I adapted them from the one in the December 2011 Friend Magazine.

Minty Hot Cocoa
(just add water)

1 C powdered milk
1 C powdered sugar
1/4 C cocoa powder
1-2 drops peppermint oil

Add 8 oz. hot water to 1/2 C mix.

Minty Hot Cocoa
(just add milk)

1 C powdered sugar
1/4 C cocoa powder
1 T coffee creamer
1-2 drops peppermint oil

Add 6 oz. hot milk to 1/4 C mix.

Ornaments I'd like to make -- just not this year

http://crafterhours.blogspot.com/2011/12/fast-easy-inexpensive-cute-photo.html

Homemade Crayons from Molds

I didn't think this project would be blog-worthy, but we learned a couple things I wanted to jot down...

I mainly used Ashley's instructions from Make It and Love It (broke crayons in molds and melted in the oven at 250 -- but ours took A LOT longer for some reason - 20-30 minutes?); let the melted crayons sit for a few minutes; then we put them in the freezer like Jill said from Homemade by Jill.


The funny thing was, we mixed our broken Crayola and Prang crayons with some of our junky crayons from the dollar store and restaurants.  It was interesting because the different consistencies separated!  So, there's a layer of wax with basically no color on one side of the crayon, and very nice color on the other!  How funny!  I thought the different crayons would mix and we'd get a mediocre crayon.