Popular Post Re-cap

2012 is ending and all around people are doing those famous "Countdowns", you know the ones 'Hottest Couples', 'Richest People', 'Best Songs', etc.  So I decided to take a look at the stats on my blog to see which of my posts were the most popular and thought I would share with you the top four.  So without further ado...here is Little Blue's Room 2012 Top Blog Posts Countdown!

 #4 ~ Party Like a Pirate



#3 ~ It's All in the Polish



#2 ~ A Mad Hatter Tea Party



And the most popular blog posts is {drum roll please}....

#1 ~ Aaargh!



So many wonderful things to remember in 2012 and so many more wonderful things to look forward to in 2013!

Happy New Year!

Christmas Treat Tree {gift for his teachers}

My son has two awesome Kindergarten teachers.  So for Christmas we wanted to show them how much we appreciate all of their hard work with something homemade.  I looked around my craft room to see what I had to work with and I remembered that I had these great paper mache bags/boxes that I bought on clearance in Hobby Lobby after Christmas last year.

Now, what to do with them...hmmm.  Since these are going to be Christmas gifts, what says Christmas better than 'Santa'?  An idea has been born {haha}, so off to Michaels for some scrapbook paper to cover these in.

I didn't want the traditional fire engine red, so I opted for a deeper red with a shiny black and silver accent.  At this point my creative juices began to flow and I decide that I would like to turn this into a 'treat tree'.  Another trip to Michaels for styrofoam trees (my stash was depleted on the 12 Days of Christmas tree here) and some hunter green spray paint.

Sorry, but I don't have pics of the process for the Santa box.  Most of this was done late at night and finding sufficient light in this house for photos is next to impossible...LOL.  The steps I took to cover the boxes are these: (1) I took the handles off, (2) I measured each side of the box and cut the red paper down to size, (3) using Aleene's tacky glue I glued the cut pieces of red paper to each side including the bottom, (4) I added very thin black ribbon around the top and seams of the box, (5) I cut the black paper in two inch strips and glued them around the box in four separate pieces {two long/two short}, (6) I then cut the silver paper in a 3 inch x 3.5 inch square and cut out a square in the middle, (7) I cut a small strip to make the prong and glued it to the silver square, (8) I added a little bling with the crystal jewels on the belt {even Santa likes a little sparkle, don't ya think?}, (9) using a long craft stick I inserted it into the bottom of the tree, and (10) I glued the stick tree into another piece of styrofoam inside the box, filled the box with red and green tissue paper.

Here it is almost finished.

Now for the treats!  After checking Pinterest, I found an easier version of a cake pop -- an Oreo pop found {here} from the Camp Clem blog.  I bought double stuff Oreos, a box of candy canes, vanilla candy melts and wooden skewers (these have a sharp edge and work better than lollipop sticks since they needed to be stuck in the styrofoam tree) and with the help of the little prince we got to work.

I melted, dipped, dunked and refrigerated the Oreo pops and after they chilled a bit was able to bag them. Now here is where a brilliant idea was great in theory but poorly executed.  I didn't think about how heavy these Oreo pops would be so the plan was to have ten of these around the cone in three layers.  I learned very quickly that I didn't factor in the weight and after five of them they almost toppled over...YIKES!  Removing some and choosing to just put them in the middle to evenly distribute the weight, this is what I ended with.

This is definitely not how I envisioned this project to end up...not even close, but when have any of my projects turned out exactly like I envisioned them -- hahaha!

The good side of this was that his teachers really like it and were thankful for our generosity.  One of them even said she would try the Oreo pops with her two year old daughter.  Now to me, that's a success!

From my family to yours, we wish you a Merry Christmas!

Where we are partying!

Christmas Trees

Have you seen all the cute Christmas tree crafts happening in the blogsphere and on Pinterest?  I even saw some in Hobby Lobby and thought this might be a quick and easy craft to try my hand at.

Looking through my craft supplies, I found a styrofoam tree, jewelry wire, some yarn and scrapbook numbers.

With a bottle of glue, I began wrapping and gluing the yarn around the foam.  At this point, I became so involved I neglected to take additional pictures until it was finished so here's a look at my "12 Days of Christmas" Christmas tree.

I've since decided to remove the beaded circle from the top of this.  I didn't quite like the way it looked and it never sat well up there either.

Once I finished this one, I did another...here is Tutu {Much} Tree

Happy Holidays to you and yours from me and mine!

Christmas Countdown

Christmas truly is the most wonderful time of the year!  I love everything about the holiday - the cooler weather, the decorating, the time with family and friends - simply everything about Christmas makes me happy.  Now that I'm a mom, I love experiencing the holiday through the eyes of my son -- his excitement is contagious!

Anyone who knows my son knows that he has a love for numbers {I see a math whiz in the future}.  Now that he's older and in "big school" I thought a great way to gear up for Santa's arrival would be with a countdown calendar.  There is nothing like the nearly unbearable anticipation as you wait for the big day {and hopefully big presents} counting down to the magical moment when Santa visits.  Here is our countdown to Christmas....

I began this project by using a wood tile board that I bought from Walmart a while back.  I thought these would make great craft projects for the future so I bought three of them, one I used on my It's Fall board.  As it is with many of my crafts, I try to use what I have on hand (if at all possible) so this craft project didn't cost me a thing {dancing a little 'two step'...lol}!

I painted the base red, the frame green and seven of the tiles in a creamy white.  The remaining two tiles I spray painted with black chalkboard paint.

Searching through my craft supplies I found a can of glitter spray paint.  I thought since this is a Christmas craft why not add a little sparkle.  I've never used this product before so I had no idea how it would turn out.  The spray was a little uneven so there are places that are a little more "sparkly" than others, but I think it adds character to the board, don't you?

I wanted to add words to it so I pulled out the vinyl and my Silhouette machine and got to work.   Seriously, buying the Silhouette was the best investment I've ever made in my crafting.  I don't think I could love anything {inanimate that is} more than I do this machine...haha.  I also decided to design one of the squares into a Christmas tree using felt and the other into a gift using ribbon and a button.

With a little hot glue on the back of each well placed square, I have my finished Countdown to Christmas board hanging and ready for use!

Note: I took my son's chalkboard eraser and "erased" over the two chalkboard squares before writing on them in order to keep the numbers from making a permanent mark.

Now we are ready and I for one can't wait for the big day {as it also happens to be my birthday!}  Here's hoping you and your family have a great countdown to Christmas.

Linking up with these great parties:

Halloween Sweet Treat

Are you scrambling around trying to come up with a fun treat to send with your little one to school for their Halloween/Fall party? My best customer found herself in such a bind and contacted me for some help. Thanks to Pinterest and its 'Pin-spiration', I was able to find several ideas to show her and she chose this cute little treat.

Pumpkin Treat from Parenting.com

To create these all you need is orange tulle, orange candy {we chose candy pumpkins due to the cost of orange jelly beans....very expensive, who knew!?!}, and green pipe cleaners. After cutting the tulle to size, each one was filled with ten pumpkins apiece {yes, I counted them out...giggle}, tied closed with string and wrapped with a pipe cleaner. I decided to add the little "leaf" effect as well. Using my computer, I created a tag to attach to each one -- easy peasy!

Cute, simple and fun! If you need a quick solution be sure to try this one.

Little Blue's Room is having fun at these linky parties: