Advent Calendar

Welcome December! This is my FAVORITE time of the year. I love everything about Christmas and now that I'm a mom I get to watch the little prince experience the wonders and joys of the holiday as well.

Part of the Christmas season for me is about tradition - decorating the Christmas tree, listening to Christmas music, dinner with my family - creating those memories that you take with you throughout your life.

The Advent calendar was not a part of my childhood Christmas tradition but I decided this would be a great way to reinforce the story of the birth of Christ in a way that was fun for my four year old. Of course I got the bright idea to create our own calendar instead of buying one. Why do I do this to myself? I don't know about you, but whenever I say "this will be easy" I have automatically set myself up for a much longer process than originally anticipated and this calendar was no exception...lol!

Using plain white posterboard, some Christmas fabric that I've had for a while, some thin ribbon and scrapbook paper I set to work on making a calendar that we can use for years to come.

The completed calendar

Each pocket has a card with a picture on it that corresponds to the story

I took a small Christmas photo album (10 pages) that I found in the dollar bin at Target last year and covered it in one of the remaining pieces of fabric; added the story to the pages and now we have a coordinating Christmas story book. Though you can't see it clearly here, the story is divided into 'days' to correspond to the numbered pockets.

A close-up of the pockets and the three different fabric designs used.

Even though this took longer than expected (we were three days behind), I'm happy that I now have something that I can use with my son for many more Christmases to come.

Off I go to work on a few other projects...let's hope that at least one or two more Christmas crafts will make its way into blog-world.

Join us at these linky parties:

Happy Thanksgiving!

I can't believe that I haven't posted in a month...time is moving way too fast and I'm having a hard time playing catch-up. I could go on and on (and on) about how I'm trying to balance my life and my blog but honestly that would be better suited for a therapy session (lol) so I'll just get down to it.

Let's talk Thanksgiving people!

The sweet little babies that I have the pleasure of teaching three days a week are the inspiration for this craft. It started on a trip to the Dollar Tree where I found some great craft pinecones. Immediately I thought these could be transformed into little turkey's for my kids' class Thanksgiving feast.

They were meant to be mine - 9 pinecones and 9 little friends in the class

I've never made a pinecone turkey before but I figured it couldn't be that hard. I looked around my craft area for things I could use and was able to come up with a pack of foam sheets, some pipe cleaners and wiggly eyes.

While my son watched a couple shows of Thomas the Tank Engine, I cut out circles for the head, oval-ish shapes for the feathers, triangles for the nose and a candycane sort of shape for the gobbler.

Now it was time to put these together. I pulled out my trusty glue gun and began the assembly process which looked like this....

Attached the circle for the head

The beak

The globbler

The eyes

The foam feathers and pipecleaner feet - what a cutie he is, right!?!

Since these are going to decorate our table I wanted them to be a bit more fun than this. I've been learning to create my own toppers for parties and events and this is my first creation (I'm very proud of how well these turned out).

How cute are these! Not bad for a first try! (smile)

Put together and this is what I have...


Even though this is a poor photo (sorry) this is too cute, if I do say so myself!

The kids won't get the humor of the picture but their parents sure will and what a sweet keepsake for them to add to their own Thanksgiving table.

There are many things that I am thankful for and when my life feels like it's spiraling out of control I take a step back and remember that I'm blessed to be able to do what I love - even if that means doing so only once a month. Little Blue's Room would like to wish you and your family a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving. Be a blessing to someone this holiday season and remember....

Before Meets After ~ Picture Frame

A trip to The Goodwill landed me with my next 'Before Meets After' piece - a 5x7 solid oak wood frame. Since Halloween is only a couple weeks away and I have so many crafts that I would love to do (but unfortunately won't get to before the holiday) I thought this would be the perfect piece for a simple transformation.

Switchy-Witchy.....

The frame

Look at the price tag - gotta love $.49!

Spray painted it black

Cut a piece of white textured scrapbook paper to size

Using my Silhouette and the free shape of the week, I cut out the witches hat in both black and orange

I created a witches hat using pieces from both cutouts and used some great rub-ons that I found in Target's dollar bin last year and you have.......


A great Halloween sign

Simple and easy! I can't think of a better way to add festive holiday decor to your home without breaking the bank.

Breast Cancer Awareness

I think we all know someone (or know someone who knows someone) who has been touched by cancer. Unfortunately, this is a subject I know more about than I would like. I lost my father in 1991 to prostate cancer and lost my mother in 2007 (just two months after the birth of my son) to esophageal cancer. And if that wasn't enough, while my mother was losing her battle my sister was diagnosed with breast cancer. I'm happy to say that my sister is a SURVIVOR - three years strong now!

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer during their lifetime. 38% of breast cancer cases are preventable. Join me as I do my part to help fight this disease....because sometimes the only way to win is to FIGHT LIKE A GIRL!



Ladies (and guys too) remember to 'Feel Your Boobies' by doing your self breast examinations and if you are over 40 have a mammogram. Let's help kick cancer's butt - early detection is the key!

Guitar Decoupage

I began working on this project sometime mid summer and ended up setting it aside to work on other things. I like the idea of decoupage so I wanted to try it out, but after finishing this I think the jury is still out on whether or not I'll attempt this again in the future. I wouldn't necessarily call this a crafting "fail" because I think it turned out as well as could be expected but I'm not terribly thrilled with it - I'll let you decide.

I took a plain canvas I had on hand from another project and painted it with red acrylic paint and let it dry

Using the music note scrapbook paper I used on the toy bin from this project, I cut out a guitar shape and small 1"x1" squares. I also used black scrapbook paper I had on hand to cut rectangle shapes to create a border. The edges were cut using decorative scissors

Using the same black paper, I cut triangle shapes to fill the remaining space. I used Mod Podge to glue each piece to the canvas then applied a medium layer as a sealer. I then finished it off with a coat of clear acrylic

I love to learn from my crafting - what I like, don't like and what needs improvement. For a first try, I think this is good so I'll try not to be too hard on myself about the end result.

Crafting is like life - sometimes you make mistakes but the growing happens when you learn from them. So I guess it's back to 'learning' for me (smile)!