Handmade Christmas Crafts

Hi friends,
Welcome back! Does it seem a little early to be talking about Christmas crafts? Nah. We need some time to make them, right? I love the idea of giving a handmade gift to friends and family each year. This is the time of year I start thinking about what craft I could make that others would like and appreciate. The weather is getting cooler and I'm finding myself inside a little bit more. Perfect craft time.

Past craft ideas:

Two years ago I took my kids to a fall festival at the beach in October during their fall break and one of the craft stations had them making 'God's eye' or 'Cat's Cradle' yarn projects. Do you remember these from camp?

 

Well, I went crazzzzyyyyy for this craft idea. I made ornaments out of yarn for 3 months to give as gifts and even did a whole tree theme in my family room with this idea and decorated a burlap garland piece over a threshold to our music room.

 

 

Here's where you can see pictures (from my old blog) of our family room God's Eye themed tree- I called in 'Winter Wonderland' and all of the ornaments were blue, white, or silver:

 

http://cottagebluedesigns.blogspot.com/2015/12/christmas-tour-2015.html

 

 



Last year, I was super motivated to learn how to make these sweet crochet snowflake ornaments. I must have watched this sweet lady's video tutorial a 100 times at least! You will see my attempts at this craft on my Cottage Blue Blog link above on my Christmas tree.

Needless to say, I only made a few because I was teaching myself how to crochet while trying to make these snowflake ornaments.

Here's the video tutorial-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSefNeFfuTI

So......what's this year's craft? Oyster shells. I was first inspired while at a restaurant at the beach that had oyster shell chandeliers. I added some oyster shells to a light fixture in my house. Recently I picked up tons more oyster shells while at the beach at the local oyster shell recycling center- let me tell you this was messy, disgusting, gross business! Those shells are getting a bleach bath before I touch them again. But I have a bunch of ideas of craft projects to use with the oyster shells that I will use to decorate my home during Christmas and to give as gifts over the holidays.

Stay tuned.....

Do you like to give handmade gifts too? What have you given? Or received that you really appreciated?

Happy decorating & living,
Megan

October

Hi friends,
October has been filled with work trips and pleasure trips (one interrupted by Hurricane Matthew) for me hence things have been quiet on the blog. I wanted to pop in today and catch you up.

Despite my hardly being home in October I did sneak in two furniture make-overs last weekend.

This beauty was for a sweet returning client that bought a small dresser from me a while ago for her young daughter and was wanting a larger dresser for her master bedroom. She requested blue and since the wood was so beautiful on this gorgeous dresser I decided to only partially paint it:

 

 

I used the same Napoleonic Blue chalk paint by Annie Sloan (from the dresser) to make over this trim work desk which I additionally white waxed. My intention was to sell it by while working on it I had the brainstorm that if I kept it, I could free up all of the kitchen counter space by making this new piece of our technology charging zone. Brilliant! Since we are making over our kitchen currently (new backsplash and newly chalk painted cabinets)- I'm super excited about clutter free countertops!

 

 



Back to Hurricane Matthew. As many of you know, my kids (5th grader and 3rd grader) attend a neighborhood school that is on the year round schedule, meaning their summer break is very short and they have breaks throughout the school year. We were on an intended week long break at the beach in South Caroline when Hurricane Matthew decided to appear so the mandatory evacuation sent us home. My daughter and I came back to the same beach this week as it's her last week of fall break to survey the damage and resume our fun in the sun time.

 

Most of the beach home walk ways were destroyed, luckily not where we are:

 

 

Lots of flooding in the area and tons of trees and branches down. We weren't able to go very far on our favorite bike path through the woods:

 





Back to our mini-vacation which includes lots of bike riding, walking on the beach, eating yummy seafood, card playing, puzzle making, coloring, and riding in the hammock.

Happy October Y'all!
I'll be back to some more furniture make-overs and Thanksgiving decorating in November.
Megan