Crafting: Holiday Card Placemats DIY

Have you found a use for that beautiful stack of Christmas cards? It seems such a shame to throw them away...  When I was a little girl my grandmother gifted our family a stack of placemats she'd made from holiday cards she's collected. On the reverse side you can see handwritten notes from the senders. They were from the old days when greeting cards were purchased in boxed sets and each addressed and signed by hand. I remember my mother struggling to find just the right Christmas card to send. I confess I miss those days a bit but, it's pretty great that we can now design our own perfect greeting cards and send and receive updated family photos. 

In any event, you may have a stack of holiday cards you can't part with. Or you may just enjoy the look of these kitchy placemats and want some of your own. In either case, I've got a quick how-to for you.

These placemats could be really cute, and entirely different looking made with pictures of your family and friends, but I wanted to duplicate the old school Christmas card look. So I ran out after Christmas and purchased some boxed cards on clearance. In addition I searched for vintage Christmas card images online and printed some of those on cardstock. 

The first step is to gather those cards and images and punch them out in circle shapes. I used a Martha Stewart Crafts Simple Circle Cutter tool and some Uchida circle punches in 2.5" and 3" sizes. I found that bigger is better so the circle cutting tool was really handy.

Once you have all your images cut out, the fun part begins! This is a great project to do with your kids! Have them sign and back the reverse side.

You'll need a 12"x18" sheet of paper as the background for this project. I used a finger painting paper pad, which was the perfect size.

I found it easiest to start with the bigger images, glue them down (glue sticks are perfect!) and then fill in with the smaller circles, but it's a good idea to try a layout first to plan your design.

You'll want to cover all the white space with your holiday card images but leave a scalloped oval shape overall.

The next step is to trim the background paper around the scalloped border.

Then laminate the placemats to protect them and make them easy to wipe off. I used a local school supply store but office supply stores also provide lamination. Or maybe you have your own laminator at home.

After laminating you'll need to trim the excess plastic close to the scalloped edges of each placemat. Be sure to leave about a 1/4" border to ensure the lamination stays sealed.

Now you're all set for next Christmas with some cute and slightly kitchy placemats!

Sewing: Nightgowns and PJs for Christmas

Hope you all had a merry Christmas and are gearing up for a great new year! I've loved all the family time and celebrating traditions with cousins. It's so much fun to have our girls ask about our traditions--they are theirs now too. One of them has become a sewn gift from me to my girls. Scarlett asked if I would be sewing something for them again this year, "because it's a tradition." Well, yes!

You can see some of the things I sewed for them in past years here:  the Ultimate Cuddle (minky) blankets, Waldorf dolls, Waldorf doll wardrobes.  This year I was inspired by Katy's Night Before Nightgown, designed for The Sew What Club. I thought my two youngest girls would love a feminine nightgown. I decided to make them in silky fabrics to up the femininity. I also used satin ribbon for the front panel trim and sleeve casings. (I loved the contrast casings Kelly sewed.) 

Now my first born is not such a fan of silky, girly things, so for her I had to come up with something else handmade. We had just seen the new Star Wars movie and I ran into this incredible fluffy fleece Star Wars fabric at Jo-Ann and I knew some pjs would be the perfect thing. I made another version of these fleece pajamas with my Bateau Neck Top pattern. 

Some ewoks may have crept into these shots too. 

These are the new morning uniforms at our house. The force is strong here.

Sewing: Christmas Tree Pillow for WeAllSew

We all have our lists of things we want to do to celebrate Christmas, and if you are similar to me you toss half of them along the way. Time is short and I keep telling myself I don't want so many projects that I miss just spending time with people! Well this tree pillow is a quick sew that will make you feel like you added a handmade touch to your holidays. It's perfect for a gift too.

I created this project for the BERNINA blog, WeAllSew. They have a great series of projects and daily giveaways this month for the Christmas countdown. You can find my Felt Christmas Tree Pillow tutorial here.

I just love wool felt and felted pom poms. This pillow has a hand stitched look thanks to a specialty stitch option on my BERNINA 580--the only actual hand stitching is on the pom poms. 

I hope you are making progress on your holiday list and enjoying time with the ones you love.

FYI: Happy New Year! (and some thoughts on Christmas)

With school out for the girls and family in town, the past two weeks have felt like a much longer time between 2014 and 2015. It was endless Saturdays with lots of hosting and playing and some intense deadlines to finish presents and get things ready for January. It's kind of nice to get back into the routine. I had a couple hours to myself yesterday to sit down and start a list of things to do this month and this year now that the holidays are fading.

But before I launch into business as usual I wanted to wish you a happy new year! I hope your holiday celebrations in December were beautiful and warmed by love.  I found that the things that meant the most to me this Christmas were Advent Sundays singing Christmas carols as a family, listening to Handel's Messiah and the Nutcracker all day long, attending Christmas plays and concerts with our girls, having them help me decorate gift tags and wrap presents, and gathering as a family to eat and play. 

I'm finding that I enjoy the shopping and the buying and the gift lists less and less (unless it's a Sub for Santa activity). Less of that really is more. I loved finding inspiring ideas for incorporating the story of Christ throughout the month (such as these advent ornaments and this Christ Themed Advent) and had the girls help me paint our own wooden ornaments to use next year. Like many of you I'm sure, I tried to take stock during the hustle to determine which activities really add to the season and which detract. One of my goals for 2015 is to fine tune our Christmas celebration to make it reflect more the true story of Christmas. If there are gifts given I want them to be heartfelt and needed and given from the heart, ideally with a bit of sacrifice. This year I sewed little clothes to go with the Waldorf dolls I made for my girls last year, and they were the gifts I enjoyed giving the most because they were a labor of love and creativity. I wish every gift I gave felt that way. For most of us "needs" aren't very material, and material "wants" are pretty easily fulfilled, so they don't lend themselves to purchased gifts in very a fulfilling way.

The best gifts, especially at Christmas, aren't purchased. They are acts of unconditional love and kindness and selflessness. I was reminded of this when my husband shared something from a lesson he gave in our church the Sunday before Christmas. This encouragement from President Howard W. Hunter is such a beautiful reminder of how we can truly recognize the season:

"This Christmas, mend a quarrel. Seek out a forgotten friend. Dismiss suspicion and replace it with trust. Write a letter. Give a soft answer. Encourage youth. Manifest your loyalty in word and deed. Keep a promise. Forgo a grudge. Forgive an enemy. Apologize. Try to understand. Examine your demands on others. Think first of someone else. Be kind. Be gentle. Laugh a little more. Express your gratitude. Welcome a stranger. Gladden the heart of a child. Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth. Speak your love and then speak it again.

Christmas is a celebration, and there is no celebration that compares with the realization of its true meaning—with the sudden stirring of the heart that has extended itself unselfishly in the things that matter most." (“The Gifts of Christmas,” Ensign, December 2002).

In fact, "extending oneself unselfishly in the things that matter most" is a really great resolution for the year.

Best wishes in giving yourself to the things that matter most to you in 2015!

(This year's Christmas Card featured three of the people who matter most to me, in a photo from one of my favorite projects this past year.)

Sewing: Game Day Jerseys for the Holidays

I opted out of sewing Christmas dresses again this year. I love doing it but decided to make casual clothes for the girls instead. This decision was certainly influenced by the fact that I was wrapping up my new sewing pattern, The Game Day Jersey.

I made Game Day Jersey dresses for Scarlett and Tess.

And a Game Day Jersey tee for Audrey.

The dresses are sewn with Girl Charlee Fair Isle Deer jersey and coordinating solid jersey from Jo-Ann.

Audrey's tee is sewn with Girl Charlee Glasgow Plaid in black and red and black jersey from Jo-Ann.

And the darling puppy was borrowed from our neighbor! 

Hope your holiday projects are shaping up nicely! I'm down to some last minute sewing--trying to see how much I can get done by Christmas Eve. It's always interesting to see what gets finished compared to my expectations. We'll see.

FYI: Merry Christmas 2013

Merry Christmas, Friends! I hope you've all been enjoying some time making memories with friends and family. The best part about this holiday for me is gathering. We have spent a lot of time with family making the dishes we've enjoyed for years, eating meals together, singing, playing games--and a first for our girls this year, skiing! 

I was happy I managed to squeeze in some traditional cookie baking so we've had plates of them sitting around to nibble on. I also managed to sew some handmade gifts, which I'll share in a bit. Didn't manage to finish new Christmas dresses so I think they'll be New Year's dresses. (Thankfully they aren't red and green.) But the compromises were worth it for more time with people (a lesson I keep trying to learn when facing a long list of tasks for people!).

We mailed out a Christmas card again this year (one of my favorite traditions)--this time of my own design. You may recognize what the girls are wearing: a combination of Easter dresses and the pom-pom trimmed Bateau Neck Dress. 

It's a good time of year to reflect on our many gifts. The people who enrich our lives and the blessings we've received and the faith that sustains us. I'm thankful too for the opportunity to make things and share them with you.

Best wishes this holiday season for the things you are celebrating, and happy new year!

Sewing: Winnie Shrug in Shearling

I'm busy busy getting ready and enjoying time with family this Christmas season. But I wanted to pop in and say hello.

We've had snow upon snow, which is welcome this time of year. Makes me want to stay home and turn up the carols. Hopefully I won't have to venture out again after one last quick(?) trip tomorrow morning. Then I can stay home with the girls, hopefully bake another batch of cookies, and finish the projects I'm sewing this year.

My list of presents to make is a bit ambitious given the timeframe but I'm doing my best. Which for me this year also means choosing the more important things, such as time with family and friends. I had to shelve the Christmas dresses (drat! scrapped them altogether last year...) until immediately following Christmas. It will be OK. They'll work in January. But I did finish this little shrug for Audrey. She was so excited about it because it's cozy! It's a Winnie Shrug--a pattern I've got in the works (Update: now available here!) based on the original boiled wool version I sewed for Tess during Katy's Once Upon a Thread a couple years ago. I also made one for Scarlett a few weeks ago during the Winter Wonderland tour. Hopefully this will be one of the things I finish up at the start of the New Year. Can't believe it's almost here! We'll see what gets done...

Best wishes to you in your hustle and bustle for the holidays.

FYI: Merry Christmas 2012

 

Merry Christmas! I hope you enjoyed the last few days full of family and good food and warm hugs and all things good.  We were fortunate to have lots of family around and several good meals and some thoughtful gifts.

 

 

 We also got a white Christmas. Just in time. It was snowing all day Christmas Eve and then sunny and blue and white on Christmas Day. So perfect.

 

 

The presents made it under the tree just in time too. This year I opted for all kraft paper with some red ribbons, and my new favorite--burlap strapping. It is such a generous width and comes on a very long roll. And it's got great drape. Such pretty bows!

 

 

I have always loved gift-giving and used to dedicate days in late November and early December to hunt through stores for just the right thing. It seems impossible to get to a store these past few years so it it's either an online purchase or something handmade, and I much prefer the handmade.

 

 

But it does take some time... so I had to cut a few things off my hand-making list this year. I accomplished a decent amount of sewing (these blankets for instance), but some I am saving some for gifts in the early part of 2013. They'll likely be more fun then anyway because they will stand on their own. Other things I just let go...

 

 

This was the first Christmas in quite a few that I didn't sew Christmas dresses for the girls to wear to church the Sunday before. It was relatively easy to let that "to-do" go because I had sewn last minute dresses for our beach/Christmas card photos. But the ruffled dresses wouldn't work on a snowy Christmas Sunday, so we found some to buy instead and the girls looked adorable. Part of me wondered why I don't just buy more and sew less--it is much easier! But I was telling my husband it's somehow hollow. So it's hard to know which way to go. I guess it's all about making the trade-off that makes the most sense at the time. I'm working on being able to discern that! 

 

 

I feel like I struck a pretty good balance this year. I hope you did too. I was looking for a peaceful Christmas and am praying for a peaceful new year. (Thus the more serene Christmas greeting this year--cards executed beautifully by Jill Means of Brightside Prints. I love the bamboo paper!) We all need some more days and nights where it is "calm and bright." That's my Christmas wish for you.

 

Merry Christmas.

 

My "FYI" posts share news or a perspective about something that's been on my mind. You can read them all here.