I Tri and Craft

thoughts from a mother of boys, a marathoner, a triathlete, a crafter, a wife, and a scientist

Tag Archives: Christmas and holiday season


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The Christmas Card of 2014

Merry Christmas Eve everyone!

I actually got our fist batch of Christmas cards out this week.  When I order cards, I just order extra, but when I make them I always make less at first.  I don’t want extra hand-made Christmas cars lying around, because they have the kids pictures on them, I can’t use them for next year.

My sister had always sent out Christmas cards with a picture of her kids.  For Ian’s first Christmas we decided that we would have one picture done with all three kids.  That way we can send one card to all our joint family and friends.  Almost every years since (except last year, because I didn’t do cards last year) we have sent out a joint card.  Typically I just order them, but not this year.

This year I decided to go back to making my own cards, because I can just use my Silhouette Cameo.  It will be easy peasy.  Unless you are like me and decide you need to make a Christmas card with like a hundred pieces.  Needless to say they took a little longer than I thought they would.

We went to a local mall where a few times a day they release bubble snow in the atrium. I took a picture of the kids in the falling snow and thought it would be a great idea to make a shaker card like a snow globe.  I used this snow globe file from Bird’s Cards, which is a great resource for free card files.

Back to the pictures, I didn’t like the mall and all the strangers in my background so I went a head and used Photoshop to ‘fix’ it.

MSS_XMas Cards Orig

 

MSS_XMas Card Edited

Doesn’t that snowy tree scene look so much better?  (Which was a free desktop background file)

While the three older kids did a great job taking a group picture, Sid didn’t cooperate all that much.  I had many wonderful pictures with the other three, but no Sid.

MSS_Xmas Card Boys

 

For the picture of the boys I used this picture in front of the silver tree they had up.  There wasn’t a good picture of those two with the snow.

So, you wanna see how the card turned out?

MSS_Xmas Cards 2014

MSS_XMas Cards 2014

MSS_XMas Cards 2014

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

 

p.s. family and friends, there is another batch going out, so don’t worry if you haven’t gotten yours yet.

 

 

Dawn Marie

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12 Days of Christmas Tradition ~ Day 12

One of the reasons I love the Christmas holiday is the traditions.

I love reviving old family traditions, and making new ones.  I love remembering fondly the things that I did as a child at Christmas time and the things I couldn’t wait to do again.

As an adult, I get to make sure our family participates in our traditions and make new ones.

Our Zoo does a light display that runs from Thanksgiving through the first weekend of the new year.  There is no holiday theme to their display, it is of course about animals. 

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Typically we go see the Zoo Lights before Christmas, but that didn’t happen this year.  There wasn’t as much time between the two holidays and Christmas came before I knew it.  There was one week where we had time, but it was wicked cold out and thought of taking the boys out in that weather did not sound fun.

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We kept saying ‘if the weather is nice we will do it tomorrow.’  Then tomorrow came, and we had no time.  So we ended up going after Christmas.  It was cold, but it was dry and there was no wind, so it wasn’t that bad.

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Sid was mesmerized by the lights and the people.  Ian loved the lights, but was disappointed the animals were not out.  On the way home he said “I only got to saw one monkey. He climbed for me, an stayed up dat one night.”

I love the displays that look like the picture is moving.  You know, the ones where the lights are on a timer and turn off and on down the line.

12DaysofXmas2013_Zoo04

But my favorite thing about Zoo Lights is that they take in old lights.  They used to use the lights they took in after determining what was wrong with them.  Our zoo now only uses LED lights, but they do recycle lights strings.  If you have lights that don’t work, or tangled, or you just want new ones, take them to the zoo.  Don’t throw them away!

12DaysofXmas2013_Zoo05

 

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What are your Christmas Traditions?


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12 Days of Christmas Tradition ~ Day 11

One of the reasons I love the Christmas holiday is the traditions.

I love reviving old family traditions, and making new ones.  I love remembering fondly the things that I did as a child at Christmas time and the things I couldn’t wait to do again.

As an adult, I get to make sure our family participates in our traditions and make new ones.

Christmas Crafts!  Part Two

It is no secret I love hand and foot print art.  Last year we made these Mistletoes plates.  We gave them to some family as gifts.  I had thought we might make them again, but decided I wanted to do something different.

We made salt dough ornaments with the kids fingerprints to give to family.

12DaysofXmas2013_craft06

OK, admittedly, I am not as pleased with them as I was with the plates.  Mostly because you can’t tell the difference between Ian’s & Sid’s thumb prints.

They are really easy, and I could make  a lot of them all at once.  Ian is much more cooperative with these projects than Sid is.  So I needed something that I could quickly make a lot.

To make these Christmas Tree Fingerprint Ornaments you will need:

  • 2 cups flour
  • 1 cup salt
  • 1 cup water (+/-)
  • rolling-pin
  • cookie sheet
  • paint (or food coloring)
  • ribbon
  • thumbs belonging to your favorite kids

Preheat oven to 250°.

Mix salt and flour together, add water a little at a time until a dough if formed.  If using food coloring to color ornaments add to water prior to mixing with four & salt.  Knead until dough becomes elastic, smooth and stickiness is gone, adding little bits of flour as needed.

Roll out dough to 1/4″ thick on a greased surface.  Use Christmas tree cookie cutter to cut out ornaments, I was able to make about 15.  Poke a hole for the ribbon at the top of the tree.

12DaysofXmas2013_craft01

Have kids use finger/thumb prints to make ornaments on the cut out trees.

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This is a good assembly line project.  Ian just went through and put two prints on each one.  I did have to tell him not to put them on the edge.

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Little guys might need some help or persuading to get their thumbs on there.  Sid was not very enthusiastic about this.

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Place on a greased cookie sheet and bake for 2 hours.  Remove from oven and allow to completely cool before painting.  I used whatever craft paint I had on hand.  One was acrylic and one was enamel, both worked fine.

12DaysofXmas2013_craft05

Thread a length of ribbon through the hole and tie in order to hang up.

There is no ornament on a tree better than the ones your children make.  At least, according to me.

 

 

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What are your Christmas Traditions?


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12 Days of Christmas Tradition ~ Day 10

One of the reasons I love the Christmas holiday is the traditions.

I love reviving old family traditions, and making new ones.  I love remembering fondly the things that I did as a child at Christmas time and the things I couldn’t wait to do again.

As an adult, I get to make sure our family participates in our traditions and make new ones.

Christmas Crafts!

It is so much fun to make things with the kids, but this craft is made by me with the use of the kids hands.

On Christmas Eve I realized I didn’t have a plate for Santa’s Cookies!  I tried to find on at the store and couldn’t find one I liked, and decided to make my own.

12DaysofXmas2013_plate07

I know, make a plate on Christmas Eve, was I crazy?

I had seen this post around thanksgiving and thought it was great and knew I wanted to make something in that style.

Decorating with Sharpies are so easy! As long as you don’t make a mistake…

You will need:

  • ceramic plate
  • sharpies, at least two colors
  • rubbing alcohol
  • pattern, as a sticker

12DaysofXmas2013_plate01

Clean your plate with rubbing alcohol before use.

Trace you child(ren)’s hand on the sticker, then cut out.  I used large address labels, but they didn’t work that well, contact paper would be better.  The address labels have too much adhesive and were really hard to remove.

Place the pattern on the plate and using the sharpies, start your dots.

12DaysofXmas2013_plate02

Dot heavily around the pattern, and tapering out as you go towards the plate edge.  Since I had two hands, I kept the heavy pattern in between the hands.

On the first plate I did, I dotted around the pattern, which took a long time.  I thought if I could remove the address label quickly it would be easier, so I traced around the hands before dotting.  I was able to cleanly remove the address label, but I didn’t like the look as much.

12DaysofXmas2013_plate06

It is also better if you don’t use a brand new sharpie, you want the point to be blunt for better dots.

When you get the look you want you need to cure it.  If there is a mistake you can probably clean it up with some rubbing alcohol and a cotton swab.

12DaysofXmas2013_plate03

See the residue of the address label…

Place your plate in a cold oven and turn it on to 350°.  Bake for 30 minutes, turn off oven and let the plate cool while still in the oven.  You can spray with a clear sealing spray if you want, but I can’t guarantee it would be food safe.  I would recommend hand washing only.

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I used vinyl stickers for the “Cookies for Santa” on the plate.  I had planned on writing “from our hands to your” but didn’t think there was room.

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What are your Christmas Traditions?