I Tri and Craft

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

Tag Archives: Holiday


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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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Mason Jar Christmas Scenes

My sister has one of those Christmas villages, with all the houses and the snow and stuff.  This year my nieces wanted to make her a little village in a giant Mason Jar.  Luckily my mom has hundreds of Mason Jars in various sizes.  Remember how we made all those Cookie-in-a-Jar guest gifts for my cousins baby shower?  Yep, she still has tons.

She took the kids to the craft store, got all the little things to go in the jars and turned the kids loose.

MSS_ChristmasJars

Ian made one for me and my mom put together a stand for it.  I am pretty sure this was a gallon mayonnaise jar, it’s huge.

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My mom made some cream-colored playdoh so the items would stay upright in the jar.  She also bought some of that Kinetic Sand in cream.

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Ian placed all the items himself.  I absolutely love it.

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His gift gave me an idea for a Christmas gift for Ian’s teacher.  Luckily my mom had all sorts of stuff left over so Ian could make another jar.

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Before we started decorating I used the hot glue gun and glued six blobs on the bottom of the jar for stability.

I tried to use the playdoh, but didn’t like how the stuff wouldn’t really stay up right, unless you used a hold bunch of playdoh.  I didn’t really like how the playdoh looked from the outside.

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So after he placed all the stuff in the jar, I took it all out along with the playdoh.  Then I put it all back in how he had it, and with his instructions, but I used hot glue to secure his decorations.

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He was sad that we didn’t have any more reindeer, but at least we had Santa.

MSS_ChristmasJars08

This jar wasn’t as large so he couldn’t fill it quite so full.  After all was secure I dumped in the plastic snow that mom got at the craft store.

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I really wish I had sprayed the inside bottom of the jar with that window snow paint.  I think it would have looked great, but I thought of it after, and I don’t have any….but you can use that idea, it’s all good.

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Since this is a teacher gift and made in a Mason Jar I thought these tags would be perfect!

MSS_ChristmasJars10

I designed the tag in Silhouette Studio software.  For the jar I used the print ‘n cut method, and cut the lid out in two layers.

MSS_ChristmasJars12

Love the tag?  I know, it’s super cute.  And you are in luck, cause you can download here. For free.

This PDF file is the above printable tag for Christmas.

This PDF file is plain for any time of year.

MSS_MasonJarTagPDF

This SVG file is for those of you who would like to use it in your cutting machine.  I did have to change the font for the SVG file because it was a little too thin for cutting.

MSS_MasonJarSVGpreview

 

 

Please note this design is for PERSONAL USE only please. Please do not forward, share, sell or distribute the files for any commercial purposes or claim as your own design. Thanks a bunch!

 

 

Dawn Marie

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Easter Bunny Juice Boxes for a Preschool Easter Party

Ian has his Easter party at school today.
So what do I volunteer to bring?
Juice boxes of course because I can make them look like super cute little bunnies.
I found these Hansen’s Junior Juice
boxes and thought the would be perfect because there are just 4.23 oz, a perfect size for little 4 & 5 year olds.

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I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out all the parts for the bunny.

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I was grateful that I had two mats!  I could load another one to cut, while I was taking all these little parts off.
I then just glued them all together and wrapped around the boxes.

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I made 20 boxes and was able to use one 12×12″ sheet of pink card stock, scrap pieces of black and 7 sheets of 8.5×11″ white card stock. I also had the googly eyes, so I only had to buy the juice boxes, which I got 20 for less than $7.

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I also broke out my Cameo to make a letter matching egg game. I got the eggs 18/$1 and I already had the vinyl. I cut out an upper case and a lower case letter, and put them on different colored eggs.

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I put the upper case on the top half and lower case on the bottom half. The kids then would match the two letter s together.

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We also had the kids make rabbit masks to hold up for a group picture.

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You need a paper plate, card stock for the ears (white and pink), pipe cleaners for the whiskers and craft sticks for a handle.

We cut out the center of the plate, made a template for the ears and let the kids cut the ears and glue them together.

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They turned really cute and we were able to get a great group picture.

Happy Easter

 

 

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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. 

12DaysofXmas2013_Zoo01

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.

12DaysofXmas2013_Zoo02

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.

12DaysofXmas2013_Zoo03

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?