Save those Christmas Cards

And recycle them into a Christmas ABC book!

When we were expecting our first daughter, my husband's mom gave us an ABC book that she made out of Christmas cards. She had made one for each of her children when they were young and was passing down my husband's to us. I decided then I wanted to make one for my nephew. I started collecting our Christmas cards. And my parents'. And my husband's parents'.

Five years later, I had enough cards.  I'm telling you...it took forever because so many people send out family picture cards or Christmas emails.  So now it is no longer just my nephew in that family, but 2 nephews and a brand new niece.  I do have some left over cards, but you need a ton to be able to choose for each letter and then the number.

My husband's mom made hers in 1" binders with page protectors and red and green paper.  I made mine in an 8x8 scrapbook with page protectors (had to buy 2 refill packs to add to it) and Christmas scrapbook paper.  Both are super easy.  Hers has more room on a page and is cheaper by far.

The one I made for my nephews and niece

The one made for my husband

Here are some hints I used/realized:

• Group similar cards (i.e. angels, snowmen, etc.)
• Leave letters that have multiple words (S is for Shepards, Star, Snowman, Snow, Snowflake, etc) for last
• Use a business card template for the wording, I only had to cut a few smaller
• Wish I would have used less patterned paper for the backgrounds, some are too busy to read
• Let glue dry for a at least 45 minutes to ensure it doesn't make the page protectors go wavy.  (You can see it in mine on pages "X" & "Y")
• I had to go to the dollar store and pick up a few cards for letters I didn't have, like "Y" (yule log).

The kids loved these books and gazing at each picture.  It does take some effort in collecting and sorting out each letter, but it is pretty simple after that, just cutting and gluing.

Here is the Christmas ABC document I created to help me sort out cards.  It is just what I gathered from here and there so it is rough.  There are repeats, some very closely worded, and some without rhymes.  You can really do whatever you can come up with.  The ones in bold are the ones I ended up using with the cards I had.

Start collecting those Christmas cards now (ask family and neighbors for the fronts of theirs too), or your kids might be graduating from high school by the time you get enough.

Heads up: Also you may be able to score cheap some cards the day after Christmas at the store.  And  I saw a Christmas card at Wal-mart that had children holding hands around a world - perfect for letter "U".  Don't know how much it was though.  Some cards are way too expensive.

Baby Bibs

Enter the 2nd give away here!

I started these bibs two and a half years ago, when my oldest was just starting solid foods. I'll just sum it up by saying they sat in the closet for a long time. I finished them up yesterday. These are the kind of bibs we had for my sister growing up. They work for little babies clear on up through toddlers. And the cover everything, not just the shirt collar.

I simply took kitchen and bath towels. Cut a circle in around where the neck should go (I used a bowl to cut an even circle). Lined it all with bias tape, made button holes, and sewed on buttons.

I made a lot...but it did take me nearly 3 years.

My cute models.

And speaking of sewing, here is a shout out to my friend. I won this cute apron on one of her give-aways. She is always doing fun crafty things to improve her home. Go visit her blog. Thanks Abbey!

Birthday Celebration Flag

We were in full-swing birthday mode for about a week in April. I think my oldest had started to think everyday was her birthday. As part of her birthday decorations I made a celebration flag from a tutorial of a very crafty friend, Vanessa.

My Top 6 Reasons for celebrating this decoration:


6. You could use leftover fabric if you needed to.
5. It is WAY easy to make.
4. It is cute.
3. You can personalize it for birthdays or other celebrations.
2. It is original.
1. It stores really small, so I could make one for every holiday and not feel guilty about taking up too much storage space for decorations.

Thank you, Vanessa for your cute ideas! And to the rest of you, you should really visit her blog and her shop and she's on etsy too - Uptown Jane.

So to start I made 6" squares of 7 fabrics I had chosen at the store. Vanessa used charm packs that are 5" squares, but I made mine bigger because I wanted to and I could seeing how I bought all of my cuts of fabric. On my sparkly fabric, I did 8" squares because they were going to be layered behind some other squares.

Then I ironed them in half. *Note: I should have ironed them outside out. But it worked this way too*

Then I marked them with a pencil from corner to opposite diagonal corner.

Then cut along this mark with pinking shears.

After this was done, I ironed them all flat again.

Then I pulled out a full package of bias tape. And because it was 10:30 the night before my oldest daughter's birthday at this point, I forgot to take any more pictures. I also found out that I had way too many squares for the length of bias tape. But after playing around with the layout of what fabric went where and which ones to leave out, I found a pattern that satisfied me.


I pinned and then sewed it on. If I didn't have the layered flags, I could have done it without pinning, but trying to get everything in line with the layers proved easier with a little pinning. Then I sewed it on the bias tape leaving a little extra on the ends for finishing the ends nicely and tying up to display when done.

Here is the finished product. Vanessa has a better tutorial here. Go check it out!

Fixing Mozart

This is a project I have been working for a long time. About two years ago, my bust of Mozart was accidentally swept off the piano by a power cord that was still plugged in due to my carelessness. He got a couple really small dings, but one corner was completely destroyed. I glued what could back together and then tried to fill the rest in with Cellu-clay (an instant paper-mâché). The Cellu-clay shrunk in the drying process and Mozart sat bewildered on my piano in his broken, eye-sore way for the next two years.


Fast-forward to the present. While thinking of what to do for the Desire 2 Create blog I decided to focus on projects that I have started and just not completed, with a few new things added for variety. Mozart floated to the top of the list.


Here he is in his two-year crumbled state.

Here is the corner after I added the air-hardening clay that I bought the same time I bought the Cellu-clay. I added a bit of water to it so the clay would go on more like a putty. Then let the poor man rest over night.

Once Mozart had dried out, I lightly sanded the clay area with fine sandpaper. I mixed two colors of metallic acrylic paint to come up with the closest possible color. Here is the first coat of paint on the corner.

I painted the whole bust because there were little dings everywhere that didn't need repaired other than a coat of paint. I used a foam brush and then a stiff brush from my daughter's water color set to make sure there were no globs of paint and that everything went on even. Here is the man half painted. Can you tell what side is painted and what side is not?

The shinier side is the new coat of paint. It had not yet dried. Pretty close in color, eh?

After the first coat of paint, I re-sanded the corner and painted again. Then to bring out some of the depth and detail I used my darker metallic paint as a glaze. I simply watered it down a bit. Painted over the highly detailed areas and then immediately lightly wiped the area with a rag so the darker paint would only stay in the crevices.

Here is the finished Mozart. He is not perfect, but at least I can put Beethoven in from of him and he won't be such an eye-sore in on my piano. My husband says he looks like Mozart is smiling more now. I know I am.

Birthday Pillowcase

Now that the major holidays are over, our family swings into birthday mode which lasts until Halloween when the major holidays swing back into action. So with birthdays on the mind, mainly that of our almost 3 year-old, I have come up with this simple project.

Growing up we always had this little bear that sat on our dinner plate on our birthdays. It was just a little something to note it was your special day. Here is a twist on that tradition.

We will need:

• 3/4 yard fabric #1
• 1/4 yard fabric #2
• Spool of washable ribbon

Iron your fabric & then cut off selvage edge if you need to resize your fabrics. We want the width of the fabric to be about 42".

Cut ribbon to measure non-selvage length of fabric + 1", about 43".

Pin & sew lengths of fabric together (non-selvage edges). This will now be known as seam A.

Iron seams open. *I was told in my last sewing class the easiest difference to spot in a professional sewing job and a novice one is the professional one will iron all seams and cut all strings.*

Pin & sew new length of fabric creating a border at one end. This is seam B. Once we have sewn this edge, we should have a tube of fabric with a border of fabric #2 at one end.

Iron 3/8" hem into fabric #2. Then pull this down to cover seam & pin & sew.

Now turn tube right-side-out. We need to cover the seam A and the last section of sewing. Pin ribbon on starting a smidgen past seam B. We want the ribbon to just barely cover seam A. Gently sew side of ribbon that covers seam A. If there seems to be extra ribbon, that is okay. Extra is good. When you get to the end fold the extra ribbon under creating a nice edge which matches up with seam B.

Time to sew the other side of the ribbon. There is no need to pin this one as the ribbon is already in place. The concern to watch for is to make sure you are covering the stitching from sewing the border down on the inside. Once this is done, repeat the fold at the end of the ribbon.

Turn the tube back inside-out. Pin the bottom and sew, making seam C.

Cut the corners on a diagonal making sure not to cut the seams. This helps the corners lay better and be bulky when turned right-side-out.






Because I don't have a serger, and have never had much luck using the zigzag method with my machine, I solve my fraying problems with this:

Fray Check is my friend.

Lightly cover all the raw edges with a little Fray Check, making sure not to touch the material that creates the outside of the pillowcase. Fray Check dries hard and if it saturates the main part of the pillowcase, you will have a little rough spot.

Let dry and turn right-side-out.

When it is birthday time at our house, the birthday girl/boy gets to sleep with this special pillowcase the night before and night of their birthday.

Isn't this fun? The red pillow is another one I made 10 years ago. I made one for each of my roommates and myself for Valentines day. The possibilities are endless.

-Aimee