Holiday Archives - Page 31 of 41

Feature Friday-Blog Swap with Sumo’s Sweet Stuff

December 11, 2009 By Michelle Barneck 2 Comments

With a high of 20 degrees today, my fingers are too cold to type so I am so lucky to have Summer from Sumo’s Sweet Stuff taking over for me today. Oh, and the fact that she is called Sumo makes her a top candidate for a blog swap in my book! Here we go…

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Hello Tipsy Readers!

I’m Summer, or Sumo as my husband lovingly calls me. (And now consequently has all of my family calling me. Doesn’t Aunt Sumo have a nice ring to it?)

I’m the blogger from Sumo’s Sweet Stuff!

I use my blog to share my projects, tutorials, recipes, host giveaways, and shamelessly promote my etsy shop! I AM: – married to my best friend

– mother to the most beautiful little girl (and a baby girl on the way!) – daughter and sister to the best family ever – friend to some of the greatest people out there I LOVE TO: – play piano – sing – read – craft – go on walks – spend time with my family – drink Diet Coke – bake/cook – exercise (well, sometimes) – crochet SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS: – Diet Coke – popcorn – chips and salsa – anything that involves peanut butter and chocolate – public library – fall – craft stores – black and green – Christmas – historical fiction – cats

Michelle asked me to answer these fun questions for you:

** What is your favorite crafting tool or secret weapon? **

Honestly, where would any crafter be without a glue gun? Especially since I don’t know how to sew (YET – hopefully that will change!), I find my glue gun to be quite useful and am always on the lookout for projects that I might be able to do using my glue gun! My fingers pay the price, but it is worth it!

** If you had to be a holiday scent what would you be? **

Since I love to bake, I’d have to say that sugar cookies (that’s what’s in my Scentsy right now) or vanilla would fit the bill! I love finding new recipes to try out, and it is so satisfying to be successful with a new recipe and have my house smelling delicious. Yum!

** What is your favorite Christmas tradition? **

I don’t know how to pick just one! Growing up, my parents always got us an ornament that had our name and the year written on it. Once I was married, it was fun to collect all of those ornaments from my parents and put them on our Christmas tree. Now we have all of those, the ones my parents have gotten my husband and daughter, and this year we started getting our own, too! I love pretty coordinated trees, but I also really love the character that our tree has with all of the memories from years past.

In the spirit of Christmas, here are a few of my favorite Christmas projects:

Mod Podge Plate

Ribbon Tree

Advent Calendar

And if you are looking for some inexpensive holiday gifts, go here for some of the ideas I came up with.

I’m also participating in the 12 Days of Giveaways over at Somewhat Simple. My giveaway is being posted today, so go check it out for the chance to win some adorable baby girl stuff!

I love making new blogging friends, so come on over to Sumo’s Sweet Stuff! You’ll find something new being posted each day: Market Yourself Monday, Tutorial Tuesday, Mouth-Watering Wednesday, Things to Try Thursday, and Feature Friday. Something for everyone!

Thanks to Michelle for letting me swap with her today! Isn’t she just the greatest?

Happy Holidays!

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Thanks Summer for all your great ideas! You are now entered in to the Hall of Fame as Tipster of the week. Feel free to take a featured button and wear it with pride!

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Christmas Art Project

December 10, 2009 By Michelle Barneck 6 Comments

I love including the kiddos in holiday decorating. I wanted a fun Christmas art project that the family could do together and display for all to see. I love that this piece celebrates the season, but also celebrates our little family. In fact, you probably already have everything you need for this hand print pine tree painting. So here’s a little tutorial.

Supplies Needed:

Foam brush
Craft paint-brown, green (or mix navy, yellow & brown if you don’t have dark green & don’t want to run to the store )
12×12 card stock (ours was a light gray with a slight shimmer)
Hands

1. Make a tree trunk by using the foam brush to paint a 4 inch area from your wrist to forearm brown. Then, stamp your arm on the paper. If you want it a little thicker, stamp again.
For us, my arm was the best size. Plus, the symbolism of me holding up the family is a bonus. 😉

2. Start with the person with the biggest hands, most likely Dad. Paint his hand with a light coat of green. If you use too much it will just ending up looking like a blob. Have him stamp his hand slightly right, then slightly left aligning the second stamp with the fingers filling in the gaps.

3. Paint the other family members hands from biggest to smallest and have each person do step two. We just have three people, so it went Dad, Mom, Son. You may have to adjust how much you stamp according to how big your family is.

4. I put my Christmas art project in the black wood frame I used for this fall art project and up on the wall it went. You could use fingertips dipped in white to add snow flakes falling or in red to add ornaments to the tree. I liked ours just the way it was. It could be really fun to make one for each member of the family and then let them decorate it. I feel an FHE coming on!

I would love to see your Christmas art project if you try it!

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Merry Christmas Martinelli’s Gift

December 9, 2009 By Michelle Barneck 3 Comments

Here is another fun economical Christmas gift idea. I made these cute personalized labels and put them on bottles of Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider. (I totally stole this idea from my sis Jen and she probably stole it from someone else, just so ya know.) We gave these to my husband’s team at work last year and they loved them. They turned out really cute!

Front label

Back label

Finished product

It could be really fun to tie a pair of festive glasses to the top with some cute ribbon or put it in a basket with some yummy treats. My husband wants to give these out again because they were such a success and now he has a different team. We’ll see.

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Holiday Home Tour

December 7, 2009 By Michelle Barneck 35 Comments

Merry SITSmas!

I put so much time and effort in to decorating I thought I would share a little home tour so someone besides me could enjoy it. 😉 So here is a whirlwind tour of my main floor. Enjoy!

The Santa Bros. welcome you at the front door.

Then, the door opens to a garland on the banister.
(Dollar store garland with leftover ribbon)

Turn to the right to see the tree. It is massive and takes like 10 strings of lights. Kicks my tail every year!

I love this believe sign right in the middle of the tree.

The stockings were hung from the small shelf with care. I learned to put them up high after one of the stocking hangers nearly took out my son last year.

Row, Row, Row through the snow? Added some leftover ribbon.

Sorry, this is hard to see. There is my olive wood nativity from Israel, A small nativity that says “Jesus is the Reason for the Season”, A Believe sign, the piano music to “Silent Night”, a basket of cinnamon pine cones holding up a “Joy” tile, a Father Christmas figure and a tiny nativity in the midst of the words Silent Night. Phew. Click on the pic to see it bigger.

On to the Kitchen, there is my traditional seasonal list pad and top of fridge decor.

Some of the little ones Christmasy art on the pantry door. A tile on top of the cabinets.
I LOVE this quote!! My parents gave it to me for Christmas last year.

Sleigh (hand me down from mom) and tree (from college dorm) arrangement for the counter and more cabinet decor. All the random greenery is stuff that fell off my tree when hubs put it up that I didn’t bother to put back on.

Mr. Snowman stares down at us from above the blinds to the door waiting for a good time to pelt us with his snowball. Candy Cane Candle arrangement for the table. Warning:when storing your Christmas decor in the shed during 100 degree summers, your candles may warp. 😉

This is my very favorite decor item this year!! My mom always had her banister decorated with a pine garland tied with ribbons and I always loved it. Mine is much less formal, but I adore the plaid burlap type ribbon! I told hubs he had to be decorated with a Christmasy blanket if he was going to be in the pic. JK Again, dollar store garland with ribbon I bought one year at the after Christmas sale.

Some wall decor to transition us to the Family room. No, I did not stitch that cute sign. I bought it from Deseret Book on the after Christmas sale. I made the decoupage wood stocking at my Sister’s Mother-in-law’s Super Saturday many moons ago.

Winterizing the bathroom. My hubs actually laughed out loud at the wash cloths in the s’more snowman mug. We have a joke about my mugs. He hates them.

Adding a little flair to the DVD cases. We like to store our souvenirs from our travels here, so it was a natural addition to add a nativity from my Israel trip. The snowman was a gift from a good friend.

See there are benefits to not having a flat panel TV. 😉

More stuff.

Simplify your life, Believe in your dreams, See with your heart, Know what love means. Not necessarily a Christmas quote, but it fits the season for me.

I hope you enjoyed spending some time at my place! To see more Holiday Home Tours, head over to Tip Junkie! Reinvented has some great Trash to Treasure projects with wrapping paper.