Christmas Advent Calendar Again

{This is a repost of my advent calendar from last year.}

I have been wanting a cute advent calendar for a few years. We had the cheap felt one from Walmart for a few years, but it wasn't nearly as cute as it could have been....so I decided to make my own. I did a little research online, and I got a ton of inspiration from other blogs and from Etsy! I took a few of the ideas that I found and mixed them all up and came up with my own advent calendar.

I hit up Hobby Lobby for

a canvas

wedding favor tins

scrapbook paper

and

a painted star

I already had some stuff at home

fabric

rick rack

mod podge

and

hot glue

I started by cutting out a lot of circle...48 to be exact. 24 without numbers for the inside of the tins.

24 with numbers for the outside of the tins.

I applied a thin layer of mod podge to the inside of the tin and to the inside of the lid. Then I place the unnumbered circles inside the tins and mod podged them in place.

I put the numbered circles in the lids {with the paper and number showing through the plastic} and then mod podged them into place. I cut out a Chrismas tree from leftover fabric and used spray adhesive to attach it to the canvas. I finished off the edges by hot glueing on some white rick rack.

After everything was dry, I put the lids on the tins and hot glued them to the fabric Christmas tree.
Starting on December 1st the boys will get to remove the lid to one tin a day and get a special treat that is inside. I also placed small pieces of paper with special Christmas activites {bake cookies, sing Christmas songs, wrap presents, watch a Christmas cartoon, read the Christmas story} for us to do in some of the tins.

C is for Appreciation....

...or maybe C is for Cookie!

If you have been around my blog long, you probably know that I like to show my appreciation with cookies:) So a few weeks ago when our church was celebrating Staff Appreciation Week, it was natural that I make cookies for our pastor {plus 3 associate pastors & the children's director}. Lucky for me Hobby Lobby was having an awesome sale...all glassware was 50%. I got some great cookie jars for $2.00 and $2.50 each!

After I filled the jars up with yummy peanut butter or chocolate chip cookies, I prettied them up with some black and white gingham ribbon and a cute red tag {thanks goodness for my Cricut}.

I also added a black vinyl initial to each of the jars just to make them a little more personal.

And hopefully the church staff now knows how much we appreciate all they do for us! 

Project in Progress...

Besides eating lots of turkey and staying up all night to shop, I also spent part of the holiday week being productive. You may remember the old school desk that I picked up last year for only $5...I had big plans for all three school desks back in January. Well, it is November and I'm finally getting around to working on them.

They are painted....blue for Henry, green for Grant, and orange for Eli!

I've also added some chalkboard paint to the desk tops and I put the boys' names with on the backs with vinyl. I still want to add a few more fun details to make them a little more special. Hopefully I will use the rest of the weekend {if I'm not too wiped out from shopping all night} to finish these up and I can share them with you next week!

Did you do anything productive this week? Or did you just enjoy the holiday with family while eating lots of good food:) I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving...and Happy Black Friday!

I Have a Sponsor...and a Giveaway!

This giveaway is now closed. Congrats to Staci at Lizard & Ladybug!

I hope everyone is having a great Thanksgiving!

I just wanted to remind you about my SUPER giveaway that ends on Monday!

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If you've looked at my right sidebar lately, you have probably noticed that I have a new {very small} section for SUPER SPONSORS! Well, Sodderbug is the main reason I have that section!

Let me just say that if you head over to the Sodderbug website {which you really should do} you will definitely be adding a few things to your Christmas list this year!

Sodderbug makes beautiful photo charms from your pictures! How cool is that!

From the Sodderbug website:

Sodderbug charms are distinctive, unique accessories that let you remember an important person, quote, or even team, wherever you go. Using images you provide to me, I create distinctive charms you'll treasure for years to come.

That sounds like something that needs to go on my Christmas list for sure! I would love to have one charm with a picture of all three of my boys or maybe three charms...one of each of them! Sodderbug also has some really cute charms with Bible verses and other sayings as well as sports team charms.

Lucky for you, today I am giving away one beautifully made Sodderbug photo charm!

Here's how to enter:

Head over to the Sodderbug website and look around. Come back here and who's picture you would choose to have made into a charm if you win! {This is a Mandatory entry and must be done first!
After the mandatory entry, you can do any or all of the following for one extra entry each. Make sure to leave a separate comment for each entry.

Go to Sodderbug's etsy shop. Come back and leave a comment with the name of your favorite item.

follow my blog

follow me on twitter {@SUPERMOM_Kelli}

Subscribe to my blog via Feedburner

tweet about this giveaway with a link back to me

blog about this giveaway or post it in your sidebar

And for 10 extra entries, buy something from Sodderbug before this giveaway ends.

This giveaway will end at 7:00 am CST on Monday, November 29th. Be sure to leave an email address with your comment if your email isn't visible in your profile! Giveaway is open to US and Canada residents only. I will use random.org to pick a winner. Thanks so much to Janelle at Sodderbug for providing the photo charm for this giveaway! Good luck!

Two More Thanksgiving Shirts...and a Christmas Guest Post

After I made Eli's Shirt of Plenty last week, I knew I had to make Henry and Grant a SUPER cute shirt to wear on Thanksgiving....but I didn't want them all to have the same shirt this time. So here are two new shirts...the Pumpkin Pie shirt for Grant, and the I Love Turkey shirt for Henry.

This shirt was really easy to make! I used gray, brown, white, and orange felt to make my pumpkin pie, and I used an empty ice cream bucket as my template.

I used the ice cream bucket to make three circles. The gray for the pie pan was the largest, the brown for the crust was a little smaller, and the orange for the pumpkin was the smallest. After I layered the circles, I cut out a "slice of pie" by cutting a triangle out of the brown and orange but leaving the gray in a whole circle.

I attached the felt to the shirt with iron-on adhesive and then stitched around the edges with embroidery floss just like I did with the Shirt of Plenty. To add a little bit of whimsy and to make sure that everybody knew that Grant's shirt was in fact pumpkin pie, I added a little bit of whipped cream to the top:) I simply cut a circle out of white felt, then I pinched the felt in the middle of the circle and made the ends gather up. Then I sewed the whipped topping on with some heavy duty thread.

I originally saw the idea for the I Love Turkey shirt at Positively Splendid. Amy makes some really cute stuff...and this shirt is one of her cutest yet! I loved the idea, but I didn't have all the materials. What I did have was felt, so I made my own version of her shirt using felt and a little bit of color just for fun!

Here's a picture of all three shirts:) Can you tell that they were all three saying "The sun's in my eyes!" Hopefully we will manage to get a better picture on Turkey Day!

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I'm guest posting over at Under the Table and Dreaming today. Hop over and check out my SUPER cute Glittered Snowman Ornaments and all the other really great homemade ornament ideas!

A Trio of Turkeys

If you haven't seen this amazing Thanksgiving idea yet:

{Paper Bag Turkey}

you really must go and check it out now!

After I saw this SUPER cute kids project featured on another blog, I knew I just had to make one {or three} for Henry and Grant's classes at school. 

I'll skip the step by step on how to make this, only because Sara Westbrook's tutorial at One Charming Party is amazing! But I will share with you some pictures of the 3 turkeys that my friend Kaila and I made yesterday!

My turkeys aren't dressed quite as nicely as the inspiration, but they got plenty of oohs and ahhs when I dropped them off at the boys' school yesterday! A few brown bags, some hot glue, a few {fourteen} bags of popcorn, and less than an hour was all it took to make 3 SUPER cute Paper Bag Turkeys. You should definitely give this one a try this Thanksgiving! The little ones at the kid's table will love it!

Shutterfly....Christmas Card Heaven!

It is little bit early for me {the SUPER procrastinator} to be thinking about Christmas cards seeing as how we still have a week before we even sit down to eat Thanksgiving turkey! BUT...it is kind of difficult not to be in the holiday spirit with all the fun CHRISTMAS cards on Shutterfly's website! Can I just say that this card:

is the most adorable thing I have ever seen!

Shutterfly is an awesome place to find just about anything photo related! My only problem with Shutterfly is that there are WAY TOO MANY adorable options to chose from....well that and the fact that I could spend {waste} hours browsing through all their Christmas card, photo book, gift tag, and calendar ideas! I could defintely use one of these calendar posters in my kitchen next year {hint, hint just in case my hubby reads this}!

In the past I have used Shutterfly to make some really cute photo books. I made one of our trip to Disney World in 2009, and I think it is my favorite souviner ever! Photo books also make awesome Christmas gifts for grandparents that already have everything {trust me I know from experience}.

Shutterfly by far has the best selection of Christmas cards out there. I can't wait to find the perfect card for our family this year! I think this one may be a top contender....along with about 20 others:)

*And if you are in love with Shutterfly as much as I am check out their great offer for bloggers!*
 Bloggers can get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly: http://bit.ly/sfly2010

Wordless Wednesday: Capturing the Sun*

*alternately titled Capturing the SONS

Homemade Chocolate Pudding

A few weeks ago, as I was attempting to not spend a small fortune on groceries, I saw milk on sale at Target for an unbelievable low {aka less than $3 a gallon} price. So crazy, thrifty me decides to lug home 6 gallons of milk...because the price was just too good to pass up. Well, a week later when the milk was about to expire and I still had a whole gallon unopened I figured I better find a great "use up a lot of milk before it goes bad" recipe!

And what recipe uses up large amounts of milk better than chocolate pudding?!? No other...at least none that I could find! Hasty Chocolate Pudding from allrecipes.com is what I settled on after checking out a few recipes and scoping out my pantry to see what I had on hand.

In addition to the 2 cups{ when I made it, I doubled the recipe} of milk, you also need

1/2 cup white sugar

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

3 tablespoons cornstarch

&

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Add all of the dry ingredients into a microwave safe bowl..

..and wisk them together getting out any big lumps.

Then slowly add in the milk.

Microwave on high for 3 minutes. Stir and then microwave in 1 minute intervals until the pudding is thick.

Stir in the vanilla and then scoop into individual bowls...

...or refrigerate {covering top of the pudding with a layer of plastic wrap} the whole batch until cold. 

Chocolate pudding that is both yummy and practical...at least it's practical if you have a bunch of milk to use:)

Shirt of Plenty

I have seen a ton of cute turkey shirts for Thanksgiving floating around the internet lately. I had intentions of making my boys a cute turkey shirt, but was really wishing I could make something a little different and a little more fun instead.

The Shirt of Plenty is what I ended up with after a TON of inspiration {and a template} from Family Fun magazine.

This is the original craft shared in the November issue of Family Fun...SUPER cute Thanksgiving themed felt food. I simply decided to turn my felt food into a shirt instead of making a toy:)

The first step in making this SUPER cute shirt is to print the templates and cut them out. Sometimes the template calls for two of each shape, but you usually only need one.

Use spray adhesive and stick the cut out shapes to different colors of felt. You can mix and match however you want, or follow the suggestions on the templates.

Then add iron-on adhesive to the backside of the felt following the directions on the package.

Cut out the shapes following the template, then remove the paper and the iron-on adhesive backing.

Lay out your design on the shirt and decide where you want each piece to be. Iron the pieces onto the shirt following the directions on your package of iron on adhesive.

The finally step to making The Shirt of Plenty is the most tedious and time consuming....but it also makes a big difference in the appearance of the shirt. Using coordinating colors of embroidery thread, go around the edges of each piece of felt with a running stitch. Make sure to tie off each end of the embroidery thread well, so that the felt pieces stay securely attached.

And that is how you make a SUPER cute Thanksgiving shirt!

Now if I can only find the time {and energy} to make two more:)