Simple Christmas Project 2 Advent

               CHRISTMAS ADVENT

So you may recall the advent calendar I made years ago to hold a mini chocolate bar. I never really liked giving my kids candy first thing in the morning, and since we moved here 3 years ago we haven't used it. Bah humbug. So this year I decided it was time to bring an advent back.  I searched Pinterest for a modern idea and came across Confetti Sunshine. Oh my gosh- her blog rocks!  I kinda got caught up on it for a couple of hours one night, yeah...so anyway. I love the advent she did, and she offers it as a free printable!

http://www.confettisunshine.com/2014/11/diy-christmas-advent-calendar-with-free-printables-poster.html

I downloaded the poster and had it printed at Staples as a 24x engineering print for $4 and threw it in my frame from ikea I already had hanging. 

Instead of mini clothes pins like she used I decided to go with envelopes. 

I printed the envelope template from miniecoco.uk. Cut out and glued 24 - I will admit it was a little tideous. I added the numbers; a free printable from simpleasthatblog.com, then stuffed them with an activity for the day. There are a million options on Pinterest for these, but I made my own that are customized to our holiday calendar. 

I used a cheap tape (so it comes off easily and leaves no residue) to tack the envelopes up.

There you go. Super simple advent calendar that my kids love.

It's Begining to Look a lot like...

CHRISTMAS!

I want a simplified Christmas this year, which is a feat in and of itself. I decided to go with white, silver and black for my family room, trying to use as much of what I already had as possible. With that said, I have had a few inexpensive projects I wanted to do… So here's to 12 days of Christmas projects.

First up is this modernized nativity from thehowtomom.com

http://www.thehowtomom.com/2013/12/spray-painted-nativity.html

For my nativity I hit the thrift store and found one if those pearlized ceramic nativities for $4. With a can of metallic silver spray paint (I already had) I went to town. It took no more than 10 minutes. Voila:

A fun modern nativity, center stage in my home. Sweet. 

Thanksgiving Printable

I put these together last night for fun.  They are huge, so they can be printed as posters or as engineer prints at staples.  Enjoy.

Christmas pillows

I will add some new pillows to the guest bed this Christmas season....grammi (my mom) made the doily or "snowflake". Isn't it pretty?

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Christmas is coming...

I had fun making this little tree block designed by Lori holt for an instagram sew along. I think I'll make a pillow cover

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Baby blankets!

Carly came over to make some receiving blankets. They turned out so cute! She can't wait to cuddle  her little miss!

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Nail polish is a girl's best friend!

The beginnings of something fun...

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