Festive Miniatures

On Saturday we headed downtown to check out some of our favorite D.C. Christmas sights. Our first stop was the Botanic Gardens by the Capitol. They have a great holiday display with miniature replicas of Washington landmarks all made out of plant material (and surrounded by lots of poinsettias). The train display this year was really fun with miniature replicas of monuments and landmarks from around the world, also made of plant material.

Getting bundled up to leave the house:







(Oliver slept through our whole adventure.)














(Amelia loved looking into these little "fairy rooms.")

Chalk Puzzle

Screen Printing: Coasters

For our Christmas gifts to neighbors this year, I wanted to screen print something. I'm always looking for an excuse to produce something in mass quantities so I can make good use of a screen. I came up with four Christmas designs for the screen and decided to print them on coasters. I also found little bags to print on and then put the coasters in the bag and attached them to a bottle of sparkling cider. I made tags that had the same designs on them.

There is something so satisfying about removing the screen and seeing the printed result.

Christmas around our house...

Amelia has had so much fun arranging and rearranging our nativity sets this year.

















We have fun counting down the days until Christmas. I created two additional advents this year (you can see them here). When I was a kid, we did an activity each day in addition to a nightly ritual of singing a Christmas song, reading a Christmas story, and burning down some candles.

This little stocking tree has our daily activities in it:


Our activities this year have been pretty simple so far while we're adjusting with little Oliver...watch a Christmas movie, make hot chocolate, make Christmas cookies, decorate a (store-bought, already assembled) gingerbread house, assemble and deliver neighbor gifts, etc. We are venturing out a bit more this week to see some of our favorite Christmas things in D.C.


(We had fun screen printing our neighbor gifts this year...final results are on the craft blog.)









We discovered that the girls' Christmas dresses from last year still fit!

Matchbox Garland Advent

My second advent creation this year was a re-creation of a matchbox advent I saw on Etsy. Instead of covering the matchboxes with scrapbook paper and wrapping paper, I used vintage Christmas images and added numbers in Photoshop. Then I used mod podge to attach them. The front of the matchboxes has the numbers and each day you turn one over and they slowly spell out "Merry Christmas!"

After a trial garland with buttons that turned out to be too small and making one as a gift and one for myself, I ended up sewing 75 buttons. I'm done sewing buttons for a while.










The kids love pulling out candy each day.

Let it Snow!

We received our first real snow of the season today. Not much, but it looked pretty. Now if that could just happen again for Christmas...







Perfect time to break out my favorite winter accessory:


Ben is on the red eye home tonight. Wahoo!! And no more travel for a while. Other than meeting some guys for lunch next week. In New Jersey.

Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa

We had an early Christmas celebration with Grandma and Grandpa Black so the kids could open their gifts from them. The girls looked so cute in their new nightgowns and were excited about opening up a few presents early.




(I'm sure Oliver will come to love his new blocks.)

Muffin Tin Advent

If you've ever been to my house at Christmas time, you would know that I'm a little obsessed with advent calendars. As a kid, we did a lot of different things to count down the days to Christmas...advent calendar, burned down candles each night, paper chain with daily activities, etc. and I always loved the excitement that built throughout the month. Perhaps that inspired my love of advents.

I have an ever growing list of advent calendars that I have seen on different design blogs that I want to create. In November I made two different advents. Here is my version of the mini muffin tin advent.



I used vintage images and backgrounds to create the round magnets that cover up the holes. I created everything in Photoshop and then printed them on magnet paper.

Hiding inside each hole is a bottle cap magnet with a number:


I always like visual reminders of the countdown so each day you remove a number and place it on the outside:




Then bake some mini muffins!

I made one for each of my siblings. Now I just need to make one for myself...

A visit from Grandma and Grandpa Black

We enjoyed a visit from Ben's parents this last week. Ben is on his third week of traveling for his training with the new job so it has been nice to have some extra help around here. He spent two weeks in Houston and is in California this week. We are SO looking forward to having him home soon.

Amelia and Elsa loved getting lots of attention from Grandma and Grandpa. It was nice to have them around to entertain the girls while I tended to little Oliver and also get some help around the house. Unfortunately, Amelia ended up with a high fever and had to stay home from school for 3 days. But she got to spend more time with Grandma and Grandpa.

The girls loved making Christmas candy with Grandma:




Grandma and Grandpa's puzzle skills were put to the test with Elsa. I think they did every puzzle in the house MANY times:




We also had a mini early Christmas celebration while they were here, but that deserves its own post.