Gettin’ Christmas Crafty

One of my FAV linky parties is “Monday Made it” with Tara over at 4th Grade Frolics.. so even though I have been super/crazy/nutso/ off the wall busy… but I always manage to squeeze a craft or two in there, cause well, they’re just fun!

My first few made-its are for our new house:) They are of course, Pinterest inspired (duh, where else would you get craft ideas?!? 😉

My super fab sissy-in-law helped me with this little number. (Silly me didn’t take before pictures… woops.. sawwryyyy) We used cardboard letters from Hobby Lobby. The N is painted white with white glitter over top, the O is a dollar store stick wreath with lights wrapped around, the E is painted brown, and the L has scrapbook paper modgepodged on. We didn’t put a whole lot of Christmas decorations up this year with the crazy move, so I love the pop of cheer this brings to our mantel:)

This next one is suprisingly NOT a Pinterest inspired craft. Nope, it is all my SIL and I’s awesome craftiness!! Yeah yeah, I’m bragging a little:) Hubs and I didn’t feel complete up for setting up National Lampoon style Christmas decorations this year after the big move, but I still wanted SOMETHING to show our spirit so we didn’t look like the Scroog or Grinch of the street! So I took this plain wreath that I had lying around and we spruced (pun intended, I crack myself up!) it up. Here’s the before picture:

And the after hanging on my door! A glitter covered table and husband later, I think it turned out pretty good 🙂

My husband’s family does a “Made in the USA” Christmas gift exchange, which I LOVE. But as you can imagine, it can be difficult to find gifts. So SIL and I continued our crafty day by picking up these beautiful numbers, made in the USA wine glasses and using a…. go figure, Pinterest inspired craft. We got enamel acrylic paint, and used pencil erasers to dot the glasses. We let them dry in between layers. When all layers were dry, we put them on a baking sheet in the oven, let them heat up to 350 degrees, bake for a half hour, then stay in the oven till the cooled. I LOVE how they turned out!

We decided to do a “You’ve been Grinched” day at school. My teaching partner and I had a BLAST with it and so did the kiddos. We started off the day by reading the book aloud, and having the students use silly adjectives to describe the Grinch. Then we watched the movie and ate Green Grinch Juice, and popcorn! Next, the students had to do a First, Next, and Last writing of “How to make the Grinch Smile.” These turned out HILARIOUS! Lastly, we put our crafty minds together and put together this craftivity you see in the last picture. Students LOVED making them! You can pick up the template in my TPT store for FREE 🙂