Happy Holidays!

Merry

Happy

Good Tidings

Warmest Wishes

Eat Lots of Goodness

Jingle your Bells

Find yourself under the Mistletoe

Have a WONDERFUL Christmas!!

Poppies at Play will be open again starting Jan.4th!

Creative Cats

Welcome to our very last Creative Cats of the year!

Poppies at Play will be closed from Dec.21 until January 4th!

I hope that you will all have a wonderful couple of weeks and enjoy the holidays!

I wanted to share with you a few of the lovely Christmas images posted last week.

This gorgeous tablescape is brought to you by

Life with a Lady

I totally love this cone Christmas tree tutorial brought to you by

Erin K

This Christmas display is so much fun and makes me happy. It's brought to you by

Becky

Now it's your turn!!

Do you have something you'd like to share with the cats today?

C'mon, don't be shy!

It's our last linky party and post of the year, so feel free to link up any time during the break!

Link a specific blog post.

Grab yourself a CC badge of honor for your blog!

Link back to CC!

Have a wonderful Christmas!

See you in 2010!!

P.S. Happy Birthday Mirabella baby!!

think about it Thursday...

Today I am thinking about the stuff that I love...

Seriously...I am sooooooo crafted out! Is that even possible? Yup...I think it is! I have been a crafting machine and I am not quite done. Of course none of this fabulous crafting I can show you because they are for gifts. So today I thought we should all sit back from our crafting and I will share some of my loves...some old and some new!

Like this adorably cute cup and plate!!! I found them both at Wal-Mart. The plate was $4 and the cup was $2. Isn't this just the cutest plate and mug for Santa's milk and cookies!!! We have never had an official set to use each year and when I saw these I just couldn't resist! (Plus I am a huge sucker for stripes and poka dots!)


I love LOVE love children's books!!! I probably own 200 for sure...(I know...another one of my addictions!) If you have never read The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey you absolutly must! It is by far in my top 3 of all time BEST books I have ever read! It makes me cry every single time!

Are you familiar with the Toot and Puddle books? Oh boy you are in for a treat! They are seriously super cute! This is the Christmas book....I LOVE IT!

This is a book from my childhood. When my parents were moving they let us go through their book collection so that they could down size and I snagged this little beauty! The story is so heartwarming and touching it makes me cry every single time.


Also a new addition to my Christmas decorations is this fun sparkley wreath. I picked it up at Roberts Craft at 60% off the origional price! Can't beat that! Every time I look at it I smile and get all happy inside...(hopefully I'm not the only one that new decorations do this to...I could stare at it all day long!)



Growing up my parents usually purchased a poinsetta plant, but since being married I have yet to buy one...this one was actually a gift from my visiting teacher...I have decided that I LOVE it soooo much that it must be added to my list of traditions for every year.


So there you have it...some things that I love!

What things do you already have that you love?

Think about it...

Decked Out Totes!

I haul the kidlets over to the library pretty frequently. It's a fun little outing and it seems to get them excited to read new books. One thing that drives me bonkers is trying to keep all of the library books separate from our own little collection. As I was drumming up ideas for Christmas gifts, I thought that I could decorate a tote bag for each of them to keep their library books in. Something that they could carry by themselves. When we get into our new house I'm going to make a pegboard just for their library totes.Some of you that are handy with the sewing machine could probably just whip up some tote bags, but I thought it was much easier just to buy a 3 pack at Wal-Mart for just under 6 bucks making the totes $2 each! Not too shabby!!!

I wanted to make each one unique. I used the vinyl cutter to make some stencils for their names or initials.

I also used some scrap pieces of felt.

On Livy's bag I cut out a bird with some flowers and stitched around the edges. I made felt flowers for the other girls by cutting either regular circles or wavy circles and stacked them on top of each other and then stitched them. I totally enjoyed this project!! Super inexpensive too! Here's what they ended up looking like

Liv's

Jesse's

Addie's

India's

Mirabella's

Fun eh?

I'm super excited to say that I'll be sharing a few of my favorite things today on

Fireflies and Jellybeans!!!

Thanks so much for the invite Fawnda!!!

Have a wonderful Tuesday

10 more days!

eek!

~Andy

Yellow!

Happy Monday!

Remember a little while ago when Andy posted about a yellow door? Ever since, I've been thinking that's exactly what my front room needs....some yellow! I've just been trying to figure out how to do it.

At Hobbity Lobbity this week I found some vinyl wall stickers that were 50%. I fell in the love with this chair one and bought it. This is my chance to add yellow! This chair will be perfect on yellow. I just had to find the right thing to paint and put it on. I didn't know what this thing would be and thought it might take a while to find the perfect something. (You can put these right on your wall, but I wanted it on YELLOW and I'm not painting the whole wall yellow, ya know?)
I went to DI and BAM! there it was...the perfect thing! The perfect size! This yellow thing was meant to be.

Just some sanding and a few coats of paint later and TA DA.....

I love my little bit o' yellow!

PS: I also made this for a bridal shower this week. "B" from Hob Lob (where else?), tray from the thrift store, paper and paint from my closet. Total $2.50! Sweeet.

~Hannah~

Creative Cats Friday!!!

Welcome to Creative Cats all you crazy creating fools!!!

Here's a highlight of last week!!

Here's a great gift idea brought to you by

Misty!

This amazing fireplace facelift brought to you by

Transforming Home

way cute Flower pins brought to you by

Home Sweet Home

Are you feeling inspired?? Ready to play today?? Only a couple more weeks until Christmas, so hit us with some fabulous ideas!!!

Link up a specific blog post!

Link back to Creative Cats!

Grab yourself a CC button to display on your blog!

Check back next week to see if you've been featured as a favorite!

Remember to leave some comment love while checking out links!!

think about it Thursday...

Today I am thinking about....finally finishing up my ornaments!

A few weeks ago I shared my idea for my daughters Fancy Nancy ornament. I still had one last ornament to find...one for my cute spunky 1 year old son! I really wanted an ornament that described him right now. I thought, "Maybe I can find a Cheerio ornament!" Seriously all that kid does it eat cereal! Well...I looked high and low...I googled right and left and just like Fancy Nancy...no ornament to be found. So I thought, "Maybe I can make it too!"

Here is what you need to make the cutest ever ornament for your little bundle of crawling joy:

• Cheerios
• Elmers Glue
• White snowy glitter
• empty ornament
• cute ribbon
  

First step: Fill your ornament with Cheerios...my kids asked me if they would get moldy as the years go by...I am pretty sure that they will just get stale, but who cares right? I packed them in there tight so that hopefully they won't get all crumbled.

Next step: I was scrounging through my craft box and found this tube of glitter...(at first I was going for a snow look, but after I got started I thought it looked a lot like milk...seriously super cute) Take your elmers glue and spread it around the outside bottom of your ornament (both sides). Next sprinkle with glitter.

Hang to dry so that they glitter sticks. (Doesn't it look like milk?)


Here is the finished ornament!

Here is Bailey's finished ornament all "fancied up" with ribbon. I used hot glue to stick the ribbon to the back so that it will stay put for years to come.


I have had so much fun making these ornaments...it just might become a new tradition!

What can you make this Christmas...?

Think about it...

P.S.-I have also been making a zillion of these BLOCKS....super duper cute!! Home Depot cuts the 2x4s for free & lots of times they have scraps, and printing out the fronts at Costco is only $.90. So to do 1 set is like $1.25!!!

Teacher Gift!

My dad was a teacher and The Joe is a teacher now. I also have lots of friends who have at one time or another taught. It's interesting to see the different gifts that they bring home from the kids. Lots of goodies and treats and a lot of teacher-ish things. This year I decided to just give them something that I thought they could personally use as well as finding a way to thank them for all their hard work.

I decided to go with gloves.

Probably because the snow was dumping down on me this morning and cold hands were on my mind. I only have a few teachers that I need to buy for, so I also picked up canisters that I could paint and stick the gloves into. I found some at Hobby Lobby for $1.99. I also grabbed the first letters of the teacher's last names. They were $.50. I painted the canisters with 3 coats of lipstick red paint. While they were drying I used Mod Podge to attach some craft paper to the letters.

I measured some ribbon and sprayed it with spray adhesive and then wrapped it around the lids as well as the canisters.

You can glue the letters on with E6000. It doesn't seem like they will stick, but wait a few hours and they'll really be good and solid. I printed up words that have to do with a teachers hands and then created a card.

After everything was nice and dry, I stuffed the gloves inside the canister and hung the card with ribbon.

***If you have a ton of teachers that you are shopping for just forget the canister and attach the card directly to the gloves. You can buy a 2 pack at Wal-Mart for $1.40. You could even split them up and spend less than a dollar for each gift!

Most of all, don't stress out!!! Have a wonderful week and holiday season!!

~Andy

Tree Toppers

Happy Monday!

We used to have a tree topper. It was a star the had lights on it. The clip that was supposed to help it stay in place broke the first time we used it. We continued to use it and found creative ways to help it stay in place. A couple of years ago, we decided we were fed up with it...surely we could find another tree topper. Well, it was harder than I thought. To find a tree topper that I liked, that fit our tree, that seemed like it would hold in place, that wasn't more money than we were willing to spend was tough. I'm not even sure we had a tree topper on our tree last year at all.
My boys brought up this year that we are supposed to have a star on our tree. Okay, okay. I guess we better find one. Well, one miraculous afternoon when all my kids were asleep at the same time (that NEVER happens!! Really, Never, ever.), I decided to try my hand at making one of my own.


These were SO easy! For this first one, all it took was a quick trip to the firewood pile in the backyard (and I mean QUICK...it was freezing out there!) for some twigs and then plugging in my hot glue gun. I measured and cut the twigs to all be 10 inches. Then, I made a star with some bigger twigs, then continued to glue on some smaller ones on top. This took all of five minutes! I also added a longer stick to help stick it on the tree. This star can be dressed up so easily...paint it any color, add glitter, add bows, add berries or leaves or lights. The possibilities are endless!






I still had quite a few twigs sitting on my counter, so I glued another star together. Then, I just took some craft wire and wrapped it around and around the star. Here's another style in 3 minutes flat.


This is one that I saw online and decided to try. I had to buy a Styrofoam ball for this one, but that is the only thing I purchased for these tree toppers. I used bamboo skewers that I have in my pantry for shishkabobs, broke them and stuck them in the ball all over (leaving one full length sticking out the bottom for support). Then, I spray painted it ivory. When it dried, I sprayed on some spray adhesive and sprinkled on silver glitter.

Easy, people!! Why in the world have I been searching stores for a tree topper? It's way too easy to do on your own and, the best part is, you can customize them to look perfect for your tree.

~Hannah~