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DIY Valentine's Day Sign or Homemade Valentine's Day Cards Made Easy! This Valentine's Day craft is fun and easy, even for toddlers and preschoolers! Get creative using simple arts and crafts materials. Make a DIY sign, or use for homemade Valentine's Day cards. Here is how to make your own XOXO craft!  WHAT YOU'LL NEED
STENCILS
Download and print! These printable stencils are free and available for instant download.
WHAT TO DO
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Keep your family busy this holiday season with fun and easy crafts and activities.
Most of these are geared towards younger children (up to age 8), given I am a parent to one and my teaching background is as a preschool and Grades 1-2 educator, but the Farmhouse Style Decorations are great for teenagers.
Shaving Cream Santa
This sensory activity is super simple to put together and, more importantly, fun! You just need shaving cream and a laminated Santa (you can get your instant download here). Add plastic cutlery, cookie cutters, and more to make things even more fun. You can also practice sensory vocabulary during the activity to make things more educational.
Paper plate and Cotton Ball Santa
This is another simple and fun activity for little ones, and you likely already have everything you need at your house: paper plates, glue, cotton balls, markers, and construction paper (though you could also use colored markers instead). Check out the entire activity here.
Create Ornaments
Homemade salt dough ornaments are a great holiday gift, as well as a fun sensory and craft activity. You can find my salt dough recipe and tips for creating ornaments and other keepsakes here.
Edible Activities
Gingerbread houses and baking cookies are two great activities to do with kids that are tasty as well! Want more ideas? Try marshmallow snowmen (simply use pretzel sticks and frosting to connect them, then decorate with candy and/or cookies! You can also try making winter versions of my sand cups (do snow cups instead; use whipped cream and/or white frosting instead of blue frosting, and find fun Christmas candy as toppings)
Paper Plate Christmas Trees
I'll be sharing an entire blog post on this one, but here are the basics to get you started:
1. Color paper plates using crayons, markers, or colored pencils 2. Fold in quarters. Cut out 1 quarter of the plate. 3. Roll plate into a cone and glue 2 of the 3 quarters together (one on top of the other) 4. Glue pompoms, ribbon, sequences, or other decorations on.
Christmas and Winter Busy Book
Looking for ways to keep your toddler or preschooler occupied, having fun, and learning? Be sure to check out my busy book pages, worksheets, and more!
Great Santa Traditions and Activities
Make this Christmas extra magical with my tips, tricks, and recommendations for making Santa even more special. Find everything from activities, to ideas for the little details, and new traditions to try. You can find the entire post here.
Pretend Snow
Pretend snow is a great sensory activity for young kids, and easy to make with baking soda and hair conditioner. There are tons of ways to dress the activity up to be more educational, too. Get the recipes and tips for how to use the snow to promote learning here.
Target Chanukah Banner Hack/Create Holiday Banners
Not every activity has to be put together from scratch. Store bought activity kits are great options, and there are tons of ways to hack them to make them even better. One example is this hack we did with a Chanukah banner kit purchased at Target. You can view all the details via my Pinterest Idea Pin here.
For the Adults: Winter Farmhouse Style Decorations
Create beautiful farmhouse style decor for your home with these easy tips. These projects are great for teenagers and adults, and look great year after year. Read the entire post here.
Even More Great Crafts and Activities Coming Soon!!!
In the meantime, be sure to check out my Pinterest for even more great ideas from around the web!
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If you've been following my blog for any length of time, you know I love DIY decor projects! So this Christmas, I had lots of fun putting together several projects that are perfect for the entire winter season. If there were any year where cheery decor were necessary all year, it would be this one, right? Check out these gorgeous farmhouse designs, plus tips for recreating the looks!
Dining Room Table Centerpiece
Using the same off white recycled jars from this project (see the Thanksgiving jars), I was able to create a beautiful centerpiece! I traded out the autumn foliage for faux pine branches, pinecones, and berries, and used a gold metal tray as a base. I then wrapped twinkle lights (with leaves attached) around the vases, and placed the battery pack in the center vase (beneath the greenery). The finishing touch was the addition of a few pinecones on the tray. I paired the centerpiece with a table runner, plus white and gold candles.
Farmhouse Style Wreaths
These wreaths are super basic and easy to make; just purchase a faux pine wreath and use a hot glue gun to add a few pinecones and a burlap ribbon (the ribbons I used had gold thread intertwined). Because there is no red, no ornaments, and no other holiday related additions, I'll be able to keep these wreaths up all winter!
Birdcage 'Potpourri' Light
I loved the birdcage decor I used for the fall so much that I repurposed the item for winter! I wrapped evergreen garland (which had bells attached) and twinkle lights around the cage, and then filled it with some scented pinecones. This farmhouse style DIY piece is a huge upgrade from your grandmother's potpourri dish, and made for a festive addition to my foyer.
Products You'll Love
Want to try one of these great projects? Here are some products you may love!
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Who doesn't love a seasonally decorated mantle? I'm making it easy to replicate the look I put together in my home with low cost products you can order online!
Adorable Wall Hanging Bats
While many of the products I'm recommending in this post are look alike for the ones we have in our home, these are the bats that we've been using the last couple of years. They are sturdy and make for a bold accent. We've used them on our fireplace and our walls, and have received tons of compliments the last couple of years. Once Halloween is over, we take down the bats and leave up the rest of the decorations until it is time to decorate for Christmas!
Farmhouse Style Clock
We love our farmhouse style clock; it is one of our favorite pieces! For your home (since we got our clock from a friend's small, local business), I've found a great look alike that has similar roman numerals and a weathered wooden base.
Fun Fabric Pumpkins
So many look-a-likes, so little space! Here are just some of the great fabric pumpkin options I was able to track down. These will keep your home looking seasonal and stylish from September to Thanksgiving!
Fall Sign
We've had our fall sign for about 7 years now, but lucky for you, there is no shortage of look-a-likes! This one is the closest I was able to find, though you'll have no problem finding a different one should you not love this recommendation.
Candles and Candle Sticks
Who doesn't love candles? We have made them a staple of our decor for years. Check out the orange candles above as one option. You can display them in whatever candle sticks you have, or get ones that look like ours (which were originally purchased at a small shop in the Berkshires for our wedding). The look-a-likes are shorter than ours, but will still work (and are much less expensive!). We rotate the candles we place in them based on the season; fall is red, orange, purple, or black, winter is red, green, or white, and so on.
String Lights
We love our battery operated orange string lights. With no plug to worry about, they are portable, and perfect for the mantle because they don't have a wire running to the nearest outlet. These look-a-likes come in a pack of two, and cost a good bit less per piece than the ones we found in a local store!
What does your autumn mantle look like this year? Comment below to share some of your tips and tricks!
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There is nothing quite like crafting for autumn, am I right? For some reason I feel so much more motivated to craft this time of year. I can't be the only one, right?!
This year my first craft of the season were decorated wooden squares.
Much like the craft I shared from last fall, this project is super flexible and can be modified easily to the supplies you have and the season you want to craft for.
What you will need:
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Basic Supplies:
Other supplies that may be helpful:
Looking for craft supply recommendations? Check out my growing list of favorite and recommended products for crafting here.
How to make these decorative wood canvas crafts:
1. Start with your raw wooden block. Paint or stain desired color.
2. Apply any paper/photographs. For larger pieces, you can apply Mod Podge first. For smaller pieces, you will want to apply first, then add coat of Mod Podge. Check out the exclusive resource library to get some of the graphics and photos I used for this project! For some graphics, this may mean using an X-acto knife or scissors to extract graphics or text.
You may opt to add additional color or sparkle using colored pencils or pens prior to cutting them out.
3. Apply coat of Mod Podge with a paint brush. If you are using glitter, promptly apply once the coat ofMod Podge is on.
4. Heat up hot glue gun. Apply any bulky items (ribbon, fabric, sequins, etc.).
5. [OPTIONAL] Apply additionalMod Podge if desired.
6. If using acrylic paint accents (including acrylic paint pens), add these last.
And you're done!
Love these graphics? They are coming to the resource library in the coming days! You can sign up here.Love this? Be sure to share!
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Autumn is my favorite season, and I relish all things fall decor. I'm also a huge fan of crafting, so when crafting and autumn go together, it makes for one very happy mama.
Last year I got quite into creating custom jar crafts using recycled jars. Most were made out of Barilla pasta jars, but I've also used almond butter jars (while my little one is allergic to some nuts, almonds are thankfully not one of them).
For all of these crafts you will want to start with label removing. I started by peeling the labels off the best I could, followed by scrubbing under warm water with a sponge and Dawn blue dish soap. You can also place the jars in boiling water with a bit of dish soap to remove some of the remaining glue, or use goo gone.
Once I removed the labels, I used spray paint and acrylic paint and/or paint pens to create custom painted creations. Then I sealed the paint with a layer of spray sealer (Krylon makes several good ones). Below are several creations I've come up with. In the future I'll be offering step by step instructions and link to them here. Until then, I've written brief descriptions about how these were created, as well as some product recommendations to get you started..
Vases made with Barilla pasta jars, matte black spray paint, and acrylic paint. For the lettering I used orange acrylic paint and a brush to make dots, followed by using an acrylic paint pen, and then lightly going over the piece with acrylic paint on a brush. The spiders and spider webs were done with acrylic paint pen.
Once the painting was complete, I wrapped brown twine at the top of the jars and filled them with faux flowers in yellow, orange, and burgundy.
For these jars I used silicone self stick plumbing tape to create letters, and then spray painted the jars with a silver/white sea glass spray paint. I then used a bit of matte black at the bottom. The spiders and webs were done using acrylic paint pen. I affixed ribbons on the tops of the jars using a hot glue gun, and inserted tea light candles (the kinds that come in a metal container). I also spray painted the lids and affixed ribbon to the edges.
This jar originally contained almond butter. After a thorough cleaning, I spray painted it with orange spray paint (the color was aptly named pumpkin orange) and painted a face with black acrylic paint. I then used acrylic paint pens for the dots around the notes and eyes.
With tea lights
Once Halloween was over, I removed the faux flowers and leaves from the BOO jars and put them into Barilla pasta jars that I'd painted with off white spray paint. I then wrapped the jars with burlap and gold ribbon. These jars are perfect for all year use; just change the floral arrangement you use!!! Here you can see them set up on our Thanksgiving Table from last year.
Products to help recreate these looks:
I am obsessed with these acrylic paint pens I purchased from Amazon. I can't recommend them enough!
This ribbon set is an Amazon Choice and offers similar patterns to the ribbon I used.
A hot glue gun is a must have crafting item, and if you don't have one yet, check out this Amazon recommended mini hot glue gun with excellent reviews. While this item comes with glue sticks, you'll want to be sure to purchase extra, too!
If you love these jars but aren't crafty, feel free tocontact me! I am happy to make custom pieces for any season.
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