Tag: traditions

Blogmas: Nolan & Meghan’s DIY Christmas Project

Published on by gotmeghanLeave a comment

Hello!

I think my time of creating Christmas ornaments are done for now at least. Technically, I’m not done, I’m just not doing them by myself anymore. This year my nephew decided to accompany me on this conquest.

What you will need for this project:
  • Unfinished wooden ornaments – Gnomes & Reindeer
  • Super Tip Crayola Markers
  • Decorative String (optional as many packs of ornaments come with them)
  • Baby Wipes
  • Full of creativity (and energy!)

For my birthday, I got a huge box that was full of two large bags of Christmas ornaments. I had plans to do gnomes and gingerbread men this year, but I couldn’t find an even number of both characters, so I looked for reindeer and they were so cute on the site, and I knew everybody would enjoy them just as much and once my nephew saw the ornaments, h immediately wanted in on everything that had to do with them.

Honestly, it was amazing to see how much excitement he had for these gnomes, because I feared he wouldn’t like them, but I was very wrong with that assumption.

He comes over for a slumber party every Friday (unless his mom or dad have other plans with him) and he looks for the massive box they’re stored in and arranges one from each baggy on the opposite side of my little table. We have five gnomes in a different ensemble while one reindeer head or face, and it doesn’t matter how many times I tell Nolan they don’t have to be Rudolph, because it’ll go in one ear and out the other, so there are many Rudolph on his side.

I’ve done some kind of ornament since 2014. I worked on them with my nana first and she was fine with using paint to decorate anything, including glitter (although there were years, she tried to cut me off!) but even after she moved up north, I still used acrylic paint for everything. I never thought to use markers before. My little nephew literally grabbed my box of markers and went to town on his stack, and I was speechless!

After I recovered from this epiphany, the ideas didn’t stop coming to neither one of us. Since he is in kindergarten now, he has learned how to stay in the lines, but for these ornaments he is able to scribble or use a LOT of black on his characters. He is definitely a fun of darker colors mixed in with some neon here and there. And since he loves these coloring so much, he usually has the sides of his hands smeared with fresh markings. He wears them like they are his tattoos or something!

We actually have one gnome we call the “Pawpaw Gnome” because I told Nolan he reminded me of my dad/his papaw. This one has a full and long bread with deer antlers poking out of his hood. I tend to go with my favorite colors that actually look great on my dad. I know dad enjoys the fact that he has a gnome dedicated to him, even though he no longer wears his bread/hair long anymore.

My second favorite is the girl gnome or has a feminine touch as it has pig tails in a bow standing out of the hood. The hat itself has medium and small size circles throughout and I like to add shadows on them to make them pop out a little more. This is the only gnome I’ll use a bright pink shade because it reminds me of the girly aspect.

I liked this one so much that I kept it back for myself as a little gift. The color scheme is made up of the Frozen films and The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen, I used on this year’s reading journal. I never had the perfect moment to publish what I was doing in the journal at the beginning of 2023, but I wanted to give you an idea of how everything turned out inside my journal. So, this gnome has my main colors: pink and green for Princess Anna and light blue and purple for Queen Elsa. Unfortunately, I didn’t refer to any other characters in my journal, but I added a bright orange to mimic Olaf’s carrot nose for the gnome’s pigtails and gave her brown boots to represent Kristoff and Sven.

I’m hoping by the time this post goes out, Nolan and I are finished with them and have been sent to their owners. If not, I hope you enjoy reading about my nephew and I’s new tradition. I think it will be probably three more years before my niece Kimber will join us. It’ll be interesting to see if Nolan wants to continue doing them with me once that time comes, but I’m focusing on the “now” rather than the future.

What kind of holiday craft(s) were you working on this holiday season? For those who include young kids, how do you help convince them to continue the traditions you’ve built with them?

snowflake

Blogmas | Annual Holiday DIY Project

Published on by gotmeghan3 Comments

Hello!

I love being able to do something creative around the holidays.

It’s become a bit of a tradition to do ornaments and now that I have been exploring the dot painting world, it has really opened a bunch of ideas in my mind and it’s fun to share them with my loved ones and of course blog about them. My only regret is that not every person will get one in the mail.

Sidenote: For the past month, I’ve had three bouts of stomach flu or whatever – I no longer believe it was stomach flu, but I’m also terrified to go down that road to find out what is exactly going on with my gut. Anyways, since I was down and out for several weeks, I was even more scared to do anything constructive because it would always come back to bite in the ass–literally! I know, TMI but you gotta laugh, right?

What you will need for this project:

  • Unfinished wooden ornaments – depending on which product you choose, sometimes you will be given string, multicolored beads, paint markers
  • Acrylic paint – I used two different brands of paint: Bunny Barn and DecoArt
  • 3 Paintbrushes – a large, medium and smaller brush
  • Palette container
  • Damp and dry wash cloth
  • Cup of water
  • Dotting tools

Last Christmas, I went back to the brand I used in my 2021 ornaments because they had two different collections, and I swore I had saved the others in one of the folders, but I guess I didn’t, which really bugged me in late October, so when I went looking for these characters days later, I had hoped I didn’t purchase the same designs! The ones I did find though, they had trees, bells, and snowflakes, but I really liked the others in the batch that I choose to overlook them and do my best to make every single ornament unique and I hope you (and their owners!) enjoy what I was able to do this time around.

The first day I only went in with eight characters and their base coats – for at least three of the ornaments were only painted in one color: the stars, snowflakes and hearts. Technically, the silver bells are only color, but they have a layer of glitter on top of them. I’d just like to point out the glitter wasn’t my idea; this was an addition made by my mother! For a woman who has panicked everytime I have paint out, she went all in with the glitter, I was actually very proud of her! Honestly, I didn’t know what I exactly wanted to do for these three and I went back and forth more on the hearts, but I do think keeping them as they are, is just as festive!

Once I had finished painting those guys, I moved onto the next few as i tried to do four at a time, but that really depended on the colors I still had available on my palette, so I did the baubles, snowmen, and angels, as they didn’t require much in the first layer. The snowmen were fairly simple as I just went to paint most of it in white and added the black on the arms, face and top hat. I had the thought of putting a neon orange nose of them but I figured all hell would break loose if I did so they went without their standard carrot nose. I just realized I didn’t even give them a scarf either. Oops!

The baubles were another easy-going ornament for me as I just used a color called “pure blue” and it is beautiful! I was tempted to use it everywhere but that was also part of the problem with it, since the shade was so vibrant, it was somewhat difficult for my mom to remove on the brushes, skin, …floor. It’s the same blue that reminds me of that scene in Harriet the Spy where her classmates “accidentally” pour a jug of blue paint on her. The last scene of her frantically scrubbing it off, is exactly how my mom had to remove it as well! Back to the baubles though, after they had dried, I grabbed my rustic gold and painted the section where you thread the string on top of it and it actually makes it look really good! I was worried I’d regret my decision there because when it dries, it tends to soak into the surface and instead of becoming lighter as acrylic paint normally does, it can look dark, but thankfully, the blue stands out just enough to balance out that dullness it can have at the end of the day.

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This photo was taken before the wings of the angels (and the trees were decorated!) were taken.

The angel. I was somewhat thrilled to have a small stack of heavenly angels as a part of my holiday project. I was conflicted though because I wanted to keep them with a simple design, but also make them to be individuals as well; in the end I went with the latter as it just seemed better to go in this route in case, I got a little overzealous with making sure every angel was different from the other. So, they all received a sky-blue gown, white wings and light-yellow face/halo.

Next, I went to the reindeer, stocking, trees, and despite doing the Christmas trees last year, I was thoroughly excited to be a little more creative–sickness be damned at this point!

Anyways, I started with my trees, and I managed to remember the precise shade I had for my original tree project back in 2020, and it had a bluesy green color and I thought it made the trees more winter-y, which is what I really wanted to showcase a natural look with some decorations here and there. Every tree had the standard blue-green coat, brown trunk and yellow/red on top for the star. When I finished with the basic things, I moved on to create their overall look with yellow, red and blue dots everywhere; some trees had a design I enjoyed creating last Christmas and I definitely went for it on some of them, while the others have a couple or few smaller dots that make them seem cute and meek at the same time.

As for the reindeer, I knew they would appear this year, but since I thought, I was going to have that other collection, I figured I’d only have to focus my attention on the face of the reindeer themselves, whereas with the batch I ended up with, were made with the whole body intact, I was a little nervous on how to make them “believable” if that makes sense. Although I will admit, I did create a little Rudolph face on the bells last Christmas as an added bonus to the mix, and I absolutely loved that idea, but I was concerned on whether I’d feel comfortable making a harness over the chest and front legs like they were all a part and ready to carry Santa’s sleigh through the night sky. I didn’t use a pencil outline for any of my initial designs for when I started on the dot process, I just went with my gut and I’m happy to say it actually worked out in the end of the day.

To round off this cluster of ornaments, we have the innocent stocking. My mindset going into this one was to basically copy what my actual stocking looks like, it’s a ruby red with white topper or ruffle, I don’t really know what that part of the sock/stocking would be, but then again, I’ve never had to care of the correct term. Anywho, when I went into painting, I used this beautiful red shade that definitely captured the same color that of red-hot cinnamon candies, but that damn topper was difficult. My mom had thought of using the silver glitter again, and at one point I had agreed with it, but then I changed my mind when I suddenly found myself with two stockings with bright blue… Honestly, I don’t regret it. It’s really pretty! The other two were never painted actually painted; if I had the confidence to do it, they were going to have a textured fur look in that area but again, I still loved how they turned out too!

Here’s something funny for you, now that I’m officially done with these ornaments and they should be getting to their rightful places soon, I’ve already decided on what I’m doing next year. If I can find a bunch of them, my plain is to do gingerbread men and women. As much as I enjoy the variety packs, only having one character may be easier on me as I can just give my heart to my design process. What do you think about this idea?

Do you have any special Christmas crafts you do for or with your family? For those who do not have anything, but have your own ideas though, what is it? Share with me in the comments!

snowflake

Life Lately | Traditions Never Fade

Published on by gotmeghanLeave a comment

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The only downside about getting a lot of ideas, getting them written out, and then scheduling them to different days of the week, is that you become very lazy and sometimes getting more ideas after that is difficult to come by. This is what I’ve been dealing with for almost two weeks now. The “Fast Friends” post was one of the posts I did later on in the week, but one of the last ideas I had floating around. Now I’m empty.

I loved doing one of these “Life Lately” posts the last time I was in a rut, so I thought I’d do another to hopeful get myself back on track. You see, I have tons of ideas after Christmas is over. I mean, I got all my New Year’s stuff that I could be working on right now, but I feel like I’m getting too ahead of myself and I’ll really be in a rut on what to do for that whole week of December. I can’t necessarily do any Christmas posts at the moment. Even though, I do know what I’m kind of getting from my mom and dad for Christmas, except for one thing. Yesterday, we went to the mall. It was more like a game of hide-and-seek because we kept losing Blondie. She wasn’t in the mood to stay with mom and I. Poor dad thought the entire place was too crowded for him so he kept to himself for most of the day. I’ve got to say though, I am pretty proud of myself. I told my mom about an idea that my nana and I had finally decided on, well it was my idea but she agreed on it. That was the first thing I did and was probably the cheapest thing(s) I bought throughout the whole day.

My birthday was in early November, I still had birthday money, most of it actually. So I got to spend it on myself and got to clear my conscience a bit too, I thought it was going to be like last year. My nana and I waiting until last minute to do our last DIY project of the year. It’s becoming a bit of a tradition for me to do something homemade and give it to my family members. I promised to myself I’d keep up the tradition, I’m not breaking it now. Since my parents kind of know what is going on, I think I’ll make theirs as my example for the DIY post for you guys. Anyways, there are some clothes that I know I got and can’t have them for 12 days. I did get three shirts that I was really hoping to wear before Christmas since I bought them, but my mom told me a couple of hours later after we got home that she will pay me the money back I spent on them if I wait for them. Considering we’re going shopping again sometime this week, I’ll take the money and shut up!

I swear though, I think everybody and their grandmother (literally! I saw quite a few old women in wheelchairs there!) was there at the mall. We could hardly get through Hot Topic because it was so damn crowded. Going to the mall on a Saturday with 13 days until Christmas is a bad idea. I think the only good thing we did enjoy was the fact we all got to have Chinese food. Who knew Honey Glazed chicken was as good as it was in your dreams. There are some things I’ve never done at the mall, one of those things is go into the restrooms there. I know that’s weird, but restrooms and dressing rooms are a wheelchair users enemy. I got into the bathroom there and we realized they had a wheelchair restroom at the corner. I loved seeing all these kids around, while I was out by the entrance way to HT, there was a little girl in her stroller and her mom walking in front of me and we locked eyes, I have to say “hello” and wave with my foot at them to see their reactions. Her mom said as they were past me that she was waving inside of her blanket. Too adorable!!

Sometime this week, we’re supposed to be going back out shopping. I have a couple more things to get for the project and then I’ll be done. We’ve also got to do our traditional Christmas cookies sometime this week too. Last year, we did them twice. Once at our house and the other at my nana’s. This year I’m using a table so my back doesn’t feel like it’s going to break in two. We also have to put our big Christmas tree in our house. I’m kind of planning on doing a blog post about both of those things, but explaining the meaning for some of our ornaments on our tree that we’ve had for over 23 years! Oh, my little tree has some decorative additions to it. I had my mom put some of my beaded necklaces I got from Plummer and such to wrap around the tree. It’s so cute! Everytime my mom comes home to work she plugs it into the socket to turn on the lights. It makes me happy and kind of festive! I won’t be as festive until I get pricked by the tree branches when we put it together. Now that’s a tradition that started on accident and somehow it happens every year.