Tutu skirts for Christmas

My 3 year old granddaughter loves to wear tutus, or what we call princess skirts. She would wear them every day to school is she could. Now, after Christmas this year, she just may be able to.

My Granddaughter's idea of the perfect outfit for school.
You really have to pick your battles, lol.

Originally, I was going to make the skirts, but found them at Hobby Lobby on sale and could not have made them for less. I bought a white, teal, and red skirt (that was all they had) and then went to look for bows.

Hobby Lobby had large bows, with a pony tail holder attached on sale, so I bought a few in the colors I wanted. I also found some on clearance at JoAnn and bought a few there. Now I have a large selection for my granddaughter to choose from.

Next, I bought sew on snaps in the fabric department of Hobby Lobby. I bought the largest one I could that would not show from behind the bow's knot.

On the front Center of the waist band of each skirt I sewed the female side of a snap using the same color thread as the skirt .

I cut the pony tail holder off the back of the bows, and using the same color of thread as the bow. I sewed the male side of a snap to the back of the bow.

Now all of the skirts and bows have snaps and my Granddaughter can decorate each skirt with whatever color bow she wants. She also can wear the bow in the front or the back.

I am so excited for her to open this present on Christmas!

Children's Christmas Tree Ornament Craft

My Grandson made a cute Christmas tree ornament in school made from Craft sticks (tongue depressors) and craft jewels. I thought it was a great craft for my Grandkids to make as gifts for their Aunts and Uncles. I, of course, changed it a bit to jazz it up. Shocking I know, lol!

The original tree ornament that was the inspiration for our project.

I hot glued the the sticks in the shape of a tree/triangle. When the glue was dry I had the kids paint the sticks green. Next, Meemaw wrote there name and year on the back of the tree they painted. When the paint was dry I sprayed them with a clear coat to make them shine.

Craft sticks aka tongue depressors.

Sticks were hot glued, painted and sprayed.

Next, our trees needed lights and a star. We used a star paper punch with yellow paper to make the star for the tree tops. I bought some Christmas lights ribbon from JoAnn and cut some sections to glue across the middle of our tree ornaments.

Paper punched star and lights ribbon added with hot glue.

Now it is time to dress the tees up. I bought a bag of craft jewels and the kids placed them just where they wanted them on their trees, and Meemaw hot glued them in place. The kids had a choice of green, or twisted red and white cord for their hangers. They picked the cords they wanted and we cut them and hot glued them to the top of the back of the tree.

Bag of craft jewels.

My Grandson told me we needed a trunk for the trees, so I cut the craft sticks into small sections and the kids used a brown marker to color them before we glued them to the bottom of the tree. My grandson also added black marks on his tree trunks to make them look like bark. He is a very detail oriented 5 year old.

All of the finished products! Both kids made 3 each.

The finished product was so cute, and I can't wait for their Aunts and Uncles to see their creations.

Christmas Tree Skirt

My son, Ellis, and his girlfriend, Alison, bought their first Christmas tree this year. They had very few ornaments and didn't have a topper, so it was time to go shopping! Yippee!

Alison and I went to JoAnn Fabric, because they had a great sale with 70% off ornaments. After looking at all the single and packaged ornaments, Alison decided on blue, silver and white ornaments and a big snowflake for the topper. We went to look at tree skirts and came to the conclusion that they were too expensive, even on sale, and many were more than the price of the tree.

Beautiful Snowflake Tree topper 

White, blue and silver ornaments with a blue ribbon running through their tree.

So, I told Alison that I would make her a skirt going with the blue, white and snowflake theme. I have a skinny tree I use in my upstairs for all of the homemade ornaments from my kids, grandkids, and family. It came with a simple red felt skirt that I used for a pattern for the new white snowflake skirt.

I had some white fleece that I used for the new skirt. I put the fleece on my island in the kitchen, pinned the red felt skirt on top of the fleece, and cut around the outside of the skirt, cut a circle in the middle and then a slit from the bottom up to the center circle.

My skinny tree skirt pattern on the white fleece ready to cut.

I had some white ribbon with blue snowflakes that I decided to use for the ties on the slit.  I pinned a piece of ribbon on each side of the top, middle and bottom of the slit. I sewed it in two spots across the ribbon to keep it from raveling, or ripping off.

Skirt ties shown from the front and back.

I purchased a fabric glue pen from JoAnn Fabric and ordered two sizes of felt cutout snowflakes in white, dark and light blue from Amazon. I placed the snowflakes all over the skirt in a scattered pattern mixing the colors and sizes. When it looked just the way I wanted it, I glued each snowflake in place with the fabric glue. It took a few hours to dry completely.

Glue pen and a felt snowflake.

All the snowflakes are glued in place and drying.

Ellis and Alison came over to join us on a trip to see the "12 Days of Christmas" at the Arboretum in Dallas and they took the new skirt home with a promise to send me a picture of their tree with the new skirt.  It looks great!!

The picture came as promised. Beautiful!!!