Some DIY projects for Christmas

I have been busy with end of the semester stuff. I am happy to say I got A's in both my classes. After a seven year break from school I am very pleased with myself. Now that school is out of the way for a month I can focus on other things. I have been doing a few DIY Christmas decorations that I found on Pinterest. I have really liked how they all turned out. So now that I have a little time I get to share them all with you.

But first something of my own creation. My supervisor at work loves white hot chocolate, but has had a difficult time finding it this year. So I thought I would do a little Google search, find an easy recipe and make her some for Christmas. I did my search and I came up rather empty. Most of what I found wanted white chocolate chips for flavoring. I wanted an easy powdered mix. So I took the recipe my mom has been using for a few years now and adapted it to my purposes. So here is my recipe for white hot chocolate. It only makes a pint jar worth of mix, but you will have left over ingredients of everything except the pudding. You'll see what I mean.

White Hot Chocolate
1 1/2 c. powdered milk (I used the generic Wal-Mart brand)
2 small boxes Hershey's White Chocolate Instant Pudding
2 TBS. Coffe-Mate powdered creamer (I used the generic Wal-Mart brand)
3 TBS. powdered sugar (I used the generic Wal-Mart brand)

Mix everything together. Add 3 to 4 spoonfuls to your hot water.

My 3 year-old niece and I had a Grinch night and used this mix with a couple of drops of green food coloring to have Grinch Hot Chocolate. She loved it.

I came across several really cute snow decorations on Pinterest. It just so happened that shortly after finding them Hobby Lobby had their terra cotta pots on sale. So of course I had to make these super cute snowmen.

Terra Cotta Pot Snowmen

These little guys are made from 4 terra cotta pots all hot glued together. 3 pots are painted white and the 4th painted black. Using the end of the paint brush I made the dots for the mouth. I used a light pink for the blush. A little orange paint for a nose.Wiggley eyes, sparkley green/red button, fuzzy green ribbon and a holly button give the final touches. Yes they are different sizes. The larger one had white paint dapped on the hat with some glitter to look like snow. Sadly the link for the original snowman no longer exists.

Here is another snowman I did. He is made with 2 different sized terra cotta pots.Obviously the larger one is painted white and the smaller one is painted black. The blush, nose, eyes and dots are done same as the previous snowmen. I used an ultra fine tipped sharpie for the squiggly mouth. I hot glued the pots together and glued the ribbon on for the hat band. The snow is done same as above. I used glittery blue puff paint to write "Let It Snow". You can find the original snowman here: All Kids Network

My last set of snowmen use just one terra cotta All painted white. I just did dots for the eyes. I did the blush, noses and mouths as decribed previuosly.  Now the ones that look like they have beanies on I used little kid gloves. I hot glued them on, tied a ribbon around the fingers and cut off the tops. The ones with earmuffs are made from large pom-poms and sparkley pipe cleaners. The snowman with the red "scarf" with the snowflakes is painted. the one with the silver "scarf" is painted and then I added scrapbooking ribbon. All the other scarves are scrapbooking ribbon. The backs are sticky. I found them in the dollar bin at JoAnns. You can find the original snowmen here: CraftTown

So I know I found this next project on Pinterest and now it seems to have disappeared. I have some 1"x3" boards lying around the house so I used them for a couple of projects.

Is It Too Late To Be Good?

I cut 2 7" pieces and a 5" piece of wood. The 7" pieces I painted red and the 5" piece I painted white. I used red and white puff paint to write the words. I felt it needed a little something so I hot glued on some glittery snowflakes I found at Wal-Mart. The boards themselves are actually hot glued together as well.

Jingle All the Way

I just randomly cut pieces of wood for this project. There was no measuring. I do know the bottom piece is 12 1/2" long. I think the "J" is 6" tall and the "n" is 3" tall. Everything else is in between those two measurements. Sorry I know it's not very specific. Anyway I modge-podge Christmas scrapbook paper onto the front of the wood. I used white puff paint to write the words. I found a little sprig that looked cute and wasn't attached to anything else, so I hot glued it on. A few days later I also found a set of battery operated lights not attached to anything so with a little help from my mother and an electric staple gun we added the lights all the way around the sign.

My last project was a Christmas present. Since my friend and I already exchanged gifts, I feel it's safe to post it here.

O' Come Let Us Adore Him
I am not a painter...at least not on canvas, but I like the way it turned out. I painted a piece of canvas navy blue, then painted black around the edges. I used foam stickers for the letters, except the word "adore". For that I used a gold paint pen. The star is done with clear glitter glue. The stable is a wooden ornament I bought at JoAnns. I painted the back white and hot glued it to the canvas. You can find the original here: View Along the Way