Christmas Crafts - Letter shirts

I don't like crafts that involve a lot of skill, because I don't have a lot of skill.

I call these, crafts for real people.

Not that other crafty people aren't real - they are super. I am not super. I am just me.

Things I do that make me less super than the super moms that blog a new craft each day include: eating foods from their containers, spending hours on Pinterest with no intent to do any of the things I pin, only folding half of the laundry, not ironing a thing until 5 minutes before we need it, watching crap TV when I should be sleeping, napping with my daughter, playing outside when it is really warm, taking Maggie to the creek to cool off, gardening -sort of, only cleaning really well when we are going to have guests.

This is why when I get crafty, I also get real.

 These shirts are from the Walmarts, they were super cheap. I had my husband draw some letters for me. An I and an E for my cousins' daughters.

Then I took those letters and I cut 'em out to make stencils. Using my white colored pencil (not a good idea to use crayon) then traced the letters on the shirts.

Next the buttons were sorted and the ones I liked were put on the stencils.

I sewed the buttons on as they were layed out on the stencils. That's right...I can sew. I am actually a 4-H Champion seamstress several years in a row. BOOM!

Only a few buttons were sewed on at a time, then the thread was tied off and a few more were sewed on at a time... like 3-4 buttons.

Why do this? That is a simple question, if a thread gets caught and breaks you only loose 3-4 buttons not all of them. Mind blown again? Thought so, you are welcome.

Oh, you don't have a giant container of sweet buttons lying around? Go get some, now. There are a billion buttons at flea markets or your mom or grandma might have some old ones lying around they aren't using. USE THEM!! No one wants some old stuff lying around, people would rather wear it.

Especially your two year old child.

Birthday time!!

Carly's birthday was a great time. As usual we had it at the community building here in town because our house can not fit everyone in it and I refuse to have 40 b-day parties for her. Our divorced/remarried families can just suck it up and come to one party.

Since Daddy was really sick last year, he got all the fun of helping to open the presents! I think he really enjoyed it. Carly did.

 The balloons are from my dad and Kim. Instead of packing peanuts they packed the tricycle in about 200 balloons. Wow guys, thanks.

Carly's shirt says "Happy Birthday To Me". The hilight of the party was when Carly pulled a card out and took it out of the envelope. She opened it and Cody said "What does it say" without missing a beat Carly said "Happy Birthday to You!" the promptly pitched it to the side and dug into the paper!

 This was from Mom and Daddy - we got her a "Meowsic" piano. Shaped like a cat - it is a little freaky looking but Carly is super into it.

Last but not least - CAKE! yes those are shot gun shells and feathers - I washed them all, no worries!

Fa la la la la it's finally over

I love Christmastime! I love the family part, the Jesus part (Advent is my favorite time of the year at church!), getting to make festive treats, the buying things for people and they can't give you the "you should not have done that" look part, the getting to run around like a crazy person part...okay not that.

We have a bazillion Christmas functions to go to. This is what happens when your parents get divorced and remarried - both sets of parents, yours and your husbands. You end up with a thousand Christmas functions. Which is great, until they all plan them on the same day and it feels like this...

Hello - thanks for the food and gifts, here are your gifts, Merry Christmas, BYE!

Repeat, 40 more times...or maybe 7...that is correct, we had 8 Christmas functions that we attended this year, all family.

We are blessed to have so much family. I really do try to keep my complaining about all the running during Christmas to the fact that we don't get to spend very much time with any of the family.

If we could spread Christmas out a little and get to spend more than a few hours at each of our family gatherings I would enjoy it a lot more.

Having changed our schedules for some to "every other year" has helped. As in we only go to step family gatherings on the "off" year. It has helped but we still miss seeing them (obviously this was NOT the off year) when we don't go.

There is no happy medium so I just embrace the chaos as much as possible and smile when the family members fill Carly up on candy and crap food - she still doesn't understand why she can't have cookies for breakfast.