Crafty Saturdays

..are my favourite kind of Saturdays. 

Today, our only goal was to stick around the house and get things sorted out for Christmas decorating.  It's still a little early for full-fledged Christmas decorations, but Mike's schedule kind of dictates our lives, and with the need to be stuck at home this weekend, it seemed to be the perfect weekend to get ready for Christmas.  The outside of the house is decorated, the tree has been found and put up, and we might get around to decorating inside tomorrow.  Maybe not...we'll see how it goes!

We did do quite a bit of crafting, though.  We really wanted to incorporate Advent into our decorations, but it seems that if you want to do that, you have to start from scratch and develop your own decorations.  So that's what we did!

The whole family got in on the action, and not having to bundle up and freeze off fingers while decorating was a VERY nice perk to living in the desert!!  Notice the short sleeved shirts......

Our first job was to put up basic white decorations, which we had from years past.  What we didn't have was some sort of outdoor Advent decorations.  A quick trip to Hobby Lobby, a glue gun, scrapbook paper, felt, Mod Podge, and some battery operated candles, and the family got cracking on the creating.  First up:  and outdoor banner to be replaced by a Christmas one on Christmas morning.

(and yes, we will add candle flames every week..)

Next up was an outdoor wreath, to place on our patio.  

Supplies - scrapbook paper, electric candles, and Mod Podge

Drying, after being all glossified....

We bought a pre-lit wreath (mainly because it was just a prettier, fuller option), but also will light it on Christmas Day.

The finished product, before being moved outside.

This sits on our outdoor table, on the front patio.  It is a covered patio, so I'm not sure it will stand up outside WITHOUT being protected from dew, wind, rain, and/or snow.

The finished product - we LOVE it!

We had a little extra time, and some craft supplies from a project that I planned last week, so we also had a little fun.  The boys LOVE the game Angry Birds (who doesn't?!?!), and we decided to make our own version of the fun, on a smaller scale.  They're having a blast creating sets for the birds to destroy - it's kind of a perfect little boy game, with sound effects and everything!  Best of all, it took about 20 minutes to make, and everything was dry by the time we came back from our Christmas shopping at the craft store....

The supplies - all things we typically have around the house.

Finished game - they used plastic cups and popsicle sticks to build shelters for the pigs.