Merry Christmas, Ya Filthy Animal (FREE PRINTABLE)

Christmastime is here.

Happiness and cheer.

This year marks a rite of passage for Little Guy.  He has discovered Home Alone (cue beams of light and a singing chorus).

Home Alone was released when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade (I'm so old I can't exactly remember) and it was awesome!  When the video tape came out (yes, video tape - it was the olden days), it came with a map of Kevin's house, showing where all of Kevin's traps were set up.  It was so cool.  Every kid in our neighborhood dreamed about rigging their house in to a giant version of MouseTrap (also popular at the time).

Needless to say, the Hubs and I are loving that Little Guy is so into Home Alone this year.  What makes it even cooler, is that Little Guy is constantly quoting the movie at random.  The other day, we were on the way home from school and he said "He's what the French call, les incompetent" about the school bus driver in front of us.

Call it bad parenting, but we can't help but laugh when he busts out with "Look what you did, you little jerk," and "Keep the change, ya filthy animal!"

To try and combat some of the commercialism of Christmas, I've been making most of our decorations myself this year.

In keeping with the spirit, I thought I'd make a printable for my buffet!

And, since it's the season of giving, I've made it available for you for free!  All you have to do is right click on the image below, and save to your computer!

There ya go!  Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals!

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Coffeemate Santas

One of the things I just love about the holidays is coffee.  I don't usually drink coffee at all until October; and then I drink it everyday until January.  And I only drink it for the holiday flavors.  Pumpkin Spice in the Fall, and Peppermint Mocha in the Winter.  Mmmmm....

Now that we're doing homeschooling, I'm always on the lookout for a project idea.  Which is probably why when I went to throw away my Pumpkin Spice creamer bottle back in October, I saw Santa Claus.  That red top was a Santa hat to me, so I washed out the bottle and saved it.

 Do you see Santa??  I totally did....

Ok, so here's what we did.  Since it's a holiday week, there is no school; but we still wanted to do some fun activities.  My stepson (he's 8) just flew into town last night, and I had been saving this to do when he got here.  He loves doing "projects."  I peeled the labels off the bottles, and filled an egg carton with paint colors. 

*I find that using an egg carton works really well to hold all the different paint colors you may want to use.

I asked the boys what they saw when they looked at the bottles, and Big Guy said, "A Christmas tree!"  Little Guy quickly copied Big Guy's answer, so I told them to paint whatever they wanted.  Big Guy promptly decided he would change his to a penguin.  He started painting his bottle blue, and Little Guy set to work on a multicolored masterpiece. 

Halfway through, Big Guy decided he was going to change his penguin to a Santa like mine.  Little Guy decided he'd had enough of painting and that playing with the dirty water sounded like a better idea!

Here's a look at our finished products!

Big Guy's:

Little Guy's:

Mine:

I glued a little pompom to the lid for Santa's hat.  Super fun!

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How NOT to make a festive Peppermint Wreath

This year I needed a new wreath for our front door; but have you been to Michael's and seen the price of wreaths?!  Ridiculous!  While browsing Pinterest, I came across the most adorable Peppermint Wreath, and thought, "I can totally make that!"  Thus, begins my story of how NOT to make a peppermint wreath.

Totally cute, right?!  I know!

Honestly, I'm not really sure what went wrong..... I've narrowed it down to:
1.  I bought the wrong coating to spray over it.  OR
2.  People who live in Florida are copletely out of luck when it comes to Christmas-y decor such as this since we live in a bazillion (actual number?  eh...) percent humidity all the time.

Here's how I made my ADORABLE wreath for under $15, and you can decide for yourself. 

Here's what you will NOT need:

4 $1 bags of peppermints
1 pool noodle
some duck tape
hot glue gun
hot glue sticks
12 yards of red ribbon
a bow
spray lacquer
a wreath hook


Let the adventure begin!!

I started my journey at Michael's.  Wrong decision.  The styrofoam wreaths were like $10, and ribbon (what ugly shades of semi-red that were left after all the crazy crafters who began on their Christmas wreaths back in October) was $6.99 a roll!  Yikes!  So, I quickly left there and headed to the Dollar Tree. 

Hey, the point of this wreath was cute on a budget, remember?  Ok, so, we're at the Dollar Tree and I purchase:  1 pool noodle, 3/Three/Tres bags of peppermints, and 2/Two/Dos spools of ribbon (3 yards each). 

As soon as I get home, I set to work slicing the ends of the pool noodle at an angle so I can form it into a circle and tape it with duck tape.

Hooray!  I was getting pretty excited at this point!  "I'm totally going to make the cutest wreath ever - out of a POOL NOODLE and nobody will know!" 
Ha...  Anyway, then I got to work wrapping the noodle with the red ribbon I bought.  I don't know if you know this, but 3 yards of ribbon is not very much ribbon.  I covered almost half of the noodle. 

Ugh...now I'm at a standstill.  It's too late to go back to the store, so I will just have to wait until tomorrow to get more ribbon. 

Ok, it's tomorrow.  When my hubby gets home from work, I leave to go back to the Dollar Tree, and since I have to pick up a couple of Christmas presents, I go to a different part of town with a different Dollar Tree.  Oh, yes.  You know what's coming. 
I get to the different Dollar Tree and they have 6 giant boxes of ribbon!!!  And NONE of them are the ribbon I bought the previous day at the previous Dollar Tree.  Luckily, the girl who works there helped me out and found me 1/ONE/UNO spool of the ribbon I bought the day before. 
I needed 2!!  I decided the ribbon was going to be under peppermints, and no one would be able to tell that it was different.  So my last spool ended up being red trimmed in glitter. 
Ugh.  Clue #1 that this wasn't going to go well. 

The next day, when I get back to covering the wreath with ribbon, things are going great.  I cover the whole wreath and start taking a bazillion (I know, I know) peppermints out of their wrappers and gluing them on. 

See the two different types of ribbon??

Anywho,  I'm gluing on my peppermints when, naturally, I run out.  I need one more bag!! 

I pack up the Little Guy and we head to the closest grocery store.  They have peppermints!  $1.28 for a bag.  Cool. 
Then I remember I never bought any coating to spray the wreath with when it's finished.  There is none, of course, at the grocery store.  So, Little Guy and I head to a Super Walmart, because they have paint, so surely they will have some shellac. 

*Let me add that I love Super Walmart - in the same way that I love being hit in the head with a hammer. 

When we get there, they do have a paint section, but the only kind of coating I can find is a lacquer.  After a call to my mom (yep, throwing you under the bus, mom) who says it will probably be fine, and $7, and a treat at the checkout (remember Little Guy came along); I'm on my way back home to finish this darn wreath.

Yay!  Yes, I know it's got a little conehead, but that part will be covered by the bow and set into the wreath holder.

Outside we go to spray.  The directions basically say spray, wait 30 minutes, spray again. 
So I did it 3 times, just to be sure.

When it's dry, I hot glue my bow on top and can't wait to hang it up!! 
Yay!!  My totally awesome peppermint wreath is done!  I did it, all for under $15 and it's way cuter that one of those fake garland wreaths you find in the store!!  Whoo-hoo!!!

When hubby comes home I ask if he liked my wreath. 
He didn't even see it. 
Of course not. 
I was working on it for days, and it's finally outside, and......he's a man. 
So I make him go out to look at it and he says, "It's covered in ants." 
I'm thinking, "yeah right." 
I thought he was just messing with me because he's a big teaser, but he definitely wasn't.

We took it down, sprayed the front door with bug spray, and added a generous amount of the lacquer all over the wreath again. 
There.
That should do it! 
Problem averted.

Until the next morning.....

So that's my lesson on how NOT to make a festive peppermint wreath.  I've decided we will have no wreath this year while we mourn the loss of my beloved creation.

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