A Very Pinterest Christmas

Hello, everyone! I hope you had a wonderful holiday--I did, more on that later!

How did I ever get along without Pinterest? I'm coming up on my year anniversary with my Beloved Pinterest, and I have it to thank for quite a few of the fun things I made this Christmas.

First was the gift we made for Maren's teacher, a Disney/Mickey Mouse nut. I first saw these cute Mickey Mouse Oreo cookies months ago and knew I wanted to do something with them for her Christmas gift.

Source: http://twopeasintheirpod.wordpress.com/

Instead of making pops, we just made cookies so that more would fit in the jar. Maren helped me pick the yellows out of 2 tubes of mini M&Ms for Mickey's buttons. We also decided to make some Minnie cookies, using Wilton pearls for the polka dots on her dress and two tiny heart sprinkles put together for her bow.

Then, Groopdealz had a deal for vinyl monograms, and the rest of the gift was taken care of! A visit to IKEA (not a quick visit--it's impossible to make a quick visit through that place) took care of the jar.

I hope she liked it. Actually--I hope she got it! I sent it to school with Maren the last day before break, and only found out later that the teacher was out that day. I hope maybe she stopped in before Christmas to pick it up.

Another gift I made was for The Mister's co-workers. Last year when the Christmas junk at Target went to 90% off, I found a big stack of Christmas cards that came in the niftiest tins with a clear plastic window in the top. They were originally $8.99. I immediately donated the cards, but kept the tins to use this year. When I Pinned this adorable Santa snack mix:

Source: http://cookiesandcups.com/santa-party-mix

I knew just what I would make to put in the tins!

The little Santa hats made from Bugles turned out so cute! I'd definitely make this again. This isn't one of the tins--I had a bit of leftover mix that we placed into cellophane bags with Santa ribbons for a few other people.

One of my church jobs is that I get to work with 8-9 year old girls. I pinned these glittery Christmas ornaments because they seemed easy enough for the girls to make successfully.

Source: http://thegreenbeanscrafterole.blogspot.com/2010/12/all-that-glittersminus-mess.html

I don't have a photo of the ornaments we made, but they turned out so great--they are so pretty and sparkly! The hardest part was finding the Pledge floor wax that you squirt inside the ornaments to get the glitter to stick. I found mine at my Commissary, but later I did see it at Wal-Mart. It costs almost $7 per bottle, but you only use a tiny bit for each ornament, so one bottle would last you a LONG time. Like, decades. Or, you can do what I did and let all of your friends pass around the bottle to make ornaments with their kids!

For breakfast a few mornings before Christmas, I made these fun, festive waffles:

Source: http://www.rutherfordfamilyhappenings.blogspot.com/2011/12/decorating-christmas-tree.html

only I have an aversion to artificially-green foods, so I left the green food coloring out of our waffles.

I didn't have blueberries or raspberries, but I did have blackberries and pomegranate arils to decorate mine, complete with a dusting of powdered sugar snow.

Earlier in December, I also made this cute banana snowman treat for the kids:

Source: http://littlestlearners.blogspot.com/2011/01/eeeeeeeeeekkkkk.html

though again, I didn't take a photo of my own version before the kids gobbled them up, but we used mini chocolate chips for the eyes and buttons.

For Maren's class party at school, we had the kids make these cute snowmen out of tongue depressors.

Source: http://adayofwonders.blogspot.com/2009/12/advent-book-activity-snowmen-at-night.html

Since it's not technically a "Christmas" party, we went with the winter theme and this craft was perfect!

For time's sake, I prepainted the sticks and we used hot glue to attach the buttons, felt scarf and the ribbon hanger.

And one last gift, this one for the ladies I visit each month. I actually didn't Pin these clever soap bottle tags until after Christmas, but we didn't visit our ladies until then so it was okay.

Source: http://darlingdoodles.blogspot.com/2011/12/12-days-of-gift-mas-gift-1.html

I love free printables!  This link includes a free printable sheet with the cute tags and I used my scalloped circle punch to cut them out.

I actually still had bottles of last year's Christmas-scented soap that I bought during BB&W's big clearance in January. Soap doesn't go bad, so I didn't feel weird giving it this year. If I'd had more time to prepare, I would have included a cute festive hand towel to make it a more substantial gift. Next year!

Whew! Seriously, what would I have done without Pinterest?