Some Christmas Crafts

     Here are some of our outdoor themed Christmas decorations. In the first picture I have to give Pinterest credit for the idea...actually ideas, because it was 2 ideas merged into 1. I was trying to find a new and fun way to display our Christmas cards we receive instead of hanging them on a door or wall or putting them on top of the entertainment center. I found the idea of hanging the cards on a fishing pole and we just happen to have a few fishing poles hanging on our walls (more about those in a later post).

 

 

      Next I had to figure out a way of hanging the cards on the fishing pole. I found the idea of painting clothespins white, then painting red candy cane stripes on them and then I added some glitter paint to make them sparkle. I think next year we might string some twine through the fishing pole guides to make it easier to hang the cards.

 

     I've already shared this one with you, but I want to share it again because it's so easy! We bought the biggest fishing bobbers we could find and put an ornament hook on the top hook of the bobber. We have had a lot of people compliment our bobber ornaments. It's funny when they say "Those bobbers look real." and then we say "They are."

 

 

   If you've seen a Bass Pro Christmas sale flyer advertising their Christmas activities, you've probably seen the next one in the daily craft section. Another bobber with an ornament hook attached to the bottom bobber hook and then some fuzz glued to his "hat" and "face" along with some eyes and a nose.

 

     The bobber Santa led to an idea for bobber snowman (bobbers come in very handy for Christmas decorations). The tricky part was hooking the 3 different sized bobbers together using their own hooks. It's hard to see his pipe cleaner arms in this photo but you can see his pipe cleaner scarf and his fuzzy ball eyes, nose and buttons.

 



     I hope this gave you some Christmas craft ideas. This will probably be the last post until after Christmas so have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

Bass Pro Christmas

If you've never gone to the Bass Pro Shops Christmas village, you need to. This is the Denver store from the top floor looking down.

 

They didn't have as much going on it seemed like. It was still fun though and I got in a fight with the camera so there weren't many pictures taken.

There are shooting games, race cars, train, monster trucks, crafts and drawings. They also have treats for sale. Those cinnamon pecans are my weakness, I can smell them through the entire store!

 There is also a carousel which is a lot of fun for kids. I kind of wish we had a smaller kid to take with us so I could have ridden.

 

 Since our godkids are too old for Santa, we didn't go through the line for Santa. If you do I, go get your Santa pass first! Sometimes the passes aren't for a couple hours wait so it's better to go get your pass and do some shopping while you wait for your turn with Santa.

 

 Of course there are also the regular Bass Pro fun like the aquarium.

Christmas Is Saved! We have a tree topper!

     This year when we took out the Christmas decorations, the Angel that has been on top of our tree for years had broken wings. I had that angel before I met my husband so I wasn't surprised they were broken. After searching for a new tree topper, we discovered we didn't want to pay that much money for something that we didn't like. So I decided, it can't be that hard to make a snowman tree topper. I was wrong. It took me all day and I'm pretty proud of him. It took 2 tries for his body and 3 tries for his arms. This year he is a fisherman, next year he might be a hunter.

 

     Here is a close up of his hat. I've started experimenting with tying flies so I thought it would be really easy to make some flies for his hat. I didn't tie these flies on hooks, just some wire I have for jewelry making. Today I learned that tying flies on wire that moves if you pull on it too hard is really hard.

 

      I made him a fishing scarf out of some fish fabric I have left over from making some curtains. Next time he's a fisherman, I think I'm going to make him a fishing vest.

 I had some leaf shaped buttons so I decided he needed them.
    

 

      Making a fishing pole was a little harder than I thought it would be. First I had to figure out what to make it out of. A skewer, an old button, a piece of a toothpick, a piece of string and a tiny fishing lure were the materials we came up with.
Here is the reel:

 



 Here is the rod part:

 

 Here is my snowman on top of our tree. I'm a little too short to put him on straight without knocking the tree over so he is going to sit up there crooked like that until my husband comes home and can fix him. Isn't he cute?