I just looked up prices for personalized coir welcome mats and Y’ALL!
Those things retail for anywhere from about $30 to OVER $150!
You’re gonna walk on it!
And get it dirty!
On purpose!

And the craziest thing is that this took me approximately 10 minutes from start to finish.
Marshall can verify that this is the fastest craft I’ve ever done.

Start out by designing and cutting out your stencil.
(I have a Silhouette machine and lots of vinyl, which certainly makes this easier;
but last year I didn’t have a cutting machine and I hand cut stencils out of contact paper.
This doesn’t make it harder, it just makes it take longer to do.)

Once my stencil was cut out, I stuck it onto the mat and smooooooshed it around until it was stuck on well.

Then I covered the rest of the area with painter’s tape.
(I tend to get a little over-zealous with spray paint.)

While I was shaking the paint can, I danced barefoot on top of the rug.
This is an essential step!
(No, really!  It is!  The stencil wasn’t very well stuck until I did that.)

And then spray painted…

After wating about 5 minutes, I pulled off the stencil.
I love the way this turned out!!

Now, admittedly, I bought the cheapest mat I could find and it may not last long,
but I wanted to try it on something inexpensive before I invested anything.
But if I were doing it again (and I will!), I’d get a higher quality mat.
Which, ya know, would increase my overhead a little.
But still…not to $150!

(Also?  I’m thinking my next one may have a little something like this on it.)
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12 Crafts of Christmas 2011
1. Personalized Necklaces
2. Button and Lego Wall Art
3. Personalized ClipBoards
4. Fabric Covered Wire(Wall Art) 
5. Stationary
6. You & Me Books
7. Personalized Welcome Mat
8. Personalized Dessert Carrier
9. Kid’s Artwork Cup
10. Ornaments
11. Sewing Tutorials
12. Photo Display Block

You asked, I answered!

I’ll be having a craft day at my house on Sunday, December 11 from 1pm until we get done!
I’ll have materials available to make some of my Crafts of Christmas(even ones I haven’t posted yet!)
Or you can bring your own crafts to work on.
I’ll have my Silhouette machine available for use, metal stamp set,washers, ribbon, blank stationary, wire & fabric scraps.
If you know there is one specific thing you want to make, please let me know so I am sure to have everything you need.

I’ll also have lunch available for those who want lunch.
(It’ll be good, I promise!)

If you’d like to register for Craft with Bridget, you can do it here (through PayPal) or drop off a check at my house.
There are three options to choose from below.
If you want to eat the lunch and use my craft supplies, you’ll choose the $20 option.
If you want to eat lunch and use your own craft supplies, you’ll choose Lunch only option for $10.
If you don’t want to eat lunch but do want to use my craft supplies, you’ll choose Craft only option for $10.

When you check out through PayPal, it will let you leave a note to the seller.
Click on that and let me know the following:
If you plan on eating, please let me know of any dietary restrictions.
If you plan on doing one of my crafts, please let me know if there is one that you have your heart set on doing and I’ll make sure I have those supplies.

I really love getting letters in the mail.
Once upon a time I was really great about sending letters in the mail.
Now…I just cannot manage to get it done.

But I loooove stationary and my once very full stash has dwindled to nearly nothing.

So here are a few that I’ve been working on:

I fell so in love with wrapped wire letters that I brought it over to stationary.

First I used a smaller gauge wire and made my letter, leaving a little bit of the wire sticking out.
After wrapping the letter, I punched a tiny hole in the card and inserted the uncovered wire.
Folding it down, I secured it with tape.
Since I didn’t want the card recipient to see the taped wire, I used red cardstock to make a liner.

And I recently also fell in love with hand embroidered paper.  It’s super easy.
For both of the ones you see below, I drew the design by free hand in pencil,
but you could easily print out a design from your computer.
(You’d probably want to print in light gray, not black.)

I took a sharp tipped needle and pre-made the holes.
Then I simply sewed up the line with embroidery thread.
(What you see on both of these is 3 strands of thread.)
I obviously haven’t finished the bottom one yet.  🙂

And I because my kids like to craft as much as I do, I decided to do one that was kid-friendly.
Carter and Lydia fell in love with leaf rubbings this fall. (And, honestly, I’d forgotten how fun it could be!)
And so I decided to cut out a Christmas shape and do a rubbing of it.
(I used a tree for this one, but plan on using other shapes, too – maybe Santa silhouette or stocking or reindeer.)

Suuuuuper easy once you cut out your shape.
Don’t feel confident that you can draw the shape you want?
Google “Christmas tree coloring sheet” and you’ll get tons of line-drawn options that are perfect for this!
Print it out from your computer, cut around the edges and color away!

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12 Crafts of Christmas 2011
1. Personalized Necklaces
2. Button and Lego Wall Art
3. Personalized ClipBoards
4. Fabric Covered Wire(Wall Art) 
5. Stationary
6. You & Me Books
7. Personalized Welcome Mat
8. Personalized Dessert Carrier
9. Kid’s Artwork Cup
10. Ornaments
11. Sewing Tutorials
12. Photo Display Block

Ok, so I’ll admit something to you.  This craft wasn’t nearly as easy as I thought it would be.
So I’ll show you what I did and then I’ll tell you how you should do it if you want to save a lot of time.

Carter had two student teachers who finished working with the kids last Friday, so I made personalized clipboards for them.

Each teacher’s name and the date are written long-ways down the side followed by the year.
And then the names of all the students they teach are listed in a ‘word cloud’.

First I went to wordle.net and used it to help me create a template for all the names.
(Click ‘Create’ at the top of that page to make one of your own.)

Once I did that I figured out which names I wanted to be which color.
For the clear clipboard, I used white, black, and red.
For the pink (which looks red in pictures), I used hot pink, lime green and white.

Using my Silhouette HD, I designed a wordle of my own (based on what I created on wordle.net)
And cut out three different sheets (one of each color) with all the names on them.
Then I removed and discarded the names I did not want in that color.
(This wasted a good bit of vinyl, but was a pretty big time saver when I was trying to put all the names on.
And it made it much easier to keep everything straight.

I put the names on one layer at a time:  all the red names, all the black names, all the white names.
And ta-da!  I was done!
(It doesn’t sound like it took me long, but ask Marshall.
He was dealing with 4 screaming children while I was working on it.)

Soooooo….you could make one of these with the vinyl –
I really, really love how it turned out and I will probably make more of them –
BUT I know that not everyone has access to a Silhouette machine and not everyone wants to spend forever on one project.

So here’s a faster, cheaper easier way:
You’ll need a wooden clipboard, some pretty paper, some plain coordinating paper, Mod Podge and a brush(I like foam brushes).

First you’ll start by mod podging the pretty paper onto the top of the clipboard.

While that is drying, go to wordle.net and create a word cloud.

They do offer an advanced option if you want to weight certain words.
For example, I wanted the teacher’s name to be bigger than all of the children’s names…
so under ‘Advanced’ I typed:

Ms. Hancock: 400
2011:300
McKenna:120
Brent:120
Miles:120
etc.: 120

(The bigger the number, the bigger the word.)

Once you get the sizes right, you can play with color and layout and font.
Here’s a super quick one that I just made:

 (I’m a little tired, can ya tell?  🙂 )

And when it is perfect (or at least good enough), simply print it out.
(If I were doing it, I would print it on a light colored paper that coordinates with your decorative paper.)

Then mod podge that paper on top of the decorative paper and wait for it to dry.
I hate that I don’t have a picture to go with this, but I simply ran out of time.
If any of you make a mod podge one, send me the pic and I’ll post it!

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12 Crafts of Christmas 2011
1. Personalized Necklaces
2. Button and Lego Wall Art
3. Personalized ClipBoards
4. Fabric Covered Wire(Wall Art) 
5. Stationary
6. You & Me Books
7. Personalized Welcome Mat
8. Personalized Dessert Carrier
9. Kid’s Artwork Cup
10. Ornaments
11. Sewing Tutorials
12. Photo Display Block

In October of last year, I started a little series here called “12 Crafts of Christmas” where I showcased a idea or two each of the 12 weeks prior to Christmas.  I knew I wanted to do it again this year, but when October came I wasn’t anywhere near having my act together.  I was just trying to make it to Halloween with all 4 children healthy.  (We made it!)  But I still wanted to do 12 crafts, so I have decided to do two crafts a week for the next six weeks.

Today’s craft is a little jewelry tutorial.  I did originally see this idea on Pinterest and it was linked to a tutorial.
But sometimes I see people post things that they’ve made and I think, “It can’t really be that easy, can it?”
This was one of those times, and I’m here to tell you: This is seriously easy, but it does take a little patience.

For this project you will need:
A hammer     

Ribbon

Jewelry bead

Sharpie

Wet wipes

Scissors

Fray Check

A steel stamp set like this one from Harbor Freight.

Metal Washers (I bought three sizes starting with 1/4″ and going up)

Start by placing the washer on a flat and sturdy surface.
(I would not recommend doing this on your kitchen table!)
Using the letters of the stamp set, carefully hammer in the letters you want to use.
(Be sure that the letters aren’t facing backwards before you hammer!)

Once you are finished hammering, use a Sharpie to color over the letters.
Make sure the ink gets down into the grooves.
Before it gets too dry, gently wipe off the excess with a wet wipe.

Thread the ribbon through the washer(s) from front to back (as shown).
Push the ribbon through the hole created and tighten.
Add jewelry bead to secure the spot of the knot.
Trim the ends of the ribbon and then use FrayCheck to keep it from unraveling.

For these necklaces, I simply tie a bow in the back.
But if you really wanted to, you could easily add a clasp.

See, wasn’t that easy?  I will admit that I threw away several washers that I ruined at first.
It takes a little practice to get used to lining up the letters and hitting it just hard enough.
Over all, it took me about 10 minutes to make one necklace.

***

Want a fancier version of this necklace?  Click here to see how to add a pearl.

Want to make a bird nest necklace?  Click here to find out how.

Want something with a little less sparkle?  How about these tee shirt bracelets?

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12 Crafts of Christmas 2011
1. Personalized Necklaces
2. Button and Lego Wall Art
3. Personalized ClipBoards
4. Fabric Covered Wire(Wall Art) 
5. Stationary
6. You & Me Books
7. Personalized Welcome Mat
8. Personalized Dessert Carrier
9. Kid’s Artwork Cup
10. Ornaments
11. Sewing Tutorials
12. Photo Display Block