Memory Jars

I thought I would post what I did for my co-workers this last year 2012, for Christmas gifts. It is something that I think is easy, cute and practical! I did "Memory Jars" for the year 2013. I have been collecting vintage blue canning jars and had some great finds over the summer at estate sales. There is a neat website that will help you date your blue Ball brand canning jars. Did you know that Ball brand stopped making blue canning jars in 1937? Pretty neat! So, if you find a blue Ball brand canning jar, you will know that it is from somewhere between the late 1890's and 1937. So the point of a memory jar is to collect your funny happenings or good memories throughout the year and put safely into the canning jar. One New Year's eve, at the very end of the year, you take the "memories" out and read them! Fun! Anyways, to cuten them up, I printed out the instructions and glued them to Christmas scrap book paper and used scalloped scissors to cut the tags out. I also bought some "fat quarter" fabric at Wally World and cut to fit under the jar lids. I then filled the jars with gourmet chocolates.

I also made Salted Carmel Chocolate Bark and also Cinnamon Whipped Honey. If you click on my Recipe link under the "Labels" section of the side of this blog, you can find both great and easy recipes:)

                                                                                

2012 Vintage Christmas bauble wreaths

Vintage Christmas bauble wreaths I made for the 2012 holiday season.

My Mom's, all "pinks and greens"

 

 

 

 My sister in law's, she wanted "all blue"

One of my BFF's, Emily, "multi-color"

 

 

DIY Button Bottle Brush Tree Santa Mug

Sooooo, remember awhile back when I posted about buttons and said I was working on a project that I would eventually share? I had also posted about these super neat vintage Santa mugs I had found at a local thrift store. Well, I finally finished the little project today! Whew!!! It took a little while, mainly because I was bad about just sitting down and getting it done!

 So, I had collected quite a few different kinds of bottle brush trees last year, for my crafting projects. I also have quite a bit of buttons and was not doing anything with them. It dawned on me to just hot glue the buttons to the tree and then when finished, sit in the mug!

Some of the placement of the buttons are a little caddywhompus but oh well.  It is DIY crafting so it doesn't have to be perfect right?

 

Vintage Halloween Greeting Cards

Don't you just love vintage Halloween cards? I do! They are fun to print out and craft with:) My paternal grandparents used to send us a card with a little bit of money every year for Halloween!  I loved racing to the mailbox and checking to see what the card would like, each year:) 

Lastly, a true testament to my love of the holidays (and candy)...one of my most favorite books when I was a child...

I used to borrow it from the school library yearly and in between too!

Jack O' Lantern Blow Mold & Pumpkin Patch

I found my first Halloween blow mold light this weekend! It is also my most young blow mold light only being a little over 20 years old! He was grinning at me at the back of the Goodwill store for a whopping $1.99! He did not come with his light but that is okay, I can use one of my other light fixtures for him:)

 

You know what I love about him (besides his grinning face and very large size) is that fact that he is so bright, he looks lite up even during the day!  I didn't even have him plugged in for this photos!

 

 

 

We also went to the pumpkin patch and picked out some great pumpkins this weekend.  Going to the pumpkin patch is one of my highlights of fall:)

 

 

 

Vintage Christmas Blow Mold Lights

One of my favorite things to collect now, thanks to my friend Emily, is vintage or retro blow mold lights. For whatever reason, the last few weekends in my tiny town, have been awesome for estate sales! I can't believe how huge the giant Santa Claus is! Amazing! I am working on dating him (for my own curiosity) but all I can find is "Made in Canada" so far. Most blow molds I see or find, are the size of the smaller ones by his feet.  He will go great with my HUGE snowman I happened to find at the Farm Chicks Show this year.  

The two smaller Santa Claus lights are by "Empire" and dated to 1968.  Empire was a popular maker of children's plastic toys.  They made wonderful Christmas and Halloween plastic blow mold lights between the dates of 1967-1978, as I understand.  The Noel candlestick is dated 1970.

The nice thing is that all four came with their light bulb and cords!  Like anything vintage, sometimes it is hard to find all of the original pieces but I was happy to find cords and bulbs with all of these. 

 

Hubby Hallowen paper crafting

That hubby of mine got a wild hair this last weekend and started decorating for Halloween.  I mean, seriously, our house is in full on Halloween decorating mode!  I know it's early, but how can you stifle a husband's pure joy of decorating?  You just can't, it is too sweet.

He also did some paper crafting on Sunday, including this pumpkin he hung up and our console table.  It is so fun and amazing what you can do with some scrapbook paper!  I think his ideas are very clever but I might be a bit biased:)

He turned a simple wood pumpkin into this....

He took the inside of the windows of our console table and papered them with Halloween paper.  He says he would like to do wrapping paper for Christmas this year!  What a fun, easy and cheap way to decorate each year!  I'm glad he thought of it!

Lastly, we took two antique, glass, milk bottles and filled them with Halloween tinsel and battered operated lights, so you don't see cords.  Fun!

Well, that is one small corner of the great room in our house.  Lots more Halloween decorating to come!