I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and are looking forward to a new year, filled with a lot more creativity! I the cold months of January and February are often two of my most productive of the year, seems I spend a lot of time indoors scrapbooking then. Thank you to everyone who came by last week during the busy days leading up to Christmas. In honor of the unofficial kick off of what I hope will be a paper crafting filled winter, here are three projects that all feature paper, my personal favorite craft medium!
Le Chateau des fleurs by Frenchy shared this elegant mini book that's perfect for hanging on the tree.
Find out how to make this fun tree made out of paper scraps at Homework.
At Smile Monsters, Jo has figured out a clever and useful way to reuse a drink container.
- Link up your creative projects! Crafts, Decor, Recipes, Sewing and Organizing tips are are welcome. Kids crafts are welcome too, we want to see how you're encouraging the next generation of artists!
- Add your links to the specific posts and not your blog's homepage. Please make sure you post is NEW to A Crafty Soiree, it can be from your archives but should not be something you linked up to our soiree before. We've had a few repeats and we'd like to avoid that.
- Add my Crafty Soiree button above or link back to me in your posts, so others can find us and join in!
- Please comment on the post linked up in front of you. All partygoers love meeting new friends... don't just stop there...if you see something that catches your fancy-- stop by and say hi!
- Please consider following the hostesses, me and Malia, we want to get to know our guests
- Most importantly... enjoy yourself and have fun!
Don't forget, A Crafty Soiree is hosted on two blogs, so when you link up on one your link will automatically show up on the other one too! Please note, by linking up to A Crafty Soiree, you're giving permission to feature your project and photos in the future, with proper credit of course☺
At 
Find out how to make this Christmas Mouse Hoop-La at 
I printed it out on some computer fabric sheets along with a favorite quote. Then did a super simple design with four strips of beautiful blue fabric that I thought would coordinate well with my mom's great room.
We did a little ornament exchange with Valerie and her two daughter's at 
After the paint is dry, I let ER use my "Grown Up Stamps" and "Good" inks. She was very excited by that! She carefully stamped little snowflakes onto each letter. I was pretty proud of her work, no smearing and very little rocking of the stamps. That's my girl, crafter in training!
After she stamped I took over and sprinkled each with embossing powder and used my heat tool to emboss each stamped image. That means the image becomes shiny and raised. It helps make it stand out a bit better.
After I added a ribbon for hanging we added a little crafty goodness for each girl. These foam frame kits should be fun for them to make. We put some together ourselves and are using them as extra special name tags. Yeah, I know they're a little big but ER needs that much space to write. The photo space is where our "To" and "From" are going.
Then we packaged them all up with some fancy tissue paper and hand stamped name tags that carry on our snowflake theme for both ornaments. We hope they enjoy their packages from us!
I couldn't let the holiday season go by without a kid made ornament being added to our tree! I let ER's current obsession with Cinderella blue take the lead this time. I think seeing this color palette will always remind me of this time. I've actually made this ornament before, with my kindergarten class one year, using traditional red and green Christmas colors. I like this wintry snow themed one even better! 
It's pretty simple to make but you do have to allow for drying time. First paint your small clay pot white. Then sponge paint with blue. Let dry. "Paint" pot with Mod Podge and using a pinch and sprinkle technique, add glitter. Let dry and then dab on another layer of Mod Podge. This seals the glitter onto the pot and will prevent too much from falling off as time goes on. Dab as opposed to brush to help keep the maximum amount of glitter on your pot. Let dry throughly.
When the pot is dry, you'll want to embellish. We added ER's school picture, outlined in puffy paint, and some foam stickers. I also added rub-ons very carefully, it was hard to get them to stick over the glitter. Afterward, I smeared on a little more Mod Podge over the saying to keep it from lifting off.
Hanging on the tree the lights twinkle against the glitter. A gentle shake will make your Christmas Bell ornament jingle. Don't forget to write the year on the inside of the bell. We made one for our own tree, both Grandparents, and for our very special ornament exchange with Valerie from 
