A merry (printed) Christmas

Blooming Holiday at The Long Thread

Blooming Holiday (pictured above) gift tags and wine bottle hangers/The Long Thread

Typographic gift tags/Eat Drink Chic

DIY Downloads for gifting (hang tags and recipe cards) and entertaining (place cards, menus)/West Elm

Whimsical creatures gift tags (several collections)/Camilla Engman

Free holiday printables roundup/Tatertots and Jello

Keep On series at Craftily Ever After

Keep on holiday prints (pictured above)/Craftily Ever After

Christmas candy pillow box/IS*LY 

Living Locurto has a roundup of 12 free printables

Topping that, Paper Crave offers free holiday gift tags plus a roundup with 22 free printables.

Holiday gift tags (the Santa belt is my favorite)/Whisker Graphics

Cute reindeer to make/Eat Drink Chic

No peeking ornament tags/Simply Modern Mom (from Paper Crave)

Holiday gift tags/Blush Printables

Two offerings from Weelife here and here (via How About Orange)

Wine bottle hangers and gift tags with a Victorian flair/Kind Over Matter

A nutcracker for Will/Design.Wash.Rinse.Repeat

Free cards and stuff/Love vs. Design (via Paper Crave)

Gift tags (Walgreens and Target have to pay but you get her work free)/Orange You Lucky

Classic woodland holiday tags in three color choices/Creature Comforts
That is just one example from the amazing selection of free holiday printables. Look around.**


If you got Martha's December issue, you saw the holiday tag goodness on pages 87-94. Most are available for download from the magazine's Web site.

This is just a small sampling of the free holiday printables out there. Please share in the comments what you have created or seen on the Web. I'll update this post as I see more.*

*Updated 12/15 and 12/23

** Ez at Creature Comforts now (12/23) has posted a holiday tag roundup featuring 15 folks, some I've featured but most are new. And she has some new tags from her. And these too-cool candy bar wrappers. And this big bow. 

Handmade Christmas

This Christmas, I signed up for the Handmade Gift Exchange hosted by Craftaholics Anonymous. I really had fun crafting for a total stranger. And then getting a package in the mail just for me was fun.

Here's what I got ...

A personalized notebook and Christmas countdown calendar all the way from Utah. You can't tell from the picture but the pen matches the notebook. How cool that Krista took the pen apart, added the paper and then reassembled it! 

Here's what I sent ...

Of course I had to send an owl ornament plus a felt brooch and what I'm calling the momma bird necklace. One egg to represent Krista's little boy. 

Thank you Krista! I hope you enjoyed your package too!

Now I'm going to check out what the other swappers got in their mailboxes.

Random Thoughts

I occasionally write down blog post ideas on random to-do lists. Every now and then I'll find an old list and think, "oh yeah, I should write about that."

(I should really just print out a bunch of these. Or use the notebook I set aside for blog-related musings.)

I was going to share this picture in October, but then the storm of the century hit and all blogging non-storm related was postponed. Sloss Furnaces hosts an annual fall festival in October full of games and craft activities for the kids. This is what I've dubbed the Snot Monster and each year it's been Will's favorite thing. When you go up to the monster, it sends silly string and candy out its nose. For a 4-year-old, this is the height of entertainment!

This is a picture of my 1965 Mustang. Actually, it's a picture of what used to be my Mustang driving away. Yes, MY Mustang and not Chris. Chris helped me find it but it was my daily driver for a few years way before the kids arrived. We toyed with the idea of selling the car for a few years but then we would take her for a spin and think next year we'll get the shocks fixed or body painted. But we finally admitted that she needed more care than we could give and my uncle was looking for a project. He came to pick up the car in October. At least the car stayed in the family and I'll get to visit her at Christmas. 

More from October. One day Will asked if we could build a trebuchet. Stupidly I said sure. I found instructions for a paper model, printed out the parts and quickly starting cussing up a storm. Be warned, the instructions are rather loose. I had to make some of it up as I went along. Will helped cut some of the pieces out but it really was a mommy job. Then I thought about making it a daddy job but by golly I was going to finish it myself if it was the last thing I did. It took weeks because there was one part I couldn't figure out but finally got it. It worked okay. We did throw a grape seven feet. With tweaking, it could work better. Find the instructions here (you can also download it here).

I'm just including this picture because I love it. That's me and the boys at the Georgia Aquarium in November. It is truly is an amazing place. Both boys enjoyed the visit. It was Joseph's first trip. He loved watching the fish but his favorite part was talking to the penguins. Will got a special behind the scenes tour from one of the volunteers just because she liked his questions. My curious boy always has a million questions! (The volunteer told us that each day a different volunteer is allowed to take whoever they want behind the scenes. What a special treat! Usually you have to pay for such a tour.) FYI, if you are planning a trip with kids, be sure to ask about the Mommy and Me ticket. It's a great deal and includes parking.