Family Fun: Glass Blown Christmas Ornaments

Back in April 2022, Travis and I had a glass blowing date night where we made our own pint glasses. It was super cool and you can read about it here: Date Night Fun: Glass Blowing. At that time we wondered whether Jack would enjoy the activity as well, but decided to wait a little bit… for maturity purposes.

Well, we went as a family the first weekend of December and had an amazing time!

Before I get into it, let’s get the important information out of the way. The studio we visited was McFadden Art Glass in Baltimore, Maryland and you can find their website here: McFadden Art Glass The workshop cost $40 per ornament – we had planned for each of us to make one, for a total of 3 ornaments (gifting one and keeping two). However, Jack loved it so much I let him take my turn too.

I made a cute video of Jack doing his thing. And NO I can’t believe they let him hold molten glass on the end of a stick and walk with it.

Here are some other cute photos of the process:

We had so much fun making our own ornaments and each year when we decorate our tree we can brag again about that time we went glass blowing.

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DIY Style Fun: Adding Kantha Fabric to a Denim Jacket

I’d previously mentioned that I was on a bit of a denim jacket kick. I love to wear them as a more casual topper with work dresses and skirts, and also as the normal lightweight jacket option for commuting. When I was working on a previous embroidered jacket project (you can find it here), I came across a photo of a denim jacket with scraps of fabric integrated into it’s design… and that image lived in my head for awhile.

One day while out-and-about thrifting, I found a super soft denim jacket with a fun interior fabric for just $15.

It reminded me of my inspiration image, so I scooped it up and continued thinking about what I wanted to do to personalize it. Well, I had purchased a Kantha quilt in May 2021 and suddenly had the thought of how great Katha fabric would look on the back of the jacket!

There was no way I was cutting apart my beautiful quilt, so I started checking Poshmark for Kantha fabric options. I ended up finding a couple Kantha vintage scarves and bought them for about $30 total.

Each scarf had different fabrics involved in the design, so I played with them for awhile to determine the perfect combo for my jacket.

Once I decided on a final design, I pinned the fabric strips to the jacket and used the sewing machine to sew each strip down around the boarder. Then, I went in by hand with white thread and followed along with the existing Kantha stitching to better secure the fabric.

Last, I picked a couple elements to trace the stitching with embroidery thread – the flower and a small heart.

Here’s the finished project:

I’m so happy with how it all turned out and it’s a super fun addition to my denim jacket collection!

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DIY Jungle Animal Baby Shower Favors

It is a baby boom up in here with first my brother and wife’s baby (now 1), then my sister Katie and her husband’s baby (born over the summer) and now my sister Kelsey and her husband’s baby (December due date). I shared the Adorable Personalized M&M Favors I did for Katie’s baby shower back in June. Well, now it’s baby shower favor time for Kelsey’s jungle animal themed shower!

I’m pretty sure Kelsey isn’t a regular blog reader, but if so… LOOK AWAY from this post!

I wanted to do something edible and also tie in the jungle animal theme, which brought me to animal crackers. I mean, they’re perfect! I got a gigantic tub of animal crackers at Costco and also ordered cellphone baggies and some animal themed stickers off Amazon.

I made about 30 baggies of crackers and also mixed in a box of Zebra cakes, just for funsies. I mean, LOOK how cute they turned out:

I was going to use the same basket that I had thrifted for Katie’s shower favors, but needed a bit more space. So, I repurposed this green rope basket that I bought when Jack was a little baby to hold all the treats. The fun green colors also tie in well with the jungle theme.

And with that, I think I’m DONE on baby showers for a while. However, I’m just getting started with all the baby snuggling!

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