My older daughter has her first loose tooth!  So since I had this matryoshka doll machine embroidery design already, I modified the shape and turned it into a tooth fairy pillow.  The fairy has a little baby tooth with her and wings on her back.  

If you have an embroidery machine, you can get the design files in my Etsy shop.  If you don’t have an embroidery machine, I ran across a super cute tutorial from Goody-Goody.  It’s matryoshka doll madness out there.

Last summer I posted about the Jan Eleni collage available at Love (for a hefty price), and I finally got around to trying it out as a Christmas gift for my husband from our daughter.  We selected 28 pieces of her artwork, scanned them in and printed them on card stock.  Each image was 3″ x 4″ and the frame was 24″ x 30″.  You could definitely make them smaller and fit more.  Then I just taped them down in case we want to change out the artwork someday.

My four-year-old just hasn’t accumulated a critical mass of artwork, so she made a collage of her own with paper and fabric scraps.  It’s called So Many Houses on a Street.

The year in review here at The Long Thread, that is.  I get annoyed by all this end-of-the-year recollecting, but here I go anyway.  Here are my favorite Make it Monday projects that I posted this year, which is almost the life of this blog.

I had planned to post the best tutorials from around the web, but I just haven’t found the time to sort through them all.  Maybe I’ll get to it later this week, but I’d love for you to post your favorites from this year as a comment here.

Lucy Goosey

Egg Matryoshka Dolls

Reversible Headbands

Pinwheel Quilted Coasters

Ribbon Hair Clips

Flower Pot Pincushion

Placemats and Napkins for Kids

Scrappy Owl Treat Bag

Elf Skittles

Thrifted Holiday Trees

Just thought I’d show some photos of the girls’ birthday parties earlier this month.  With two December birthdays, I made it easier on myself this year by having the parties outside of my house.  And I kept the craftiness to a minimum.  For my younger daughter, we had a mermaid themed party, so I made some starfish shaped chocolate lollipops.

My older daughter wanted a unicorn party, so I made these unicorn shaped cookies with royal icing and sprinkles.  The chocolate cookies were pretty awful because I took the plain cookie recipe and added some cocoa.  Needed more sugar, but the kids didn’t seem to mind.

I really hate goodie bags, but my daughter insisted.  So we made these from a brown paper sack and a drawing that she made, which I scanned and printed onto sticker paper.  (It was a bowling unicorn party).  Inside each bag was a circle of shrinky dink plastic to be made into an ornament, crayons, string, a candy cane and some heart-shaped soap.  I made this soap by adding several layers of color.  I’m sure the kids didn’t really care much about the soap, but I had the supplies around the house already and it was better than some plastic toy.

Then I finally sent out thank yous today in the form of e-mail with a photo attachment.  I’m being green and lazy this year since our holiday cards and thank you notes were sent electronically.  We cut the letters from card stock and I sewed them together.

Say hello to the new year with one of these nice calendars:

Blank Calendar (DIY printable), $4.99 from A Little Hut.

Children Silhouettes, $22 from Le Papier Studio.

Nature Printable Calendar, $5 from Blue Tricycle.

Printable Mini Calendar, $5.50 from Maria Lunate.

Letterpress Calendar, $20 from Green Chair Press.

Printable Mini Calendar, $5 from Little Brown Pen.

Moroccan Letterpress Calendar, $12 (half price due to misprint) from anemone letterpress.

Letterpress Calendar, $22 from delphine STUDIO.

DIY Perpetual Calendar, $5 from Talk of the Town.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah….Happy Holidays!  Wishing you a holiday season full of health and happiness.  (And free of dysfunctional family drama!)

Great last-minute toys.  We’re all cutting back, right?  So here are some links to free paper toy downloads.   I suppose that it’s more environmentally friendly to print paper toys at home rather than buy some plastic junk from China.

I will admit that there will be a Hannah Montana microphone under our tree this year.  We’re not totally sure how our four-year-old discovered Hannah Montana, but she did and she loves her.  I guess it could be worse.  I spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to make my kids happy without making myself vomit. When I told my older daughter that we were going shopping for a birthday present for her sister she asked if they had plastic toys at the store (they did not).  My kids will probably grow up to have some strange plastic toy fetish.

Elves from Macula.

Vintage Lacing Cards from Bella Dia.

Paper Animals from The Toymaker.

Pink by Jules from Ready Mech.

Italian Villa from Print-n-Play Toys.

Paper Toys has a strange assortment of stuff including Wrigley Field, Bill Gates’ house and the Taj Mahal.

Plus this great vintage set from Agence Eureka on Flickr.

As selected by the random number generator, #25.  Rhonda Jean of down to earth, a good blog to read right now when we’re all caught up in this holiday consumerism.

Welcome to winter!  If you’re in the northern hemisphere, that is.  Today I’m giving away a pair of linen hand towels with snowflake embroidery.  I’ll ship them to you, but not until next week!  So just leave a comment on this post and I’ll use the random number generator to choose the winning comment.  Please leave your comment by midnight Monday night (Eastern time).

Thanks and Happy Winter!  It’s nice to know that the days will only be getting longer for us now.

Fork Pleat Dress, $98 from betsy b design.

Minty Snow Duo, $8 from wainbowmudd.

Elegant Eggplant Deer Plush from Follow the White Rabbit.

Little Houses Hemp Note Cards, set of 4 for $12 from Yobittles.

Antique Chair, limited edition linocut print, $25 from Rainy Prints.

Woolen Trees No. 4, $38 from little love blue.

Peppermint Hand Spun Wool Yarn, 71 yards for $22 from Yarn is Me!.

Cubist Silver Earrings, $18.50 from S Stargell Designs.

Birds Limited Edition Fabric, $15 for 1/3 yard, Tamptation Designs.

Here are the houses all finished. It’s difficult to see the glitter in these photos, but the rooftops are quite sparkly under the lights.  This project takes several days as you’ll need to wait 24 hours between each coat of paper and glue.  A great project to work on with kids!

I bought the bottle brush trees and plan to make some little snowmen and snowflakes to add to the scene. The houses are about 12″ -15″ tall.  I used leftover packing boxes and found that corrugated cardboard worked best for the bases of the houses.  I really liked the small, square boxes, but wanted them to be different shapes.  Cereal boxes or chipboard will work for the roofs.

Junk mail and glue give the boxes a sturdy feel, but I wanted them to have a better papier-mâché texture, so I added tissue paper as the final layer.  I have tried papier-mâché with flour and water and definitely prefer the glue method as it is much stronger and will not mold.

Supplies:

• Small cardboard boxes
• Cereal boxes or thin cardboard
• Masking tape
• Scrap paper
• Tissue paper
• White school glue
• Acrylic or tempera paint
• Paintbrush
• Glitter

Instructions (see yesterday’s post for more photos):

1.  Measure the top of the box and cut the thin cardboard to the correct width.  The length can be as long as you’d like (longer will make a steep roof and shorter will make a squatty roof).

2.  Score the cardboard in the center and fold over to form the roof.  With masking tape, attach the roof to the two sides of your box.

3.  Trace the shape of your roof side onto another thin piece of cardboard.  Cut out two of these triangles and attach to the sides with masking tape.

4.  Mix one part white glue to four parts water.  Rip scrap paper into shreds, dip into mixture and apply to the house.  Allow to dry for 24 hours and repeat.

5.  Repeat the process with tissue paper.  Allow to dry completely.

6.  Water down paint and apply a thin coat to the boxes.  Apply a second coat if desired.

7.  Brush glue onto the roofs of the houses and sprinkle with glitter.

Done!  If you make these, I’d love to see a photo in the Make it Monday Flickr pool.