Christmas Lights Hair Do!

2nd last day of school today for Little Miss Giggleberry - woohoo!!!! (I can. not. wait. for Thursday mornings lazy start!!)
Anyway today is Christmas Party day at her school so all the kids were allowed to wear mufti clothing and were also asked to bring a plate of food to share with their class mates. In the festive fun I thought why not do something fun with her hair too...

With a small battery operated pack of christmas lights I made a braid down each side of her hair while weaving in the lights. Any extra cord between the lights I pinned under the hair as best I could to keep it out of sight. The end of the cord is then fed down the back of her shirt and the battery pack is in her pocket so she is able to turn it off and on as she likes.

This is really easy to do and got lots of giggles and gasps from the kids and teachers this morning when I dropped her at school. It would be the perfect hair style to do if you were heading to a night time Christmas party or Carlos by Candlelight.

Lollipop Class Christmas Card!

Spotted over HERE on Makerland, this is such a simple but fun way for your kiddies to hand out a Christmas card/class gift this year. I had this all done in such a short space of time so even with 20 days now till Christmas day you will have plenty of time to get these done.

How To:
(1) Take a photo of your child (have them stand with their hand in a gentle fist out to the side but infront of them). These can be as fancy/dressed up/set up with a particular background etc as you want. I honestly snapped these of my kids on a school morning after breakfast with my iPhone.

(2) Upload the pics to Picmonkey (or photo editing site of your choice). I cropped the pics a bit making sure the side I planned to have the lollipop go in the hand had more space. Picmonkey is also where I added the text to the photos - my kids chose the colours and fonts with me.

(3) Print! I don't have a printer at the moment so we went to Officeworks to print ours off. I did them in a smaller square size rather than a regular 4x6 photo size but this is completely up to you.
(4) Grab some lollipops. I happen to spot a bucket of mini Chupa Chups while we were in Officeworks - Perfect!!
(5) With a sharp box cutter/craft scalpel slice a small slit in the photo just above the childs fist and just below too.
(6) Feed the stick of a lollipop thought the two slits to make it seem like the child is holding it.

Told you it was simple! Now sit back and watch your kiddies have a ball handing these goodies out!

Lollipop Reindeer Christmas Cards!

My girl finishes pre-school tomorrow! Where did that year go???
There is a little graduation ceremony planned for tomorrow night followed by a mini Christmas concert and a BBQ on the preschool grounds for the kids and families. I see this as the perfect opportunity to have Milla and I make up some fun and festive Christmas cards and treats to hand out to all her class mates... Enter the Lollipop Reindeer Christmas Card!

When I spotted these (yep, you guessed it - Pinterest!) I was lying in bed ready to turn out the lights but immediately jumped up and put together a tester reindeer card to see if they really are as simple as Missy Mac Creations claims - she was right! So easy and SUPER cute!!
Off the the shops we popped today for cardboard, glitter glue and lollipops and before we knew it our dining table had a parade of reindeers smiling up at us!

Milla was VERY proud of her Reindeer production line and can't wait to hand these out tomorrow to her friends.

For the 'How To' go HERE and have fun :)

Santa Apron Teacher Gifts!

This is the second year I have had to think of a gift for my kiddies teachers. I automatically think of baking some sweet treats for them but I bet they get sooooooo much chocolate and treats that another bundle would be almost dreaded. So what to do? what to do? - sew!!
After a quick trip to Spotlight for supplies I hit my sewing machine and created a handmade gift for each of Milla's 5 teachers that can be used year after year - A Santa (or Mrs Claus) Apron!!

These were rather simple to put together. A Christmas red basic apron style with red grosgrain neck loop and hip ties. I then added some black ric rac grosgrain ribbon and a yellow felt 'buckle' for the belt. Next I sewed on two lengths of faux fur trim to the top and bottom edges then 3 gold jingle bells on the front for some festive buttons. Each apron also has the teachers first initial appliquéd onto the chest for some personalisation - cute hey??
Our pre-school has had a HUGE renovation overhaul over the past 12 months and is looking fantastic with amazing new facilities for the kids. The renovations have mainly been done by the head teachers' father, whom all the kids affectionately call Mr Wayne. I couldn't leave Mr Wayne out of the gift giving so with some green fabrics, more of the ric rac, felt, bells and red ribbon I came up with a cute elf apron just for the busy builder elf!

Now to wrap these all up and pop them under the pre-school Christmas tree, Yay!

Secret Santa planning??

So we are 70 sleeps away from Christmas!!!! (thanks fellow Christmas lover Dee for the count down). That means there is a pretty good chance you should be thinking about or will soon be involved in some Secret Santa gift givings. Maybe at work? or with your mothers group? or with family?
With a bit of time up your sleeve now why not take the reigns and announce that you will be the 'Secret Santa Planner' this year? (don't panic, I have the perfect idea to help you along the way). Just like me, how about you make the process of the Secret Santa a little more interactive and unique...

Surprise Secret Santa Cookie Mixture!

Just some simple ingredients, a bucket of green and red M&M's (that are now available at your local supermarket as it's so close to the festive season), some cheap glass jars from the $2 shop and the 'How To' from Bakerella HERE and I have a bunch of cookie mixture in jars ready to give out - but wait, the catch is, that INSIDE each jar, among the ingredients, is a name.
Once the jars are all handed out to each member of my Secret Santa group they must bake the cookies in order to find the name of the person they are shopping for! Fun, right? (BTW don't forget to attach the method of baking the cookies also found HERE)
This way everyone gets into the festive mood with a bit of Christmas cookie baking, find out their Secret Santa person and end up with a batch of yummy cookies!
Forget the old and boring 'draw a name out of a hat' for choosing who you will be buying for - this is lots more fun (& yummy)!

Princess Dress-Up Aprons!

Just 3 nights ago I had a wave of creativity hit me while sitting at the sewing machine and before I knew it I had a Snow White Dress-Up Apron made for Milla's dress-up box.

I thought it was so cute that I sat right back down and made another... this time Rapunzel

I called it a night and went to bed but my creativity was re-sparked when Milla's saw her new 'dresses' in the morning. She LOVED them and couldn't decide which one to wear first. So with a bit more of a dig through my fabric stash to see what I could rustle up I then made Sleeping Beauty

The Little Mermaid (she was my fav as a little girl)

Belle

And Cinderella (use you imagination for this one it was the only pale blue fabric I had in my cupboard)

I shared these as I went on my Instagram and with family and had such a great response that I have decided to make and sell them for a VERY limited time only.

They are so easy to pull on and off for kids with no full outfit change!!!
The perfect handmade Christmas gift? or a cute Halloween costume? email me now at giggleberrycreations@gmail.com to place your order now.... maybe I haven't got your fav princess made yet? email me and I can see what I can come up with :)

Candy Cane Christmas Eve dinner

A little BBQ dinner at our place tonight gave me the perfect excuse to party plan play (yay!)

With a little look around my cupboards I realised I had allot of red, white bits so my colours were decided for me. I just threw in some candy canes here and there and we have a festive table setting for 12!


I made some Eat, Drink & Be Merry bunting, a table runner and some little Christmas stockings to be our cutlery holders all from the same fabric.




The kids helped me make metres and metres of red and white paper chains and I spray painted some twigs red and white to be our centre piece with candy canes hanging from it.


A red table cloth, some red and white striped ribbon and paper straws thrown in and it all came together perfectly.

Happy Friday Find

Only 2 sleeps before the jolly dude pops by!! Woohoo!!
What do you leave out for Santa? biscuits and milk? a bottle of beer? Do his reindeer get something special left out too??


I think one of these handmade bunting mug and saucer set would be the perfect thing to pop a drink and snack on for Santa in exchange for all the goodies he'll (hopefully) leave behind :)
Happy Friday and Merry Christmas!!

Winding Up for 2011!

'Twas 2 days before Christmas, when all thro' Giggleberry HQ,
No sewing machine was stirring, no more orders to do!!
The Christmas BUNTING was hung 'round the house with such care,
In the hopes the St. Nicholas soon would be there.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to each and every customer, facebook liker, Twitter follower, blog reader etc for your support in 2011. All orders have now gone out for the year and the sewing machine is packed away.
The Giggleberry family will be taking some time out from the 24th December - 9th January to enjoy family, beach swims, food, laughs and making memories.... please excuse the quiet blog during that time :)
We hope your Christmas break is one full of giggles and we can't wait to see what 2012 has in store!!

Christmas light hunting!

Last night we took Milla and Harris out to hunt for Christmas lights. There are a handful of AMAZING homes close by where we were able to get out of the car and walk around the displays (please excuse the terrible quality photos - my iPhone isn't the best camera at night)



We saw Santa sleigh, the elves making toys in a workshop, reindeer and one house had a snow machine going too!!


While we were walking around Santa himself arrived and had lollipops in his sack for all the kids!




The kids had a ball and didn't want to come home even though it was waaaaay past their bedtime.... needless to say we all got a sleep in this morning.