Beth from 1canoe2 sent me a little note about 1canoe2’s latest project and I’m so glad she did….it’s adorable! It’s a fun paperkraft letterpress diorama small town DIY kit, complete with 3 little houses that you cut and fold and paste together. OMG, doesn’t that sound like fun?

Here’s a link to the kit for sale, which includes: one 9×12 sheet for the background; one 12×7 sheet that includes pieces for 3 houses, 7 trees, and 2 corner tabs. All the designs and illustrations are sketched by hand, turned into letterpress plates and then printed on a Chandler & Price Craftsman press (see some pics below of the printing).

One of these is on it’s way to me (thanks Beth & Carrie) and I’m going to put it together and display it on my window sill in my office.

Not only is she amazingly talented, reliable and organized, my intern Amy is also a real sweetie. She got me this adorable moss terrarium ornament diy kit from Shane Lily Rain as a holiday gift. I just got a chance to put it together and hung it in the my kitchen window today. I don’t care that it’s meant to be a holiday ornament, I think it looks awesome and it makes me happy to look at it. Thanks, Amy!

Making some more diy holiday decorations for Handmade Holidays from stuff I alrady had around the house, I came up with this Snowflake Mobile.

I broke some twigs into about 4 inch lengths and hot glued them together to create a snowflake shape. I then wound some pretty blue yarn around them and then some silver embroidery floss on top of that for a little sparkle. Used more yarn to hang them from a longer stick as well as to hang the mobile on the wall.

More of my diy Handmade Holidays decor—Junk Mail Glitter Snowflakes. I used those junk mail sale papers that come practically every day around the holidays to cut out my snowflakes. I then used some mod podge to glitterfy them and strung them on some hemp string. I also used glue dots to affix them to the string, so they wouldn’t just slide off.

What a great way to re-use that junk mail, if I do say so myself!

My 2010 Simple Things of Life Printable Coloring Calendar is here!

It depicts simple line drawings of the simple things of life. There is inspiration for every month of the year to remember the most important things to do in life…love, share, peace, celebrate, play, breathe, create and more.

Print it out, color it & hang it up! Simple as can be and it’s a perfectly wonderful gift for all your family & friends this season, since you can print it out as many times as you want. Color it in yourself and gift it or let them have the fun of coloring it in. At $4.99 it’s a pretty economical gift…if I do say so myself!

Vanessa from A Fanciful Twist shared her tutorial for making this lovely alternative to the holiday stocking and I just had to share it with you, because….well, it’s getting to be that time of year. I just love that it’s made from recycled grocery bags, because as much as we try to use reusable bags, it seems we always end up with some of those plastic ones.

Btw, a teaser! I will be featuring Vanessa’s home later this year for A Peek Inside: indie home tours.