DIY String Art Christmas Gift

For our extended family Christmas we always do a gift exchange for the adults.  This years theme was "home-made/craft".  So I hopped on Pinterest and found a few ideas for Dan and I!

I had been seeing the string art all over the place and thought that it might be fun to try one of those...

 I went with a Minnesota Vikings one because this gift was from my husband....he loves it!

I printed off the Vikings logo on an 11x17 sheet and cut my board to 11x17 as well.  I had some leftover purple paint from when we painted our bathroom purple (then painted it a less obnoxious color!) My husband had a load of regular nails that we used and I bought some white string at Walmart.  So overall, pretty cheap project!

I painted the board and let it dry a day or two, then we taped the logo down and my husband did all the nailing! If you are doing this - make sure to take pictures before you pull the paper up.  It was seriously a life saver!  Then I did two layers of a string outline. I was originally going to do the crazy string for all the letters but they were too close and you wouldn't be able to see what it said to outline it was!

I think it turned out great! Dan actually stole this back in our gift exchange so it is ours (and now we don't have to make another one!)

Our other gift was Yard Dice which were pretty awesome! I forgot to take pictures of those but my Sister-in-law got those so maybe in the future you will see them!

Merry Christmas!

My silly girl wanted to say Merry Christmas! She is excited that she finally gets to open some of those gifts that were put up too high for her to reach!

Can't wait to see how much different she will be compared to last Christmas - it just keeps getting better the older she gets!

Piggy Tails!

My little girls hair fits in piggy tails! So adorable...

But with the longer hair comes this... Crazy morning hair! Seriously, no matter what it looks like a rats nest!

Playing in the Snow!

It was finally warm enough yesterday to take Olivia out in the snow (30 degrees - still cold!). 

She was a little apprehensive at first but when daddy got down and showed her how to play she really started getting into it - she even tasted it!

Let's Play Catch Dad!

This little girl was full of energy after dinner yesterday....

She decided she wanted to play catch with daddy in the kitchen and was just squealing and clapping every time she threw the ball - so funny!

I love watching her play and discover things.  Watching a child grow and develop is simply amazing!

12 Days Until Christmas!

There are only a few more days until Christmas - December really went by so darn fast this year!

I am happy to say that I have all my Christmas presents bought AND wrapped - holy cow...seriously it took my about 2 weeks to get everything wrapped!

Currently all the presents are up on tables, ledges and couches so the little girl of the house doesn't decide to open them all (because I am NOT re-wrapping presents!).  Don't get me wrong, the first couple presents are really fun to wrap...everything after that hurts my back, takes forever, and has me wishing someone else would do it.  Christmas spirit right?!

Now to get my Christmas Cards printed and sent out... took pictures last weekend with Olivia, here are a few that aren't going on the Christmas Card!

This weekend we have our big family Christmas with all of Dan's extended family - so that will be fun.  Hopefully Olivia will be less clingy around the family she doesn't see that often... we will see!

Santa Baby...

This last weekend we went to Olivia's Daycare Christmas Party - and guess who showed up? SANTA!!

Olivia was less then impressed...

Maybe next year she will be less horrified!

The one where Olivia talks!

The girl has been saying more and more and we have been understanding more and more! It is so darn exciting!  I love hearing her little voice.

She has been saying OWL for some time now - I just finally got it on video.  She also started saying Tickle-Tickle-Tickle a week or two ago and I got that on video as well!