January Wreath ~ Sauri Style

I am excited to share my how-to pictures with you all.  This wreath took a couple of hours to complete, taking care of the babies and all, but I had a lot of fun making it and I'm super excited about the finished product. 


Unfortunately I cannot remember exactly where I saw this idea but I'm sure it was somewhere in blogland. 

My materials: 
1}  a hoop form that I had laying around the garage from a baby shower gift that I received before Reynaldo was born. 
2}  an old sweater that I was going to donate
3}  some spiral thread that I've kept because I like how it looks
4}  Some random rope {not pictured}
5}  scissors
6}  glue gun
7}  cardboard

I cut the sleeves off and in half down the seem as well as cut a matching section from the "stomach" part of the sweater so that I had 3 identical sections. I hot glued the 3 around the hoop so that the cable knitting matched and lined up all around the hoop form.

I hot glued my rope directly to the hoop frame between 2 sections of sweater.  One will hold the "monogrammed circle" that will dangle in the center and the other will serve as a ribbon of sorts to attach the wreath to the front door.   

I then cut a circle shape from the cardboard and hot glued it to one of the pieces of rope. 

Once I got all 3 matching sections glued around the hoop, I searched the sweater for a different cable pattern to use to cover the seems between the 3 sections already glued around the hoop.  The picture above gives you an example of what I used. 

My spiral thread helped me to "monogram" the circle dangling in the middle of the wreath.  It was  a little tough because I had to glue the spirals together end-to-end so I had a long enough piece to "draw" my S. 

So What Do You Think??  Tell me please.  It's getting lonely in the comment area on this here little corner of blogland. 

Papi is a bit disappointed that the color kind of blends into the front screen door.  I guess I kind of agree with him but hey, I think it looks fantastic none the less.  Any hey, I enjoyed making it.

Mommy Sauri~

I posted a link at

today!

The premise for today's link party is your favorite projects or tutorials. 

Go check out the party.  Lot's of fun, thanks ~Tasha~ 

Christmas Jamies

I had to post pictures because I think they look adorable. 

Even if they weren't surprised at what was waiting in their December 24th envelopes on the ~Advent Calendar~, at least they are enjoying the surprise.


Mommy Sauri~

Merry Christmas

At this time we hope to be fast asleep as Santa is making his rounds. 

May your Christmas be full of family and friends and lots of red and green chili.

Mommy Sauri~

{Hand-me-downs} Christmas Style

Merry Christmas Eve!

While my Cubi was out of town, I had to take a couple of days off of work just so that I could get Reynaldo and Caridad to school and back. 

There were about 4 days, of the 18 he was gone, that I had no help. 

Aunti Vi was out of town.  Grandma Donna and Grandpa Charlie were enjoying the beach with Uncle Carlos and Aunt Sarah.

Needless to say, I had no other choice but to take the days off.  Thank goodness for paid time off...

Anyway, I spent a couple of days with my Grandma Mela making pastalitos and fudge and tamales and and and.  She's wanted to lighten her Christmas load of decorations and I was the lucky recipient.  Our Charlie Brown Christmas Tree is no longer so

The small satin covered red, green and white balls...I already had the larger red ones.  I just love how they reflect the warm glow of the lights on the tree.  I was so glad to receive others.  The little gloves, some iron pots and pans, felt horse heads, clear plastic balls that encase beautiful illustrations of children, a new train and the porcelain circles with Santa against a blue backdrop, all came from Grandma Mela.  It's hard to imagine how our tree looked before our new ornaments were put up. 

This cute Snow Man Mickey now sits on the couch with a plush Santa Clause that was also a hand-me-down from one of my co-workers. 

These little beauties below serve as inspiration for craft projects for next Christmas.

I've not found an appropriate spot for them yet.  

For now they sit on the door hinges on the front door and garage door. 

And this last hand-me-down is my absolute favorite.  Not only because I think it works perfect on the entertainment center, opposite our trusty ~snow man~, but more so because I remember this being out for Christmas at Grandma's house when I was a little girl.   

To others all these may be considered garbage or junk.  To me, these are treasures I will cherish for the rest of my life.  I'm so glad Grandma thought of me to hand-down-to.

You can bet your booty that The Sauris are going to be visiting every corner of our beautiful city.

Please be safe in your travels these next couple of days.

Mommy Sauri~

Christmas Crafts - just a glimpse

Because Papi was gone, I didn't have the camera.  That means that I didn't get to take pictures of the step by step process of our Christmas craft projects.

First let me start by saying, I did have a great idea about December's front door wreath...
I bought material to make my wreath and it sat around in the plastic grocery bag for a couple of weeks.  I was searching for the inspiration to get to work.  A tutorial maybe? Yea that's what I needed.  Even though I could see our beautiful, festive front door wreath in my mind's eye, I had no idea where to start. 

THEN

I found ~this one~  which includes step by step instructions. Inspiration was born.  But...I should have known that I needed to buy 4 times the amount of materials than I originally picked up.  I returned to the store 3 times because I kept running out of ornaments.  On my 3rd visit...THEY WERE SOLD OUT.  I even went to 4 other locations around the city and still could not find my red and gold ornaments.  Needless to say my inspiration has died and I'm a bit disappointed. 
1}  The December Wreath for the front door is 80% done
2}  December's Wreath is not going up in 2011for sure
{and}
3}  I'm putting it away until next year.  This way I can let my brain rest and come up with something spectacular to fill the empty space that ornaments do not cover.  It is beautiful though and next year it will make its appearance, promise.

I have seen lots of these types of Christmas Trees all over blogland and I knew I wanted my own to be the centerpiece on our dining room table.  I also wanted to add texture while keeping with the Casa de Sauri Christmas theme of green, red, gold, silver and white. Although Caridad and I no longer have finger prints, and poor baby girl received one too many blisters from the hot glue, I like the final product.  The gold one is my favorite!

 

I found someone in blogland that had a similar picture on a post of her Fall pumpkin turned Winter snow man.  Our pumpkin was not ready to be thrown away.  A couple of coats, ok 4 coats, of acrylic white paint, some felt facial features, a warm winter scarf and a top hat to cover his cold stem...And our snow man was born.  Notice the same gold material that we used on my favorite tree.       

Every month I try to fill these candle holders with something festive, according to whatever it might be that we are celebrating or are going to celebrate.  I cannot find candles that I think look nice inside of them so usually we fill them with candy.  This time around we are using RED HOTS. 

And that brings me to our trusty ~Advent Calendar~. I made the Christmas Eve envelopes extra big to hold the babies' new jamies.  I even bought the heavy duty clothes pins to make sure the envelopes stayed pinned to the line.. 

As you can see, my plan failed.  Majorly. 

You think they know what's in store for December 24th? 

Oh well. 

Mommy Sauri~

Advent ~ Morning Ritual

Well Papi finally returned from his trip to Cuba. We all were super excited to have him back. Man it's tough to be a "single mommy" even if it is for just 18 days. I don't know how you single mothers do it. I gain more respect for you all every time Ferny goes away.

I took a shower maybe 4 times while he was gone. Not becuase I like the dirty hair look but becuse it was all I could do to get a couple minutes of extra sleep in the morning after a busy day of DOING EVERYTHING BY MYSELF. Cubi, I'm soooooooooo glad you are home. Now I need to shower.

So you guys remember ~this year's~ Advent Calendar...We've had a lot of fun all month taking turns opening the day's envelope. 

Whoever wakes up first, goes and wakes up the other so that neither of them miss out on the day's activity or gift.

The babies are excited to draw a Christmas picture.  Do you see Cari's big smile!

Just a couple more days left until Christmas.  Are you guys ready for Santa?

Mommy Sauri~

Co-Worker Gift

I cannot exactly remember where I found this idea but I'm 99.9% sure it was one of  DGouldthorp's weekly posts over at NutriMirror.

I've had the piece of paper in my daytimer since last year with the intention that I was going to do this and hand out to my co-workers for a Christmas Gift. 

So I finally made them and placed them on everyone's desk at work. 

Merry Christmas Co-Workers, here is your Emergency Kit.  Lord knows we need this stuff from time to time. 

Love, Mommy Sauri~

Papi left this morning

It has been an eventful morning already and we haven't even reached noon yet...

Papi is off on another trip to visit his family in Cuba.  Stocked full of goodies for lots and lots of people. 

I'm not real sure how he managed to fit his necessities into the 2 bags he took because man, there is a lot of stuff to pass out when he gets there.  I know that there are a lot of grateful people both here in the States and on that tiny island.  It's not all that easy to send your loved ones in Cuba care packages so when Papi goes to visit, he makes sure to mention it to friends so that they can take advantage of the "extra space" he allows for in his luggage.  

This means that I'm without the camera until he returns and I'm so bummed because there is going to be lots of fun things happening around Casa de Sauri. 

I hope your first day of December is a great one

Mommy Sauri~