Craft Ideas For Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year is right around the corner! It falls on February 8th in 2016. One of the best things about living in a big city is the multiculturalism. We have been so lucky to have been invited to join in celebrations from many different cultures.

Last year I made lots of paper lanterns and New Year inspired rosettes to decorate my mantel, as well as a building foyer that I stage.

My Favorite Posts From 2015

Last week I shared your favorite House Revivals blog posts of 2015. This week, I thought I would share my favorites. Hint: there's a little bit of overlap, but there are also some great posts that got lost in the post-holiday lull that you may have missed.

How to Draw and Paint when you don't have time and don't know how is on both our lists!

This tutorial for making garden markers from old silver spoons was a favorite of mine.

I was able to spend a lot of vacation time creating art and drawing with my granddaughter this year, so the drawing tutorials are really special to me.

What to Do With Unfinished Holiday Projects?

Lots of times, when I'm working on craft projects for the holidays, I don't finish them all in time for decorating and gift giving. For years, I felt like a failure when this happened, but now days, I realize I'm just "ahead of the game"!

It's okay if you don't finish everything before Christmas. You can always pack your incomplete projects away with your Christmas decor, and finish it up next year -- but a better idea is to go ahead and finish now (or during Christmas in July). You will be able to go into the next holiday season with lots of handmade gifts ready for giving! If you're a blogger, you can go ahead and write a post about it, and schedule it to be published during the holidays, freeing up your holiday time to spend with family and friends.

 Over the 2014 holidays, I made lots of these icicle ornaments, that I blogged about here. I went ahead and finished them up (mostly) in January, so they would be ready for decorating or gift giving in December.

In 2015, I experimented with some papier mache Santa ornaments I saw on Emi's (Hectanooga) YouTube channel. Those didn't get finished, either, but I went ahead and got them all gessoed and ready to paint. I will finish them up as I have time, schedule a blog post about making them to be published during the 2016 holidays, and have a ready supply of gifts!

It's okay that these projects didn't get finished before Christmas. After all, it's just a matter of perspective, right?  You can look at those unfinished projects as failures, or you can look at them as being "ahead of the game"!

If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to House Revivals in the sidebar, so you won't miss the fun projects we have planned. Find us on Facebook, too, so you can catch all the "in between" stuff, and see what I'm working on daily on Instagram. Feel free to link today's project to your favorite social media sites.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

~Amanda

2016 Word of the Year

Confession: I wasn't going to do a Word of the Year for 2016, because I felt like last year's word was such a failure. The funny thing is, when I sat down and really reviewed the year, I realized I hadn't failed at all. Sometimes you just need to take a step back and get some perspective to really see things properly.

In past years, I've chosen the words Beauty, Health, Acceptance, and Intentional.

Most Popular Posts of 2016

Well, I just couldn't do it. I couldn't limit my annual "best of" post to just ten posts, so,since last year was 2015, I decided to do a "top 15" post!

Here they are, in no particular order:

How to Get Organized in the New Year!

It's that time of year again! Isn't it amazing how quickly the years fly by? If you are like me, at the start of a new year, you look for ways to organize your life. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

With a little bit of paint and some Craigslist or thrift store filing cabinets, you can organize your life with style!

Make Pretty Icicle Ornaments for Pennies!

This article first appeared on House Revivals in December 2014, and is reprinted by request.

Do you love vintage spun cotton ornaments? Me too! The problem with actual vintage ornaments, of course, is that they are difficult to find and they can be expensive.

I loved the look of a Christmas tree that is just dripping with icicles, but I knew I would never be able to find dozens and dozens of spun cotton icicles -- and even if I did, it would be too expensive to buy so many vintage ornaments.

Felted Wool Mitten Ornaments

This article was originally published by House Revivals in December of 2011.

What do you get your mother-in-law for Christmas, when she really doesn't need one single thing?  That's what I was wondering when she came out to the beach house for a visit this fall. She happened to bring up some embroidered ornaments I had given her years ago, mentioning that they were her favorites.  Each of the embroidered ornaments had the name and birthday of one of her seven children. An idea formed.

Why not make little "grandchild ornaments" for my mother-in-law for Christmas?   

I had tons of small felted wool scraps leftover from the gift card ornaments I wrote about here.  The scraps were small and I was debating whether to throw them away. 

{14} Awesome Gift Ideas for Seniors

With the holidays fast approaching, we're making lists and checking them twice, and feeling lots of angst about what to give.

We want our friends and loved ones and neighbors and teachers to know we cared enough to put thought into their gifts, but sometimes it's hard to know what some people can actually use -- especially the seniors in our lives.

10 Pretty Vintage Book Page Christmas Decorations to Make

You can get a head start on your handmade holiday gifts and decor, and recycle some vintage book pages with these easy tutorials!

This little slipper, cone, and top hat ornament were fashioned from vintage book pages and junk mail!

This shadowbox star was crafted from rolled from pages from a vintage prayer book.

If you're looking for a super quick project with lots of impact, this Christmas Tree banner might be perfect.  Use washi tape, or use up your paper scraps!

Here is another quick layered garland, using a recycled Christmas card and book page pompoms.

Always a classic, this Scandinavian inspired woven star is made from folded strips of vintage book pages.

These honeycomb ornaments made from encyclopedia pages look lovely hanging from the mantel!

This Celtic inspired star is an adaptation of the popular Scandinavian or Finnish Star.

If you love a good dollar stare project, you might want to give this ornament tutorial a try.

Here is yet another version of the Scandinavian woven star -- originally made from birch veneer, and containing a light inside, these were hung in windows during the holiday season. Children learned to weave the star from paper, as well, to decorate inside their homes.

Strips of vintage book pages and pretty buttons are all you need to make these pretty snowflake ornaments.

If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to House Revivals in the sidebar, so you won't miss the fun projects we have planned. Find us on Facebook, too, so you can catch all the "in between" stuff, and see what I'm working on daily on Instagram. Feel free to link today's project to your favorite social media sites.

Thanks so much for stopping by!