Christmas Crunch Time!

I realized I only have a couple days left to post some other (non countdown related) Christmas things. This month I have done a few Christmas crafts and of course a Christmas photo session with my favorite pups! Enjoy!

First up: Christmas Snowflakes! I put these on all the windows in my living room.

All you need is:

Hot glue
plexiglass or cookie sheet
water
dish soap
glitter (optional)

If you use plexiglass like I did, you can draw an image of a snowflake and then put the glass on top. Spray some water and mix a little dish soap on top of the glass. Then trace the snowflake with the glue. Once it hardens, pull it off and rinse. They stick right to the windows! I didn’t use glitter on mine because I knew the dogs noses would be all over them when they look out the window and I didn’t want the mess.

Next up: Ornament Wreath! This is super easy, but waaaay more time consuming than I originally had thought.

Tools Needed:

Foam wreath (NOT floral foam)
LOTS of Christmas ornaments (I think I used 70 or 80)
Hot glue
garland
ribbon

Lay the foam wreath flat. Start glueing the ornaments to the inside ring and then the outside ring. You have to glue the ornament to the foam AND whatever ornaments are touching it. Work your way around, filling in gaps. If you see the foam through the ornaments or if you see a lot of hot glue (like I did) thats where the garland comes in hand. What I did was I glued the garland to the foam (after working on the wreath for 30 minutes) and it made it look 10,000x better. Then, on all the glue spots between the ornaments I cut off tiny pieces of garland and glued it right to the glue spots. It came out so good! Every time I see an expensive ornament wreath in the stores I’m always surprised that mine looks way better. Also, mine cost about $25 to make.

Finally: Dog treats or Dog treat garland.

This was really fun. Pete and I decided that we wanted THREE Christmas tree this year. I couldn’t justify another tree in the house unless I had a really good reason. Then it hit me, I had 3 good reasons! I decided to do a smaller tree for the dogs. Over the past couple years I have been collecting and making ornaments for them (we made paw print ones with model magic last year) and they get a ton of presents for Christmas, so it was the perfect idea. I had this crazy idea that I wanted to make dog treat garland. My dogs are pretty picky treat takers, so I actually didn’t care if the dogs didn’t like the treats, I just wanted it for looks. Well, I found some recipes on Pinterest (feel free to use them, they are on my Dogs board) and the only thing I really changed was poking holes in them with a straw and using Christmas cookie cutters. Turns out, my dogs were OBSESSED with these treats. I mean, truly obsessed. The recipe I used was a Beef and Peanut butter one (they smelled awful.) Stupid me put them on the tree and luckily I snapped a picture of what they looked like because in the middle of the night Gryphyn had eaten the garland right off the tree! He had to have eaten 20 treats. Funny thing is he had to be standing to eat them because I put them higher up on the tree to avoid this happening. Also, he left the string on the tree and just took one treat at a time. What a gentleman. The other day I made them again but chose to do a Chicken and cheddar treat and then just a plain peanut butter. They actually smelled GOOD and the dogs were equally obsessed. It was a definite success.