Traditional Filipino Parol with lights / Photo source: AMS Daily
Christmas is about done in the Philippines as I write this. For us, it's today. During this time, I time travel - back into those days when I was young, in the country where I was born and raised, enjoying the days and nights with my brothers and sisters and friends leading to Christmas day.
Or that my birthday is three days before Christmas. Actually, it leaves much to be desired if you were born in this most-celebrated season. December birthday celebrant will agree that your birthday gets overshadowed by Christmas itself. Truth. So, yes, not that too. But don't get me wrong. I don't hate my birthday either. But now, on to why I love the season. Want to take a shot at guessing?
Another Christmas have come and here at Zensible Mama, we are blessed to have you share the holidays, our journeys and adventures with us each year. From our family to yours, our sincerest gratitude and merriest of wishes that may you have a very merry Christmas today, as we ourselves celebrate this joyous season!
And so it is! We're celebrating our first not-so-white Christmas in our grande nuevo la casa today! Our home. Our sanctuary. It's a long time coming but so worth it! Now, decorating it was a bit of a challenge but I think we managed to pull off a good one. Compared to the smaller house we've lived in for 10 years, this house is definitely bigger and thus far, requires more decorating!
I've always been fascinated with Snowflakes and a big fan of them as well. They adorn my Christmas tree each year and they're always a part of my holiday decor. It will be our first Christmas in our new house so, I have tons of opportunity to get my creative home decor ideas to work! And for a last-minute additional holiday decor idea, I'm thinking pretty, colorful and glittery snowflakes!
And that's exactly what I did! I placed cascading snowflakes on my wall by my stairs. Thanks to Crayola* for sending me my crafting essentials, I was able to pull-off these home decor idea successfully! Now my bare wall looks totally rockin' and the snowflakes are simply ah-mazing!
And in true snowflakes fashion, each one is not like the other. Below you'll find the basics on how to create your own snowflake. All you need is a piece of paper, scissor and lots of imagination!
Instructions
1. Fold the paper into a triangle. Cut the excess.
2. If you unfold it, you should have a perfect square.
3. Fold the triangle in half to make a smaller triangle.
4. Fold one side halfway into the middle.
5. Fold the other remaining side on top of the folded one. Make adjustment to make sure fold is of equal size.
6. Cut the excess along straight line.
7. Start cutting your shape from bottom up.
8. Cut straight up until your final shape is in place.
9. Unfold and reveal your snowflake.
Note: small snowflakes follow the same procedure as above.
Now for the exciting part. Bling-ing and accessorizing the snowflakes!
In this project, I used the Glitter Glue and the Twistable Slick Stix. First, lightly color the entire snowflakes with your preferred color. To achieve an attractive contrast, put more color on the center of the snowflakes then choose a part of the edges that would get more color. Once that's done, start outlining certain areas of the snowflakes with glitter glue. More glitter, the better!
Let the glue dry then stick them on your preferred canvas and arrange them accordingly. The snowflakes I used in this project are huge in person and they look best on a huge blank wall. They also look good with smaller-sized snowflakes. So, make several sizes to complete your ensemble.
Personal note on Crayola products used.
I love the Twistable Slick Stix. It's easy to use, glides very smoothly and the colors are very vibrant and solid. It makes coloring quick and fast, and the color covers the surface evenly! Now that is very impressive. The only thing you need to watch out for is to make sure you have a protective paper underneath or you'll have crayon smudges everywhere. As for the Glitter glue, it simply works!
Now the fun giveaway!
One lucky winner will win a Crayola Holiday Crafting Essentials gift pack which includes:
Crayola Washable Markers
Crayola Colored Pencils
Crayola Glitter Glue
Crayola Model Magic
Crayola Slick Sticks
$25 gift card
Qualifying Entry: Complete mandatory entry requirements then tell us which Crayola product is your favorite in the comments section. Additional ways for extra entries available below.
To know more about Crayola and their products, Follow them on:
Pinterest - Crayola
Facebook - Crayola
Twitter - @Crayola
*Crayola provided the products used in this craft project, gift card and sponsored the giveaway. Craft idea and all opinions are mine unless otherwise stated.
It's that time of the year again where we all go gaga over our trees! I'm sure you are proud of your trees and have put your own creative twist to it. But around the inernetz, there are pretty mighty cool trees out there that are out-of-this-world, unusual yet unique and creative! One of them captured my heart and will be the reason I'm going after-Christmas-sales shopping this year for! Can I say, Bah-humbug!? There goes my Christmas money! But first here are the not-your-typical trees.
The thing about home decorating especially during the holidays is that, it never ends (to me at least). My creative brain keeps coming up with ingenious ideas. So here's another idea for a Christmas card holder - inspired by a tree! Your very own Christmas Card Tree. And it's easy to make too!
I just received my first Christmas card in the mail and I'm ecstatic! In this age of email and digital technology, a physical card seem to be vanishing in the holiday equation each year. But always the optimistic believer on things great and unique, I'm confident that I will still get some, if not many, cards this year. With this assumption, I better have a nice place to display them. Last year, I "wedged" them in the Christmas tree. This year, I've got something nicer and quite simple to make!
It's been years since the last time we visited the Southern Christmas Show. If it wasn't for free tickets - thanks to my husband - we probably wouldn't bother going again this year. Now, don't get me wrong. The place is great for early Christmas shopping, bar none, but it's just one of those busy, crazy places that you'd rather avoid. Unless of course, you are a brave soul and are determined to shop till you drop while fending off other holiday-crazed shoppers! Thankfully, going at the last day of the event was a good choice. The place wasn't as crowded and it made for a good (window and non-window) shopping experience somehow.
