Mom and Dad's Christmas Lantern

Last month, brilliant Monique shared another of her beautiful creations, a decorated Ikea lantern scene, and I was so charmed by it, I was soon emailing her to tell her I was copying the idea for my parents for Christmas.  ♥  I found the same lantern online, began ordering tree, lights, and blue gingham dollhouse furniture for it, and then was flummoxed when the lantern arrived in pieces-needing-to-be-assembled and emailed Monique again to ask how she'd put hers together, sigh.  :)  Eventually, I got it together--the story of my life, ha ha--and I finished it the day before taking it home for an early Christmas with my family.  :)  It's such a sweet idea, and it's not one I'd have ever thought of, filling the inside of a lantern like this.  More thanks to Monique for sharing, as she always does.  ♥ 

I began mine with what became the living room carpet, :) an old hand-towel in Mom  and Dad's shade of gray-blue.  A small snowflake doily-ornament came off my tree to become a miniature tree skirt.  After I'd gotten the decorating done, Mike figured out the lights. 

A heart appeared while we worked on it.  ♥ 

I had bought a miniature Beagle for Dad, as he's aching to have another one but Mom's not keen on the idea.  I crafted a mini newspaper out of folded-up/glued-together newspaper snippets and made a mini country decorating magazine for Mom.  I'm not happy with the collar-and-red-heart-tag that ended up looking like a bandana--Dad would never have a bandana-wearing dog--but I'd already hot-glued it into place before I realized how oversized it was. 

Part of a stained blue holiday towel that we no longer used but that I hadn't wanted to throw out found a new life as an afghan for the back of the couch.  I unraveled more of its yarn loops to make tiny  ornaments,  and I made a few little wrapped gift-bundles for under the tree.

A snowflake-patterned scrap of the same towel became a pillow, although the snowflake design isn't obvious.  The basket and shiny bow-wrapped gift beside it were little bits I'd saved from other projects over the years--and I'm glad I did.  :) 

I ordered a miniature Swedish tea ring from an online artisan, since that's what Mom always bakes for Christmas morning's breakfast.  ♥  I cut out paper napkins to go with that and the tea cups. 

The tree has its own built-in string of lights, and I draped the other strand around the couch for a little more glow on that side of the "room."   

When it was all put together and lit up, it looked full enough--and very much like Mom and Dad's actual living room at Christmas, which is what I was going for, of course.  ♥  (Again, how fun is this idea!  I want to make them for baby showers and birthdays and garden parties and weddings and kids' rooms and other holidays and! and! and. . . !)  :) 

I took a final picture in full sunshine right before wrapping it--

--and Mike and I gave it to Mom and Dad on the 21st.  Mom was as delighted as expected, and Dad was just happy to see a Beagle in his living room finally.  ;)  Here's to the fun and love of Christmas, and here's to the sharing of sweet ideas.  ♥ 

For Aunt Laurie's Birthday

Aunt Laurie's birthday was this Monday, and while I was home a couple weeks ago, Mom and I decided to make a special birthday gift for her that Mom could include with the box of wrapped Christmas presents she was going to mail her the next morning. It began simply enough, with Mom showing me a pretty green gingham dishtowel she'd found for Aunt Laurie and saying, "I was thinking about decorating a little Christmas tree and putting it in the box for her. What do you think? This as a tree skirt? Or should I just wrap it by itself?" Mom should know better than to ask me such things: She and I ended going to bed sometime after midnight that night after spending about four hours constructing, instead, this miniature birthday party table, the gingham dishtowel now a tablecloth. :)

The table was a taco kit box from the cupboard. :) The cake began as a tiny container with cake/cookie sprinkles in it. I emptied it, flipped it over, painted it with acrylic paints until it looked frosted/decorated, and glued a few silk flowers onto the sides and a bit of a paper-doily-as-cake-plate underneath. A birthday candle from the cupboard was whittled down and poked via nail hole into the top. 

And of course, Aunt Laurie had to have a frog, so I made one out of a few tiny Styrofoam ball-type things from one of Mom's silk floral arrangements and painted it all up until it looked frog-like and glued it all into a mini gift-box with an even smaller "to/from" label attached. She had to have a frog? Yessssssss. :) When I was a kid, I told my mom that Aunt Laurie should collect something green since it's her favorite color, and I decided, much to elegant Civil War-era costume-making, Ann-Margret-adoring, lace-loving Aunt Laurie's dismay, that it should be frogs. Tradition must be upheld!

Her miniature card from me read "Hoppy birthday," of course, and Mom made a more traditional card for her older sister. A green button with cake sprinkles glued to the top became a plate of cookies or candies. The tiny gift packages began as corners of Jell-O boxes. We cut them into different sizes and wrapped them with scraps of different papers we had stashed away. Curling ribbon and more tiny silk flowers made perfect package decorations. The plastic lid of a perfume or hair spray bottle worked as a vase. :)

Paper napkins became smaller paper napkins, white plastic toothpicks were trimmed and glued beside them to suggest forks, and we cut the floral part of a shelf lining paper into circles as cake plates. I drew the balloons, "laminated" them with packaging tape, attached them to more toothpicks, and poked them into the top of one of the presents. We framed an already-right-size photo of Aunt Laurie with silk flowers. And hot-glued everything to everything until we could shake the entire table upside-down and nothing moved.

I only wish we could have seen Aunt Laurie's face when she unwrapped her "birthday party in a box." Now she has a little decoration she can bring out each year for her birthday, though. Since it is the day after Christmas, a hard time to travel, we never get to share it with her, but now we can, even more so than usual, celebrate together in spirit. :)  

Updated to add that Aunt Laurie has passed along this picture of her with her "birthday table."  

Sweet face!  It almost makes me feel bad for hiding the little frog in the gift box.  :)