5 Little Monsters: December 2016

Top 16 of 2016


At the end of the year last year I did a top 15 of 2015 post and I thought it would be good to do it again this year. It is always kind of fun to look back at the things I have made throughout the year as well as to see which ones have been the most popular. Sometimes they are the ones I expect and sometimes they aren't. I thought since in 2015 I did the top 15, in 2016 I should do the top 16. I am only including posts that were published this year, some of the most popular posts on my blog are older posts but since this is kind of a year in review type post I am only including posts that were new this year.

Mini Nativity- Stable

-Product and compensation for this post provided by Fairfield World, all opinions and ideas are my own. Post may contain affiliate links-


A couple of weeks ago I shared my mini nativity pattern that included a Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus in a manger. As I was working on it I had the idea to make a little stable to go along with them. I wanted to make something pretty simple and that would stand up on its own.

Christmas Bags and Family Parties

-Sponsored by Oriental Trading Company, all ideas and opinions are my own-


This time of year can be so crazy and busy with all of the things that are going on. There are school performances, work parties, church parties, parties with family and friends, presents to buy and wrap, and so much more. We have had most of our Christmas shopping done for a few weeks, all we had left to do was stocking stuffers and we are finally done with that too. We have had Christmas parties every weekend this month and on top of all of that we have had a nasty cold making its way through our family. As a result it is taking me so much longer than I planned to get posts up on my blog,  I have had this post and another almost ready to go for quite a while but having extra kids home from school makes it so much harder to get stuff done. Now it is almost Christmas, which I can't, believe and I am running out of time.

Death Star Ornament


Yesterday I published a new pattern on Fairfield World's site and today I wanted to share it here. When I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do for my project I had decided I wanted to make a Christmas ornament. I really wanted something that could be used for Christmas but I wanted something small that would be easy for people to make since it was going to go on the site only a week and a half before Christmas. I thought an ornament was the perfect thing. Last year I made some really traditional ornaments for Christmas, a Santa, a Snowman, a Toy Soldier, and a Penguin. So far this Christmas I have kind of done the opposite, mostly very non-traditional ornaments. Colorful Owls for my sister and nieces, a painted Pokeball for one of my nephews, a paper dinosaur ornament for another. As a result I couldn't really decided what I wanted to do for this one. I asked my husband for ideas and he mentioned that the new Star Wars Rogue One movie was coming out this weekend, in fact he is taking our boys after school today to go see it. I thought that would be a fun theme to go with and decided on a Death Star.

Thank You Cards and Hearts


This Christmas our family has been trying to focus on service and on Christ. We have been following along with the #LIGHTTheWORLD Initiative on Mormon.org and we have been trying to come up with ways that our family, including all of the little kids, can participate. I think one easy thing to do is to write a little thank you note to someone. There are always people you can thank for things, little or big, they have done for you. Even the kids that can't write yet can draw a picture to say thank you to someone.

Iron On Christmas Shirts- With Cricut Cut Files


A few weeks ago I was playing around in Cricut Design Space and I came up with a Christmas design that I originally thought would make a cute pillow. I was planning to make a plain black or white pillow cover, cut out the design, and iron it onto the pillow cover. The only problem, I have a lot of Christmas pillows and don't really need another, not to mention the fact that it really wouldn't have matched the others that I have. I still liked the design though, so I decided I was going to use it anyway. I thought my 3 girls would love some shirts for Christmas so I decided to use that design that I already had and make a couple more to go along with it. I ended up with 3 different designs and new Christmas shirts for each of my girls.

Layered Paper Dinosaur Ornament


I have one last ornament to share from my family ornament exchange. My son Jak had one of his cousins, a boy who loves dinosaurs. Jak decided that he really wanted to make the ornament for his cousin and that it had to be a dinosaur ornament. We talked about a few different ideas and I showed him some things we could do. He really wanted to use my Cricut because I think he thinks it is pretty much magic, he thinks I can make anything with it.

DIY Pokemon Christmas Ornament


Like I mentioned in my previous post, each year my family does an ornament exchange. The ornaments don't have to be handmade but I think it is fun to make as many of them as I can. I made the crocheted owl ornaments for all of the girls that we had but I wanted to come up with some fun stuff for the boys too. One of my nephews is really into Pokemon so I came up with a really easy ornament for him and I thought I would share the idea here. When I think of Pokemon and something easy I immediately think of a Pokeball. It is pretty simple to turn anything round into a Pokeball.

Colorful Owl Ornaments


My family has a tradition of doing an ornament exchange every year. All of the adults (my parents and siblings) draw names and get an ornament for the person whose name they drew, then the kids all draw names and get ornaments for that person. This year between all of us we ended up with 3 girls we had to do something for ranging in age from 5 to 16. One of them likes owls and the color purple so I had the idea to make a her a purple owl ornament. Once I had it done I thought, why not just make a couple more for the other girls.