The Official Start...

... of the Christmas Season, in my book, is December 1. So tomorrow is the day and we can start to wish people "Merry Christmas!"  I realize that the retail world started the Christmas season wayyyyyy before I did ( liike my fav craft store was putting out Christmas ribbon in August before they actually rolled out the Halloween stuff!!)
Anyway, I went to grab a fish taco last night at my fav place for those things and pass off some Mod Podge  to a friend that her daughter needed for a school project!



I took her one of my long, skinny signs! She said, "When do you make this stuff?!?" I told her the middle of the night as you can tell from the awful middle-of-the-night pictures. :)   This one even has a cardboard box in the foreground.... My kitchen island is stacked with boxes of sweatshirts to be delivered to my fav Chi Omega's.

I paint these signs on long, skinny repurposed wood. They are actually bed slats from an IKEA bed. Someone left them behind in a rental house, (I KNOW!!!??!!) and my husband brought them home to me. They are awesome. They are connected together with a canvas strip and when you buy them for the real purpose they just roll up to move from place to place. Like everything else from IKEA they have a nice finish. They are sanded smooth. The edges are slightly rounded. With the price of wood and the poor quality I am finding at HD this may be the way to buy wood for signs anyway. I haven't done the math because they left behind two twin bed sets so I am set for a while!!

 

 These have been delivered so now I can show you this fun and easy project! I made these no crimp hair ties for all the girls at Chi O for Christmas. College Girl and I try to come up with a fun little goodie each Christmas. The girls were loving these hair ties but they are pretty expensive in the stores. I experimented a little, googled a little  and found out these are cute, inexpensive and super fun.  I wanted them to be Chi O-ish and not just red and yellow. I love my Staz-On stamp pads so I gave stamping a try and it worked like a charm. I ordered FOE in Chi O colors and bought red and yellow Staz-On stamp pads and went to town.
FOE is Fold Over Elastic and is what the hair ties are made from. It is from the lingerie industry and is very inexpensive. I found it from this super nice company in a zillion colors and great prices. They shipped it right out and I took it to the beach for Thanksgiving and made 190 hair ties in no time flat!!
 

I simply stamped them, cut them to length, knotted them and then used a lighter to lightly heat them so they don't fray. These would be a great girls birthday party activity. They could make a bunch - they love to wear them on their arms bracelet style and they could make them for gifts as well. The FOE is not expensive!! They could stamp their names or designs on them. The little stamp sets are in the dollar bins at Michael's. The only thing they couldn't do would be using the lighter.
I wanted each girl to get two so I bagged them up in small cello treat bags from another great company,Nashville Wraps, and put a little To/From sticker on them.
 In Atlanta they are $5-6 each!! Crazy!

As I mentioned, we went to the beach for Thanksgiving to see my parents and while I do not Black Friday shop (College Girl and I hit King Street in Charleston 3 times before Thanksgiving!! She is now hooked on shopping in the preppiest town ever and would move in and live at Dumas and Sons. ) I did have a black moment on Friday morning....

... my beloved iphone was in my hand one moment and on the concrete at my feet the next moment. UGH!!! Again! But I love my phone so off to the repair shop I go!
I did rescue the day by having oysters at The Noisy Oyster in Charleston so all was not lost!!