Sonya Nimri

Want your house to scream Merry Christmas without running up the electricity bill or supergluing reindeer to the roof? Express yourself with these easy-to-make quilted holiday letters. In a few minutes you can add a festive touch to any mantle or, if you haven't got one (and, honestly, who has a mantle these days...?!), give that less-than-Noble Fir a voice by attaching some pom-poms and hanging these letters as ornaments on your Christmas tree. But don't stop at Christmas. This project's technique can be used anytime. Whether announcing a party or decorating a child's room, let your style speak with this easy to-do, and impossible to ignore, anytime garland.  Step 1:  Iron double-sided Wonder-Under  to quilted fabric. Step 2:  Iron parchment paper to the wrong-side of patterned fabric and trace 3 1/4 inch letters on the parchment paper.    Make sure the letters are backwards so the letter appear forward on the garland. Step 3:  Cut out lett...

If you have extra fabric and trim lying around, use it to wrap presents.  I hot glued the fabric to the boxes to make sure they didn't move about, but they could also be taped with strong double stick tape.  The fabric can be reused for all sorts of things. I'm not a great knitter but the woman who made this sweater from Goodwill was!  I took it and was able to make two big stockings from it just one sweater just by tracing a stocking I had and sewing up the sides.  There was also enough knit left to cover one of my holiday houses in the UCLA Commons Window.

Hand-shaped ornaments painted and on the tree Cookie Cutter Ornaments Pre-painted baked cookies First coat of paint Salt Dough Ornaments are a simple, inexpensive and beautiful addition to any Christmas tree, not to mention a great project to do with the kids.  I got my son involved in the painting of them, and our tree has never looked the same! Ingredients: 2 cups flour 1 cup salt 1/2 cup water Baking sheets Acrylic paints, glitter glue brushes. Directions: 1.  Combine ingredients by hand, knead until well blended and wrap tightly with plastic so dough does not dry out.  Take only the portion you are using out at a time.  If it gets dry add a little water or, if too wet, add flour. 2.  Shape either by hand or with cookie cutters.  I tried both and really liked the way both turned out (although using cookie cutters was much faster).  Poke holes at the top of the ornaments.  Keep in mind they shrink a little when bak...