A Homemade Christmas 2

This year we decided to make some of our Christmas gifts again. It's always fun to make gifts, but it can also be very stressful coming up with ideas and then trying them for the first time not knowing if they will work or not. Fortunately, we had some great successes this year. You can also check out last years Homemade Christmas.

I was inspired to do these by something I saw in Hobby Lobby (LOVE that place!!!). The picture I saw was a very large wall hanging, so I decided to do my own version scaled down a bit.  I took the glass out of the frames and used Mod Podge with scrapbook paper for the background.  I bought the wooden letters and small clothespins at Hobby Lobby and painted them with acrylic paint.  I added water to the paint to give the letters more of a stained look. I attached it to the twine and there you have it.  I did glue the letters and the clothespins down to make it more permanent especially with wrapping them.

I bought these small wooden boxes from Hobby Lobby and painted them black.  Then I printed out family photos and used Mod Podge for the top.  I got the tutorial for the necklaces here.   I bought the tile pendents and Diamond Glaze from etsy like it suggests in the tutorial.  I printed out pictures for the necklaces on an inkjet printer. The problem with this is the ink will start to run and make your picture look terrible when you put the Diamond Glaze on it. To keep this from happening, I took clear packing tape and put it on both sides of the picture before glueing it to protect it.  It worked perfectly.

I bought the bracelet kit here. I printed out old and new family photos in black and white. Again, used the packing, and glued it using Diamond Glaze.

I found the headband tutorial here. I love this headband. I can't wait to make some more that I get to keep!

For this gift, I had to sneak on my dad's computer and get some photos that he took this summer while he and my mom were in Europe. I bought 8x10 canvas and some gel medium. I printed out the pictures. You will probably want to flip the picture on the computer before you print them because they go on the canvas backwards.  When I was doing research for this project I noticed everyone said to use a laser printer.  I don't have a laser printer and decided they didn't know what they were talking about.  I have now learned that they were right. Inkjet printers do not work for this project. I repeat, inkjet printers DO NOT work for this project! So, I printed them off my inkjet and took them down to Office Depot to make laser copies.
Once you have your laser copy, cover the canvas with your gel medium. Place the photo face down on the gel medium. Smooth out all the wrinkles and let it dry overnight (or at least 6 hours).  Once it is dry, use a spray bottle and spray water on it. Use your fingers to start rubbing away the paper. This process will take AT LEAST 30 minutes. I think the first one I did took me 1 hour. It will seem impossible to get all the little paper pieces off, but keep rubbing and you will eventually get it all off. Just be careful not to rub so hard that the picture starts coming off. Finally, when all the paper is off, you are left with your picture on the canvas! Cover it with gel medium to seal it and you are done. I love how these turned out! I will definitely be making many more of these for my house!

I bought these mugs at the Dollar Store. I bought this marker and wrote their name on the mug along with an encouraging word or something we love about them. We filled the mugs with candy.  For some of the mugs we also put hot chocolate mix and marshmallows, and for the others we put some Starbucks Via packs and biscotti.

For the cookies, we took Oreos and dipped them in melted white chocolate chips and then in crushed candy canes.  They were so yummy!

So there it is, another Homemade Christmas.

Scarf Hanger

As you can see, my scarves were a mess.  I just had them hanging on nails.  I could never get them to stay up and most of them ended up falling to the floor.  So, after making my DIY earring holder, I decided to figure out a solution for my scarves.

I went to Hobby Lobby and bought a piece of unfinished wood.  I painted it black. After letting it dry, I painted over it with white.

Next, I used sandpaper to give it a distressed/antique look.

Then, it was time to add the knobs and hooks and hang it on the wall.

Finally, I have a place to hang my scarves.  It will be so nice not having scarves on the floor anymore. I love using fun, creative ways to help stay organized.

DIY Earring Holder

This is what my earrings looked like.  All bunched up in a pile on my dresser.  It was driving me crazy so I started looking around on pinterest (I know you are probably getting tired of hearing the word pinterest everywhere you turn, but you really can find some great ideas on there) for a solution.  Here is what I ended up with.

I got a frame from Hobby Lobby.  I LOVE Hobby Lobby!!! Especially when I get things 50% off! I took out the glass and the back.  I added lace using glue.


I hung it on the wall and added the earrings. It was so fast and simple and a great way to organize my earrings.  I love it because the earrings add color to it.  It's like an art piece that's also functional.

A Homemade Christmas

This year for Christmas we decided to do homemade gifts. I had so much fun thinking of things to do and getting some inspiration from places like Pinterest.  It all sounded like such a great idea.  It wasn't until I was well into the projects when I realized how much time and work were actually involved! I love being creative, but it was really hard when there was a deadline.  Thankfully I started right after Thanksgiving so I had plenty of time to finish.  The end result and being able to give each gift made it worth it!!!

For these frames, I started with printing out the background with words to describe the person beginning with the letter of their name.  Then I took 1/4 inch paper strips and began to make the shape of each letter and glued it on its end using Mod Podge.

I got these paper mache letters from JoAnn's.  I covered it with family pictures using Mod Podge and added a ribbon to hang it.

I made both of these from canvas. I painted the canvas and stretched ribbon across the front.  Painted the names of each person on the clothespins and added a button for decoration.  I really like this one because it's a fun way to display pictures and makes it easy to change out the pictures for updated ones.
The other canvas I painted black and used a stencil to sponge on the design.  I glued on the buttons and added a ribbon to hang it.

For the coasters, I bought some tile from Lowes.  I printed out the pictures and cut them to fit the tile.  I glued them on using Mod Podge.  After they were dry, I covered them with polyurethane so they would be waterproof.  I added felt to the bottom of each coaster and tied a ribbon around them.

The last thing we made was yummy! We made candy cane cocoa. We wrapped them individually in a small bakers bag and closed it with a mini clothespin. We melted chocolate chips and dipped marshmallows in it and the dipped it in crushed candy canes to be used as a stir for the cocoa. We used coffee stirs for the marshmallow sticks.  We wrapped them up and tied them to the hot cocoa packs using twine. Then we made homemade thin mints. Yes, you heard me, THIN MINTS!!!! They were so yummy!!!! We got the recipe here. We covered some of them with white chocolate (which ended up being my favorite) to give it more of a holiday look.

It was so much fun working together on these projects and to be able to give people things we made!

Pinterest

I LOVE Pinterest!!!! It took me forever to decide to join Pinterest.  It was the last thing I wanted to do because keeping up with Facebook, Twitter and Beenup2 has almost been a full time job! But, my cousin talked me into it and, I must say, I'm glad she did!! It is so inspiring!!! There are so many creative ideas on Pinterest.  

With Thanksgiving coming up, I decided to try making one of the things I saw on Pinterest.  It's a thankful tree.  I just took some fake branches and cut out "leaves" from scrapbook paper.  On the back of  each leaf we write something that we are thankful for.  It's a fun, creative way to remind us that we have so much to be thankful for!!!