Seasonal Blocks-Day 7

Before I introduce the idea for our seventh handmade Christmas project, let me preface it by ranting about the amazingness of using hardware store lumber in crafting. It is a little bit of extra work, but it is so cheap! A 4x4 runs about $6-$8 and makes 20 blocks. That is about .40 cents a block. You can not find that kind of a deal on blocks at a craft store. They are upwards of 2 bucks each meaning to make the craft pictured below you would spend at least 14 dollars just on the wood. As opposed to $3. 

I'll admit I was a little embarrassed to set foot inside a hardware store among scores of burly men to buy supplies for...(ahem)...crafts. But the more I shop there the more I realize that they probably have a lot of customers who are buying stuff for smaller projects rather than building a house with their bare hands. So there is no need to be ashamed. Many of the hardware stores will even cut the wood into blocks for you. 

So before you go to a pricey craft store ask yourself if it is a cut of wood or any other material that you could get elsewhere. If the answer is 'yes' give the home improvement stores a try. 

Photo Courtesy of brownpaper--packages.blogspot.com

 I thought these mantle blocks would be a great idea for handmade christmas presents. I know that I always love getting home decor stuff because it is so hard to accumulate enough stuff to make our house feel really decorated. I'd say our house is about 1/3 of the way decorated and ALL of that stuff was given to us by other people, not purchased.

Anyway, the great thing about these blocks is that they have letters on 4 sides so they can be switched up to spell lots of different things enveloping many different seasons and holidays.
The words include:

Harvest
Welcome
Friends
Faith
Family
Spooky
Winter
Freedom
Blessed
Snow
Home
Hope
Monster
Mother
Dream
Easter

Please go here for the full tutorial. She gives you the info on which letters go on which blocks. Such an awesome idea!

Button Bracelet-handmade day 6

I'm not a big fan of 'real' jewelry. I feel so weird in precious metals! So I really like this button bracelet. It looks from the tutorial like it is really easy to make. And super cheap! I love the rough chunkiness of this! 

Photo courtesy of: lillyella.blogspot.com

In other news, I am having way too much fun lately. In the past week we have had visits from family in Seattle and Utah. And we have gone to Disneyland, Universal Studios, and Medieval Times! I thought I would have time before the holiday fun got too busy to post ideas for 25 crafts. But alas, the fun has snuck up on us early this year! Thus, 25 days of handmade Christmas has become 12 days. Ha ha! I am such a slacker! Stay tuned for a whopping 6 more hand-made Christmas ideas.

Little Boy Lumber Jack Hats-Day 5

I bought Luke one of these hats before I found this tutorial. I LOVE it! I make him wear it whenever I can. Little boys look so cute in hats and I have to say the Lumber Jack hat is my favorite by far! SO cute!

You can find the full tutorial on how to make the hat here. 

Gathered Clutch-Day 4

I found a tutorial for this adorable clutch! I want to make a million of them! Which is why I haven't made one yet. Over-ambition kinda kills a lot of my projects! But who would not love getting one of these for Christmas? (hint hint to my family that reads my blog...just kiddding =))

Photo Courtesy Of: Noodleheads.blogspot.com

The tutorial is really detailed so if you have never made a zippered bag before you should be able to follow along really well! Go here to see the full tutorial!

Homemade Play dough (Day 3)

Making homemade play dough is one of my fondest and most vivid memories growing up. I thought it was funnest thing ever! The other day I made some with Luke. I have tried a couple different recipes and this one is by far the best!

Ingredients:

1 cup flour 
1/4 cup of salt 
2 tablespoons cream of tartar 
1 cup water 
1 smidge of gel food coloring  

1 tablespoon vegetable oil  

*One recipe will make about 3 different colors. 

Step 1: Put the dry ingredients in a pan and whisk them together until well mixed. 

Step 2: Add the wet ingredients and mix (with a mixing spoon, not a mixer)

Step 3: Put the pan on the stove over medium heat and keep mixing. It will start to get lumpy, that's good keep mixing until it starts to really come together, stick to itself and form a rough ball. Take it off the heat when this happens, if you cook it for to long it will get too dry. 

Step 4: Knead in food coloring. I used the Wilton Gel food coloring, because it makes more vibrant colors. When I was young we always used regular food coloring and our play dough was always pastel. 

Making homemade play dough is really easy and so cheap! I am always making stuff; crafts and treats, but making this is almost relaxing compared to even the easiest of projects I have done. I was really surprised how fast and effortlessly this came together. 

 With a couple of dollar store tuperware containers, the play dough can be cutely packaged up and stuffed into a stocking!

Lego Table- Handmade Idea 2

Photo Courtesy of Shabby2Sweet.Blogspot.com

I found the tutorial for this table a while back and thought it was such a good idea! I have stored it in the back of my mind until we have more kids who would play with it. But in the meantime I wanted to share it!

This is an old side table that wasn't needed anymore, so it got a coat of paint, some dollar store baskets affixed onto the sides and a foundation of legos super-glued onto the top. Now it is a perfect station for storing and playing with Legos!

The thing that blows me away about this project is how cheap it is. I mean, you can find little side tables at yard sales for a few bucks! And the baskets on the side are from the dollar store. The result is something that I think any kid would be so excited about on Christmas morning!

Also if your kids are too small to play with Legos or you just don't want them laying around the house for younger kids to stuff in their mouths you could make the same thing with Duplos or Mega Bloks!

If you want to see the full details of how the table was made please visit the Shabby2Sweet blog.

25 Days of Handmade Christmas- Day 1

As I already blabbed about earlier this year, I am a big fan of homemade Christmas presents. I also have a passion for seeking out good ideas. Like I have said before I am not creative, so I love scouring the blog world for cute ideas for handmade stuff.

I decided to share some of those ideas I have found with those of you who read my blog. It's also a way for me to document those things so I can find them easily when I want to use them. Some of them will be things that I am making for Christmas this year, and some of them will be links to a tutorial on another blog. I will probably lean toward presents for kids, since that is what is on my mind a lot. =) But I will definitely have some good grown-up ones too!


Whenever my husband Santa asks me what I want in my stocking I always tell him 'accessories'! I can never have enough hair thingies and beauty supplies. They make me giddy. I thought that would be a super easy super cheap idea for a handmade Christmas present.

I got a pack of 4 headbands for $1. I covered this one in blue fabric and made petals following this tutorial. I glued some turquoise sequins to the middle aaaaaand...done. Easy.

For this one I pleated some purple ribbon, ironed it, and sewed it down the middle to hold the pleats. Then glued it onto the headband and glued the polka dot ribbon on top to cover the stitching. 

I followed this tutorial to make some rolled fabric flowers with some old denim jeans I had. I also wrapped the headband in a strip of denim. Easy (but painful, burnt my finger on the hot glue. I can't believe with all the technology we have at our fingertips we can't invent something better than the hot glue gun!).

This one is my favorite, because it's for ME! I can't wear normal headbands because they always give me a headache, so I bought some black elastic by-the-yard at the fabric store. I think it was a dollar something a yard. A yard will make at least 3 headbands. I measured how much elastic I needed for one headband, then sewed the elastic together and glued a super simple bow on the top. ANY of these headbands can also be made with elastic. Make the flowers/pleats according to the tutorial and sew or glue them on the elastic. 

You can also make bows or flowers and glue them on clippies if you (or your recipient) aren't a headband person. I got this box of 100 clips from a beauty supply store for 5 bucks.

For this flower I just bought a bunch of dollar store fake daisies. I pulled one off the stem, took the front piece and back piece off, and glued a clip to the back and a button to the middle. 

For this last one I followed this tutorial and glued it onto a clip. Sooooo easy, soooooo cheap!

Asymmetrical, Pleated Shirt Refashion

I love fall/winter weather! My favorite thing ever is layering. I think t-shirts, tank tops, and such become so much cuter with a contrasting long sleeved shirt underneath. That's why I was thrilled when I found this tutorial for a one-sleeved, pleated tank top.

It was relatively easy, and I love the result! I didn't have a long sleeve crew neck shirt like the one in the tutorial above, mine was scoop neck so it turned out a little different. If you see the shirt and think, "That would be much cuter if it was a little less cave woman" then check out the tutorial, because if you do it the right way, it's much less extreme (meaning if you wore this shirt without an undershirt you wouldn't get charged with indecent exposure)! I want to try it with a crewneck soon because I seriously love this look, but the only thing that bothers me is the angle of the neckline.  

But for now, I am excited for this cute shirt that I could never pull off wearing if it weren't for layering! Woo hoo!

***Please do yourself a favor and follow the link above the pictures to the original tutorial. It is a much cuter shirt when: a)made correctly, b) not wrinkled, and c) on someone with any kind of a shape!!!

Pumpkin Carving FAIL = Delicious (triple) WIN

Todd and I like to make unnecessary things into a competition. We place bets on everyday things like how many times Luke will wake up in the middle of the night. We have a tradition of making graham cracker haunted houses and having our friends on facebook judge whose is better. Last year was a total fail on my part.


This was Todd's house:

And this was mine:

Some of our friends actually thought that Luke made it because it was so bad! Really? REALLY? Luke was not even a year old at this point!

This year we wanted to turn our pumpkin carving into a facebook competition too. We have both been reading the Scott Pilgrim books and we actually both had the idea to make Scott Pilgrim pumpkins, but one of us had to give up the dream, and so I went to my second option. A LOLCats pumpkin. I wanted to do that fancy carving thing where you don't cut all the flesh out, but just make it thin enough that light shines through. Long story short-it was a fail.
 













After so many halloween competition related failures I was determined to salvage what I could of this project. Pumpkin puree to the rescue!

A couple of years ago we found instructions on how to make pumpkin puree, along with a recipe for pumpkin pie from scratch. This is what saved me from another Halloween of humiliation.

We had much more puree than was needed for the pie, so we also made a pumpkin cheesecake and pumpkin bread. We topped all 3 pumpkin creations off with an amazing recipe for homemade whipped cream using almond extract. ~heavenly~ (If you follow the links to one of the recipes, make it the whipped cream, this stuff makes ANYTHING taste amazing)

Caramel Apples

Caramel apples are my favorite fall treat! Oh my goodness! They are so good! I didn't like them for a long time, because I always tried to eat them off the stick and it is impossible. But when I learned to just cut it up and eat it like a regular apple, I fell in love! 

These are super easy to make. I love when desserts are easy and turn out pro looking. Unlike this fail of a cake that was super labor intensive and turned out so, so sad!

After I dipped the apples following the directions on the caramel package I melted chocolate and dipped them in that, and sprinkled them with various toppings. The toppings are the fun part! It's so fun to think of all the different things you can do. I did sprinkles, butterscotch drizzle, Reeses pieces, crunched up Snickers, Butterfinger, and Kit Kats.

A couple toppings that I wanted to try but didn't were sea salt sprinkled, apple pie (dipped in white chocolate instead of milk chocolate and sprinkled with a mixture of brown sugar, cinnamon, and graham cracker crumbles), and mini M&M's.

I like that these can be easily packaged up and shared with friends. Mmmmmmm...