Gift in a Jar - "For your Mistletoes"

I needed an idea for a co-worker Xmas gift, and thought this gift would be perfect.

The materials needed are quite flexible. I will tell you what I used. A mason jar (Target, $2.19), a 4-in-1 foot scrub tool (Marshalls, $3.99), Neutrogena foot cream 2 oz (Target, $4), Essie nail polish - color of your choice (Kohl's, $6 with 30% off), Toenail clipper (Target, $1), Cotton balls (I had some laying around the house), a few scraps of cardstock, some sort of ribbon/decorative string, & a printed out paper that reads "for your mistletoes".

I like to print out a few different fonts & sizes because I never know what will look right until I am almost done with the project. 

In total, I spent about $15 on these items, with the largest cost being the nail polish. I am a huge Essie advocate, but going with a cheaper brand would bring the price down significantly. 

If you don't have a corner rounding punch tool, I highly recommend one. Once I got mine I had no idea how I ever crafted/scrapbooked without it!

I used some scraps of paper that I had to create this little gift tag. Since I only had a triangle piece of the snowflake paper left, I made do with a funky layout of patterned cardstock and plain cardstock. I matched the color to the nail polish in an attempt to be more festive. I wrote a little note on the back of the tag wishing the recipient a Merry Christmas, etc. 

In the end, the 4-in-1 scrub tool ended up too big for the jar. I feel like it actually brought more depth to the gift by leaving it sticking out like this. I put the screw top on the jar, but I left off the center cover so the scrubber could pop out. I reused some paper ribbon that was on a gift I'd already received. Overall I was very pleased with how simple this gift was and how well it turned out. 

Happy Christmas gifting!


P.S. Happy birthday Molly!

Penguin Gift Tags

I always put a lot of thought into wrapping presents. I love how they all look under the tree. This year I decided to make my own gift tags rather than buying them. I found this idea on pinterest, but I put my own spin on it.

Materials needed: cardstock in black & white (you can use another color other than black to switch it up a little), orange cardstock or construction paper, scissors, glue or double stick tape, ribbon & a hole punch.

 If you can't tell, I am not the best cutter. This seems like a trivial skill, but in this project I suppose it plays a big role. I think that despite my mediocre cutting skills, my gift tags still turned out alright. I don't think anyone will be inspecting the tags as they are unwrapping their presents Christmas morning.

The first thing I did was make template cut outs so I could trace them again & again to make multiple tags. I arbitrarily drew an oval shape on my black cardstock and cut it out. I did the same with white, making sure it was slightly smaller. Next I cut out 2 small hearts and a triangle shape for the nose.

I laid the pieces in the way I planned to glue them to assure they were the right size. Once I determined they were a good fit, I used them as stencils for the next set of pieces. 

Switch it up a bit by using different colors besides black to make your penguins. 

 I did not use the hearts and triangle nose pieces as stencils since they were so small. I cut each of these free-hand (it's not that hard!). I used double stick tape to attach the white pieces to the black or pink (or any other color you choose) back pieces and I used a dot of Elmer's glue to attach the feet & nose pieces. Then I used a fine tip black Sharpie to dot on the eyes.

The last step is to punch a hole in the top of the penguin and add a ribbon. I chose a Christmas-y looking red & white striped ribbon. I think yarn would also look really cute and work well for this.

The final product!

You can either write on the penguin's stomach or on the back (use a metallic sharpie for the black penguins) to address who the gift is for. I think these will be a perfect addition to all my gifts this year.

Happy Christmas wrapping!

Baby Washcloth Bouquets

In my world, social convention dictates that you must gift something thoughtful (it can be small!) when something new or exciting happens in a family member or close friend's life. In this case, my boyfriends cousins had just had new baby girls (yes - 2 different cousins had baby girls within 12 hours of each other!). I wanted to give something thoughtful and creative, so, as usual I trolled pinterest for an idea. I watched a youtube video outlining how to make a baby washcloth bouquet, and then I decided to give it a go. 

Items used: 1 piece of 12x12 scrapbook paper in whatever color/theme you think appropriate, rubber bands, double sided tape, baby washcloths and a little bit of tissue paper in whatever color you decide. 

I purchased three 6 packs of baby girl themed wash clothes at Target.

The video mentioned the importance of getting washcloths with a quilted edge, but I figured out a way around that. Before rolling the wash cloth into a "rose" I folded the edge of the washcloth to give it a quilted edge look. I chose to fold the edge with the tag on it so I could hide it. 

After rolling the washcloth, I folded up the bottom (about an inch and a half) and put a rubber band around it. I did this with all 18 wash clothes before moving on to creating the "bouquet".

To make the bouquet, you take a 12x12 piece of scrapbook paper and fold it diagonally. You have to play with it to get the size and shape you want. Try to get as much of a funnel shape as possible. I used scotch double stick tape to keep the bouquet closed. Once the bouquet is taped and complete, I pushed down on it to flatten it a little bit. This allows for the bouquet to look a little more open and lets you see the "roses" better once they are put in. 

I took a little bit of pink tissue paper and stuffed it in the bouquet before adding the "roses".

Next I just started adding the washcloths. You have to play around with them to get them to fit. Getting the last one in is sometimes challenging, especially because the bottoms are thicker than the tops. I would recommend starting with the ones in the back since those should be the tallest. I also made sure to spread out the different patterns/colors of the washcloths as evenly as possible.

As mentioned previously, there were 2 babies, so I made 2 bouquets. Here is the second one. 

Here is an example of a bouquet I made for a colleague who was having a boy. I added a ribbon on this one. The ribbon does not stay in place on it's own given the conical shape of the bouquet, so in about 3-4 spots around the bouquet I put a drop of hot glue to keep it in place. 

Happy baby gifting!

Etched Pyrex

Keeping with the wedding gift theme, this post is all about how to etch a glass 9x12 Pyrex casserole dish. 

What I used: a 9x12 glass pyrex casserole dish, clear contact paper, Armour-Etch cream, an Xacto knife, a foam paint brush, a print out of the words you are trying to etch, and some newspaper to lay down underneath you. 

Unfortunately I don't have more step by step pictures, but I will do my best to explain.

After laying down newspapers under me, I set the pyrex upside down. The etching is done on the bottom of the pyrex, not on the inside. I printed out the last name "McAdam" in the largest size font that would fit on a 8.5x11" sheet of paper. I cut a box around the last name and figured out where on the pyrex would be the best place to etch. I didn't choose the middle since Pyrex put their name smack dab in the middle of the dish. Then, I took the clear contact paper and used it to secure the name cut out to the pyrex. Make sure there are no air bubbles when you stick the contact paper to the pyrex, it could mess with the shape of the letters.

Next comes the hardest part. Take an Xacto knife and cut out each of the letters. You have the paper cut out as the stencil, but the important part is to cut through the contact paper, since this will be what controls where the etching cream goes, and therefore where the etch appears. I think the cut out part took about 30-45 minutes. Make sure you take your time and try to make the cuts as smooth as possible. Once you've cut out a letter, peel away the contact paper so that the glass is exposed just around the cut out of the letter. Letters with middle areas, such as the A and the d in this case, are much more difficult. Be careful to keep the center triangle or circle (A and d, respectively) in tact so the letter turns out.

After you've outlined and peeled off all of the letter cut outs, it's time to etch! Take your spong brush and the etching cream and start dabbing it over the cut out letters. Make sure you cover all the letter areas evenly so that the etch turns out uniform. Also, be very careful not to get the etching cream on your hands! If you are worried, wear some gloves. Although I can't speak from experience, it is said that the etching cream is very acidic and can burn your skin. You've been warned!

I left the etching cream on for about 20 minutes before I washed it off under hot water. When I first started washing the cream off it didn't look like anything had happened! The etch was very subtle at first, but once you peel off the rest of the contact paper and see the free standing etch, it looks amazing!

This was my first try so there were some small noticeable errors I made in some of the letter cut outs, but as you can see, it isn't noticeable when you look at the dish from a foot or so away. Don't be too hard on yourself, and have fun with it!

Happy Etching!

Captain & Coke

This craft was inspired by a need for a male's 40th birthday party gift. The birthday boy is a huge fan of captain and coke, but you could really use any sort of alcohol (that comes in mini bottles). I am not sure if coke makes any other types of pop in the retro packaging, though. 

Here are the items I used: 6 mini bottles of Captain (they are very cheap at super Walmart! I think <$2/mini bottle), a basket bag from the dollar store, a 6 pack of coca cola in the reto packaging with glass bottles, some ribbon, and an embellishment for the top of the basket bag.

I used red and white striped ribbon to tie each captain bottle to the coca cola bottles. There is a lip just under the bottle cap of the mini captain bottle that made it easy to secure the ribbon. For this part, it might be helpful to recruit someone else to help you tie the bottle tight enough to stay on!

Finished product!

All that was left to do was to put the gift in the basket bag and tie on an embellishment! You'll notice I used a different bow than the one in my original "things I used" photo. I thought the red looked better than the blue/white one I originally intended on using. 

Creative birthday gifts like these are perfect for friend's parties. They add a little personal touch, but are still fairly inexpensive! I've found that people are mostly impressed with the effort I put into gift giving. You'd be amazed at the level of appreciation you get for just taking 15 minutes or so to throw something like this together!

Happy Birthday-crafting!

Bridal Shower Cake

More "wedding season" appropriate crafts: a bridal shower cake!

Essentially, this is the bridal shower version of a diaper cake. If you have to give a gift, why not make it fun?!

For this bridal shower cake, I picked all items on the bride's registry at Bed Bath & Beyond. Here are the items I used: Oxo rotating utensil holder, 9.5" Pyrex pie dish, Bamboo utensil set, Calphalon dish cloth (wasabi), 2 Calphalon plaid kitchen towels (wasabi), purple silk ribbon, and a 4x4 box from the dollar tree.

The box from the dollar store was a blue gift box that came with a sparkly covered top. I had it in my gift wrapping box and it was the perfect size to hold the utensil holder at the second tier. You could use a lot of different things to do this - a cylindrical piece of foam, a few toilet paper rolls rubber banded together - be creative!

To build this, I took the dollar tree 4x4 box and turned it upside down on the middle of the pie dish. I then began wrapping the kitchen towels around the box to hide it. I took all the tags off - I felt confident doing this since the items were on her registry. I really only did it so that the end result looked cleaner, you can choose to leave them on. I wrapped 2 kitchen towels around the first tier and secured them with the purple ribbon you can see in the photo. Then, i stacked the utensil holder on top of the upside down dollar tree box and  filled it with the bamboo utensils. I folded the dish towel like a fan, and propped it up behind the utensils. 

The final thing I did was use a basket bag to wrap this up and keep everything held together. I recommend the one from the dollar tree - it works just fine and it's only a dollar!

I think I spent $40 on this gift overall (with the utilization of some bed bath and beyond coupons) and I think the presentation really classes up the gift. It also made it easier to buy a random selection of some of the lesser priced items on their registry and still be able to pull it all together nicely. 

Happy Bridal Shower-ing!

Wedding Invitation in an Ornament

Wedding season is upon us! I always feel like giving cash is so impersonal. I know that more often than not, that is exactly what the couple wants/needs, but I can't help but want to give a little something else! My cousin received a Christmas ornament with her baby shower invitation in it, and I thought it was a super cute keepsake. So, I thought, why not do this for a wedding invitation! Not only did the ornament turn out really great, but it was super cheap, too!

What I used: a plain glass ornament, scissors, my cutter glide tool, the wedding invitation, and a pencil.

I found this 4 pack of ornaments at Hobby Lobby for $6.99. Plus, I used this 40% off coupon!

The ornaments are about 3 inches in diameter.

Are you ready for the hard part? The first step is to cut about a centimeter in width piece of the invitation and roll it around a pencil. I tried to cut each line of text as 1 strip. This way, you can shake the ornament around and find different lines like names, time, place, etc. 

Once you roll the strip of paper around a pen or pencil, you can fit it through the opening at the top of the ornament (you have to pull the top off first, obviously)

I will note that since many invitations are printed white paper on top of cardstock, you may have to gently pull the printed paper apart from the cardstock. It's kinda hard to see in this picture since the cardstock was silver and the printed paper was white, I did cut strips of the cardstock to put in the ornament, too. This adds some color and variety to the ornament. I also tried to cut slightly different widths of paper to allow for some variety.

And there you have it! A finished product. You can even see the line that shows the brides name and the time of the wedding in this picture! 

Happy Wedding Season!

Monkey Diaper Cake

I've been dying to make a diaper cake. I think this is a gift that every crafter should master, so when I found out my cousin was pregnant I knew immediately that I would make one for her shower. I did a lot of research on pinterest - I wanted to find the perfect design for this diaper cake. Many diaper cakes you see have many little shampoo bottles, pacifiers, etc. tucked in with the diapers, but most of the ones I saw like that, as beautiful as they were, they looked too cluttered. Also, I was going to have to travel 5 hours with the diaper cake, so I was worried about all the stuff falling out. I ultimately decided on a very simple design.

What I used: 36 pack of seventh generation diapers from Target, 3 inch turquoise ribbed ribbon, 1.5 inch purple silk ribbon, a half yard of fabric, a CoCaLa stuffed monkey, ribbons, a bag of assorted rubber bands, hot glue.

Making a diaper cake is actually very easy. I bought a pack of 36 diapers and I ended up with a handful leftover. I started by rolling the diapers and rubber banding them. I placed a paper towel roll in the middle and began grouping the rolled up diapers in circles around it. I think I did about 4 circles for the bottom tier. I grouped each circle of diapers with a large rubber band, until I got to the largest circle around the bottom tier. I didn't have a rubber band big enough for the largest circle, so I used a scrap piece of thin ribbon to hold it together. You build the second and third tiers the same way - using rubber bands to hold each of the circles of rolled up diapers. The paper towel roll in the middle helps hold the tiers together. You can also use a useful item like baby shampoo or baby lotion instead of a paper towel roll.

Once the tiers were all built, I began with the decoration. I planned to use both fabric and ribbon to decorate the diaper cake to have a little bit of a difference in textures and patterns. The fabric brought a nice pattern to the cake and the ribbon really classed it up. I cut the fabric in a width to almost completely cover the rolled up diapers. To secure the fabric, I hot glued the ends together. I did the same thing with the turquoise ribbon. I didn't want to tie it because I wanted it to look seamless.

The last step to this diaper cake was to secure the plush monkey to it. I wrapped the monkeys legs around the bottom tier and used the purple ribbon around the monkey and the top tier. Overall, I think it came together really well!

Happy Baby Showering!

Christmas Gift Certificate Tree

If you haven't already caught on, the one thing I love as much as crafting is giving gifts. I think it's the perfect outlet for my creativity. I absolutely love coming up with thoughtful gifts tailored to the recipient.

For Christmas, I decided to get my brother and his girlfriend a bunch of gift certificates to restaurants in the neighborhood in Chicago that they lived. While I thought this to be a fitting gift for them, I thought it sounded kinda boring..."here....they're gift cards for a bunch of restaurants". So, I came up with a nice way to display them that didn't seem so flat.

First I purchased a piece of rectangular foam and a gift bag from Hobby Lobby. I used a wine gift bag, and the piece of foam was probably 3/4 of the height of the gift bag. I went outside in my backyard and cut 5 or so twigs off of the leaf-less tree (it was winter time), and arranged them so they looked like a mini-tree.

Then, I made little envelopes out of cardstock and scrapbooking paper that fit each of the gift certificates. Sorry I do not have a tutorial for these....but, stay tuned - I promise to do one soon! 

With this one I used a striped patterned paper and I cut it into strips. I laid the strips out to look like a Christmas tree and cut out a non-perfect star for the top (Who likes perfect things anyways?). This one is created as a sleeve, where the top is open and the gift certificate slips out of the top. 

This one was made with patterned paper, some cardstock (the off-white) and some stickers. This one is also created as a sleeve. Notice that I cut a semi-circle at the top for easy removal of the gift certificate. 

I tried to make this one look more like an envelope. The snowman sticker is meant to look like a stamp and on the back I cut a slit and tucked the folded part of the cardstock into it to close it.

I went simple with this one. This was the first one I made, so I didn't figure out that I should cut a semi-circle on the top. With this one you actually couldn't pull the gift certificate out unless you ripped the ribbon off. It is also a sleeve for the gift certificate.

At each of the restaurants I went to, they gave me a take out menu to go with the gift certificates. I slipped those in the wine-shaped gift bag, as they were the perfect size to hide in there. 

While the gift was slightly difficult to transport, I felt much better giving this than I would have a stack of gift certificates. I think overall it turned out to be a nice gift that keeps on giving. 

Happy Christmas Gifting :)

Desserts in a Jar

What do you get for someone who has everything or enough money to buy whatever they want? This is the issue I was facing when I decided to create these desserts in a jar. They are a nice thoughtful, simple gift for someone who enjoys baking. I made these as a retirement gift for my boyfriend's aunt.

I found a bunch of different recipes on various websites and I picked the ones that sounded the yummiest. (Please excuse my dirty kitchen in the background of my photos!)

I ended up making the following 4 recipes:

• Cranberry Hootycreeks
• M&M Cookies
• Chocolate Chunk Cookies
• Sand Art Brownies

I used a funnel to get all of the sugar, flour, etc. in the jars. In order to make them look pretty, you have to strategically layer each ingredient. Alternate between ingredients with contrasting colors. All ingredients are meant to fit in regular sized mason jars. Basically the idea behind these is that all of the dry ingredients are included in the jar, they would just need the wet ingredients to complete the recipe. In most cases that is butter, eggs, milk, vanilla.....all things most people would already have around the house. The complete recipes should be attached to the jar. I included all of the tags I used for mine below. 

Ingredients (layered in this order!): 

1 1/8 cup sifted all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup rolled oats

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup brown sugar, packed

1 cup dried cranberries

1/2 cup white chocolate chips

1/2 cup walnuts or pecans, chopped

I got this recipe & tags here.

Ingredients (layered in this order):

1/4 cup sugar

1 1/4 cup M&Ms

2 cups sifted flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 tsp baking powder

I got this recipe & tags here.

Ingredients (in this order):

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chunks or chocolate chips (per your preference)
1/2 cup pecans or walnuts, chopped

I got the recipe here. For this one I made my own tag.

Ingredients (in this order):

2/3 tsp salt

1 1/8 cup sifted flour

1/3 cup cocoa powder

2/3 cup brown sugar, packed

2/3 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup white chocolate chips

1/2 cup walnuts or pecans, chopped

I got the recipe for this one here. I made this tag myself, also. 

I chose the same type of nut for all 3 recipes so that I didn't have to spend a ton of money on ingredients. Here is what each jar looked like before I did all the decorating. You can see all the layers, which really looks cool!

For the decorations, I used a lot of stuff I already had in my crafting collection. I did go to Hobby Lobby and buy 1/2 yard of white fabric to put over the tops of all the jars. Much more economic than buying a bunch of different fabric types. I also bought the yellow and white/red string from Hobby Lobby. The red/green/white/blue ribbon is actually from the Dollar Tree, along with the blue bow that I put on top of the Chocolate Chunk jar. I used card-stock and scrapbooking paper for all of the tags.

Since these ended up being pretty heavy, I used one of those cardboard half boxes that come in the bottom of large packs of soda from Costco. I cut it in half and folded up one of the sides so all the jars fit snug. 

The gift recipient loved the gift...she said the Cranberry Hootycreeks were her favorite. :)

Happy crafting!