Each year my family draws each other’s names for Christmas. While we do have store bought gifts, these particular gifts are supposed to be handmade.
I wanted my kids to know the real spirit of giving and found it was easier to encourage them to give their time in making a present than it was earn money to buy a present.
As the years have gone by our kids (and ourselves) have really gotten into it.
Calendar or photobook
My favorites have been when my husband has made me a personalized calendar from shutterfly.com. They have deals constantly and are worth looking into. If they by chance aren’t having deals, Walgreens and Walmart let you make them for around $12.
Made from Felt
My next go-to for homemade presents is felt. It comes in a variety of colors and doesn’t unravel on the edges, making it easy to work with. You can either go with inexpensive 50ยข felt or get a more luxurious look with wool felt.
My Little Pony Castle
This is my newest homemade gift, the My Little Pony Castle playset. The pony buttons can be found at Walmart, Joanne’s or Amazon. I then attached each pony with rainbow ribbon. It folds up to make a convenient quiet book. Let me know if you’re interested and I can share my pattern.
Trolls Poppy and Branch
Last year I made Poppy and Branch out of felt. Felt is so easy to use and makes cute gifts.
Christmas Pajamas
Another great go-to is creating fun shirt and pj’s gifts (really anything made from cotton will work).
I stumbled across this idea years ago while teaching art at a family camp. A little boy had been using toll paint and unbeknownst to me or his mother, ended up getting some on his shirt. By the time she found it, the paint had dried. She came back to the art room begging for help and we had to tell her once it was dry it was permanent, which up to this point had been a bad thing. But I told her to leave the shirt and I’d see if I could match the colors and paint over it. I was able to fix the shirt and while I painted it I realized I should have been doing this all along.
Masking tape stencil
Here are some of the best examples we’ve done for our homemade Christmas presents. This is the masking tape technique. Use masking tape to create a “stencil”then paint over it
TV show Pysch
This particular gift is a throw back to the TV show Psych. My daughter has been working on this and is going to add the words,” I’ve heard it both ways. ”
Freestyle paint
Despicable Me, Gru and Minions
You can also freestyle paint it, which I used in our Despicable Me theme for the purple minion and masking tape for Gru’s scarf.
Freezer Paper Stencil
Another toll paint method is to cut your design out of freezer paper and iron (wax side down) onto your shirt. This also creates a stencil to paint on.
You can cut it with a Cricut, Shillouett machine or a razer.
At the time our son had been calling himself “the happy kid ” so I made him a smiley face shirt. So far I’ve noticed dark colored cotton shirts don’t absorb the toll paint as well. I’m guessing this is because the fibers already hold alot of pigment. Prewashing new shirts can help a little. Deep red shirts have been the least effective with holding onto paint.
Setting the paint in the shirt
Whichever technique you choose, cover the shirt with an old towel and iron the paint into the shirt. This helps set the paint (after it has dried) and makes it a permanent image. For all of my projects (except red shirts) the painting has become permanent and only fades with natural wear.
Weaving
Our older son learned how to make a bead bracelet. This picture gives an idea of the set up. There was not any DIY for this style on YouTube – which as you can tell is very simple and easy to do. I guess my son needs to make a video.
In the mean time you can check out a different DIY beadloom style here.
PVC Pipe toys
And of course there is PVC pipe. Whether you are making marshmallows shooters or lounging chairs, PVC pipe has endless possibilities. These were made by my boys for each other last year.
Copper wire doll furniture
We also had some creative gifts come from copper wire. My son, twisted it into the shape of lawn furniture for his sister’s house, making a chair and a swing.
Doll house renovation
The house came a few years before. It was a rickety, old doll house from a yard sale. I revived it with support beams along the roof and foundation, cardboard roof shingles and painted siding shingles.
Tic Tac Toe
This Tic Tac Toe game was given by my then two year old. I sewed the bag from plaid and burlap. My daughter painted on paper, which I cut into circles and modge podged to the bottom of glass beads. I liked how it preserved her artwork and let her participate in the giving process.
SeasonedSalts
The last present I will share today is gifting seasoned salts. Bacon salt is easy and a tasty gift for the men in your life (or anyone who really loves bacon). The bacon flavor came out well in the food. We used it on salads, sandwiches, soups etc. This gift needs to be stored in the fridge.
To make, cook a pound of bacon to very crispy. Let cool and crumble into tiny bacon pieces. Add two cups of course salt and two tsp of ground pepper. Mix together and fill up your bottles.
The packaging was made with burlap, doubled over and glued around the neck of the bottle from the dollar store.
Tied with Raffia and a homemade, laminated tag.
The possibilities are endless. I hope this sparks some creative ideas and as always feel free to send questions or comments.
And have a wonderful Christmas holiday. ๐ ๐ ๐
There are many ways Brussel Sprouts should not be eaten – boiled being the epitome of all that’s bad.
But…
There is one way that is spectacular, the way God intended Brussel Sprouts to be eaten,
Roasted.
If you are looking for the perfect side dish to your holiday meal. If you want to turn heads when you walk in the door, look no further.
Ingredients
1 lb Brussel Sprouts
1-2 TBS Olive Oil
1/2 tsp Course Salt
1/2 tsp Black Pepper
1 tsp Crushed Rosemary
Pre-heat the oven to 400ยฐ. Trim brown edges and yellowing leaves from Brussel Sprouts and cut into halves. In a large bowl, toss with olive oil- mix well, then add salt, pepper and thyme. Roast in the oven for 35-40 minutes, toss in the pan half way through.
For these to be completely awesome, it’s important to do the whole roast, which means slightly black on the edges of the leaves and a nice brown on the flat sides facing down in the pan.
I personally like to eat these with a side of ranch. You can also dress them up with some fancy caramelized onions.
Caramelized Onions
Ingredients
2 cups Sliced Onions
2 tsp Olive Oil
3 TBS Fresh Thyme or 1 tsp Dried
1/4 cup Apple Cider Vinegar
1/4 cup Brown Sugar
1/4 tsp Salt
Heat a medium sized pan over medium heat. Add olive oil and onions stir till brown, about 8-10 minutes. Add a TBS of water when it gets dry.
Next add thyme, vinegar, brown sugar and salt.
Stir until liquid reduces and onions become thick and caramelized.
If you’re looking for a lemon fix, you’ve come to the right place. I got over loaded with chocolate during the raid of my kids trick-or-treat bags ๐, so when it came time to make cupcakes for my daughter’s class, lemon sounded perfect.
I chose a “super moist” Betty Crocker Lemon cake mix – and found it both lacking in lemon and pudding (probably because there was no pudding in it-at least not enough for my liking). Lucky for us, her class has 33 kids! So I had to mix up another cake and personally, I have to humbly say, I nailed it.๐
The pudding actually helped the cake rise better. As you see in here, the cake on the left is without added pudding, the cake on the right has pudding.
Now for the perfect Lemon Pudding Cupcake recipe. Not so moist it can’t hold its shape and not so dry it’s crumbly. With the perfect refreshing lemon zest, that lingers on your tongue.
Enjoy. ๐โบ๏ธ๐๐ค
Lemon Pudding Cupcakes
1 box Super Moist Lemon cake mix (you could choose a different lemon cake, I just can’t guarantee the perfect balance of pudding goodness)
1/2 lemon pudding 3.5 Oz box (the other half will go in the frosting)
Any other ingredients called for on the mix box likely eggs, oil and water
Follow the directions on the cake box and in addition, add 1/2 box of instant lemon pudding. The Betty Crocker brand called for water, oil and the eggs as well.
Bake at 375ยฐ shiny metal pan or 350ยฐ nonstick pan for 12-17 minutes. I baked mine at 375ยฐ for 12 and 1/2 minutes on the convection setting, they were beautiful.
Lemon Pudding Frosting
4-5 cups powdered sugar
8 Oz cream cheese softened to room temperature
1/4 cup butter (aka1/2 stick)
3 TBS lemon juice
1/2 lemon pudding 3.5 Oz box
1/4 cup milk
Yellow food coloring optional
Mix the butter and cream cheese together. Then mix in the lemon juice. Add the powdered sugar and milk a little at a time until it reaches a spreadable consistency that you like. I wanted mine to hold shape, but still be creamy.
Hard Candy Lemon Toppers
(this requires a Candy thermometer)
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup corn syrup
1/4 cup water
1 tsp lemon extract
Sugar Mixture
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp lemon juice
Butter the sides of a heavy 2-quart saucepan. Butter tinfoil layed out flat on the counter and create the sugar mixture and set aside.
Mix all the above ingredients (except lemon extract and sugar mixture) together. Once it is fully mixed, cook and stir over medium – high heat till mixture boils and reaches a temperature of 290ยฐ on the candy thermometer, about 15 minutes. Be careful to not splash the mixture up on the sides of the pan as this will cause the whole batch to over cook. Remove from heat and add the lemon extract.
Dip a fork into the hot candy. Create your candy toppers by drizzling and looping the candy from the fork.
Before it has cooled completely, brush with the sugar lemon mixture.
Once cooled and hardened place on your cupcakes and you are done!
I didn’t realize what I had stumbled on at the time. I thought, it sounded like a good idea, but I hadn’t considered the difference it would make in my life.
Try to say yes, it was so simple and yet it stood out on the page, replaying in my mind. In that moment, I committed to implement the strategy in my parenting. I found the quote in the book, Small and Simple Things by Marjorie Pay Hinkley, which she practiced while raising her children.
I didn’t have children at the time, but began implementing the idea immediately.
Why Saying Yes is an Art
After 13 years of saying yes, I settled on calling it, the “art” of saying yes. One can’t simply say “yes” to everything and expect great outcomes. In fact when researching saying yes, there are actually more articles on how to say no – clearly people need more help saying no. So why on earth would saying yes make such a difference?
It’s important to know how to say no and there is a way to do it that helps people leave saying thank you. I’ll talk more about that in a minute. There are also many reasons to say yes. The ability and insight to know how and when to say yes is an art and comes with highly desirable effects.
Behold, the child wearing whatever they want. Before you say no, ask yourself, “Is it completely irrational, dangerous” etc? If no, then try to say yes.
When out for a walk, our children might ask if they can look at something along the trail, I’d say “yes, but I’m going to keep walking, catch up before I’m out of sight.” This willingness to say yes created a fascinating phenomenon, our children weren’t afraid to ask. They were also, surprisingly, more apt to listen when we said no. For example while at someone else’s house I cautioned, “We can look at the decorations, but keep your hands on your tummy and just look with your eyes.” To the great surprise of my sister they listened. “How did you get them to do that?” She asked in shock, “Oh…I think it’s because I usually say yes, so this made them stop and think.”
You can say no without saying it
Avoid actually saying, ” no”, but still enforce boundaries. It’s a really easy word to repeat and once mastered, your two-year-old can pull it out and use it against you. Have you ever noticed what often accompanies the perpetual no?
When in the mode of saying no, use redirection and ” do” language. In other words pointing out the things you do want them to do instead of the things you don’t want them to do. Say, “Stop we don’t do that, but you can…” fill in whatever behavior is sought after.
Balancing yes and no
Several years back, I was a volunteer president of a youth organization. Where I learned an invaluable lesson on saying yes. I’ve found that when you’re in charge of something you are more visible, which means you get asked to do a lot.
It was Christmas time and I was asked by someone to coordinate decorating for a Christmas concert. Being new to this whole president thing, I said yes. Then someone approached me and said they want our youth to put on a skit for a Christmas roadshow, I said yes again. Then I was asked if I’d put together a costume for my son to play the part of Joseph in the Nativity, I said yes because he’s my son. All these commitments added onto my already existing demands.
Christmas was a whirlwind. I ran from place to place trying to make sure all my commitments were taken care of. The day of the roadshow came. As the youth’s skit ended, I walked off the stage with a sigh of relief – I don’t really like being in the lime light. I pulled my costume over my head and there was my son staring at me wide eyed. Excited children dancing around him in their cute costumes and here he was with nothing. In all the bustle of saying yes, I’d forgotten to help my own son. My husband was asking where his costume was, our son was up next.
I felt frozen in my spot. I was horrified, how could I forget my own child? My good friend, sensing my inability to move, began whipping a costume together from the props of our own skit. Which thankfully helped me snap out of it. I wrapped the blanket from my shoulders around his. My friend gave him a “staff.” I hugged him and sent him up on stage.
It was a life changing moment for me that night, not only should I not say yes to everything, I can’t. It is not humanly possible for me to accomplish everything everyone asks.
Interestingly, just a few weeks ago, I was organizing a large party that required a lot of helping hands and work. I enjoyed it because I wanted the outcome and I had many people come tell me afterwards how much fun it was, except for one friend.
I hadn’t directly asked her for help, but she had been roped in by one of the committees. She is a doer. She makes good happen, she sees needs when others don’t and fills those needs, but on the night of the party she had too many commitments. While everyone else was having fun, she was running like crazy trying to fill all her commitments. She told me she never wanted to see this party happen again.
At first I was defensive, I had been working non stop this whole day and I still enjoyed it. But as I reflected, I knew going in how fun this would be, I had cleared my schedule to organize it, but she had likely not realized how much time would be taken and possibly had missed things that were more important to her.
The benefits of saying yes most often come when we’ve refined it to an art and are able to say no (or redirect, commit to what we can and pass on the rest) and keep our lives in balance.
The benefits of saying yes
I found that trying to say yes, looking for ways to say yes, kept my mind open. There were times I’d want to say no just because I was tired or not actually listening to them… yes I’ve done that… When I looked for ways to say yes I found myself letting my two year old crack eggs, marching through leafs and reading stories by flashlight.
Saying yes allowed me to experience the magic of childhood with my children. Saying yes to “adult” (for lack of a better word) commitments, allowed me to build talents, overcome insecurities and make new friends that I otherwise would have missed out on. Yes needs to be done in wisdom and with an understanding of natural boundaries.
Saying yes builds trust
As yes began to take root in our vocabulary a very unexpected behavior also developed – well unexpected to me anyway, I’m sure Marjorie Hinkley likely experienced this as well. Our children never felt a need to sneak. They felt confidant in asking us. If we said no, we usually had a good reason and would explain that reason to them if possible. We rarely said no, but when we did we stuck with it and supported each other in our answers.
I trained them at a young age to ask for things instead of just taking them. For example I’d give my youngest child a vitamin for each of the kids and ask that child to give one to each of the other children. The first several times the child would eat all of them, I’d correct him/her and say that was for someone else and then give the others a vitamin. Soon enough I’d have my two year old giving out vitamins and not eating everything in sight. They knew they would have their chance to eat one and they learned to share. They didn’t need to sneak things.
As they got older my children would ask about an extra cookie etc. Sometimes there was only one left, if they asked nicely and others weren’t in the room I’d say yes. Sometimes I’d ask them to split it up and if they’d done a good job I’d let them pick first so there was a natural reinforcement for asking and splitting it fairly.
Saying yes encourages reasoning and self reliance
The second surprise to saying yes, our children became open to reason. Not just about a cookie, but about lifestyles, choices and habits. A mutual respect between us grew as we reasoned and at parents, said yes when appropriate and possible.
As I’ve watched our children grow, I’ve noticed that kids will check boundaries and recheck boundaries. It’s a way for them to see what they are allowed to do, but also as a way to see what they are capable of. At first I was terribly frustrated with the boundary checking, then I realized it was a natural part of growing up. This child has been dreaming of the day you’ll let them squirt the window washer bottle or mow the lawn – as surprising as that may be. They push boundaries to see if the same boundaries still exists or if it has shifted and you now see them as capable of more.
Saying yes can come in handy with boundary pushers as well. When I felt my child start to push, instead of getting frustrated as I used to do, I began to sit them down and say, “I’ve noticed you getting bigger and learning a lot of new things. Do you feel like you are ready for more responsibility?” This conversation opened up a new world for me, not only helping me largely bypass “No, no, no” conversations, but it also built my child up and let them see I had faith in their ability to progress.
The first time I tried this conversation I was terrified. What if he asked for something I couldn’t or wasn’t ready to give?
If this is a fear, review ways to say “no” (redirect, what you can negotiate on both sides to make it work etc.) and go forward.
When I asked him, his eyes got big. A smile spread across his face and he said, “yes I’m ready to do more.” I asked what he had in mind and he said he thought he was old enough to get the mail. I was surprised and relieved. This was definitely something I was ready and willing to do.
In return, he amazingly stopped pushing boundaries (for the time being) and focused on his new responsibility. When you think about it, that is really our goal in the end anyway, to have a self sufficient adult who knows how to do things.
The conversations have gotten easier. Now our kids often approach us with ideas on how to help them become independent even asking us to teach them how to make certain entrees, ways that they might be able to earn money and advice for how to progress in their future schooling, careers and families.
Saying yes has a freeing and empowering effect
When we started out on the path of trying to ‘say yes, unless we had to say no’, I hadn’t realized it would have such a freeing and empowering effect on our children. Learning how to say yes to adult commitments, still saying yes, but using wisdom allowed me to progress beyond what I thought was possible. I’m grateful I learned this secret so many years ago and I hope you find the same success in your yes journey.
Best wishes for the rest of your year, may your thanksgivings and holidays be peaceful, full of yeses and well structured, redirected nos. ๐
This will be short and sweet – it’s just candy. There are so many ideas on what to do with all the Halloween candy. A little candy is ok, but Halloween can so easily put us over the sugar edge.
There are several ideas out there, send it to the military, sell it to your dentist or buy it from your children yourself.
I had a different idea. Decorate gingerbread houses!
A few years back, to help our children monitor their sugar intake, I started giving them a sandwich bag. Any and all candy that could fit in that bag they could keep. They could eat it all at once or savor it one piece at a time. Either way, I didn’t have to worry about sugar over-exposure.
When we make ginger-bread houses, sometimes we buy a small amount of Christmas candy, but usually we just use the Halloween stuff. These examples are pretty un-glamorous, but it is what it is, this is the reality of our gingerbread houses ๐.
Ok in our defense, we’ve had better ones, but I can’t find the pictures.
You’ll just have to take my word.
What do you do with your kids’ extra candy? Share below.
Hi, I’m Natalie. I’m a mother of four, an artist, and a DIYer that loves to reuse, recycle, and refurbish. I like power tools and teaching others how to save money while improving their home.
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