Handmade Bracelets

My last DIY Christmas gift was for my little sister who is 12.  Unlike me at that age, she is a girly girl.  A glitter in her veins kind of girl.  And, I won't lie, my mom let her start to wear make up at an early age, so she has had lots of practice. 
I'm not sure if I explained the gifts my husband and I are giving this year.  We are buying some gifts, but we are making at least one gift for everyone.  So, for my sister, I bought her a really cute brown shirt that can hang off of the shoulder.  The gift that I made for her, if you couldn't tell by the name of the post, was bracelets.  I didn't make a tutorial because I actually had to find a tutorial for one of the bracelets.  Here is the link for the tutorial I used.  And, here is the final bracelets. 

I love the one with the pearls on the bottom.  It looks so delicate.

This bad boy took almost 2 days to  make! 

Great Last Minute Gift

One of my favorite gifts I have received over the last 4 years, has been from my mother-in-law.  What is it?  A magazine subscription.  The first 2 years, she bought me Southern Living.  The last 2 years, she bought me Real Living.  I love this as a present and the best thing is, I look forward to getting my monthly present and I always remember that she got it for me.  I even call her every time I get a new magazine and thank her.  So, for anyone still looking for a small gift for pretty much anyone, I would recommend a magazine subscription.  Here and here are a couple of websites that sell them relatively cheap.

Funny Onsies

My sister had a baby back in November and I still wanted to get the baby a little something.  But, with the baby being less than 9 weeks old, what do you get him?  A funny onesie! 
I was wanting the onesies to be black, so I went to Hobby Lobby and purchase two.  Now all I needed was two funny sayings.  The problem was I couldn't decide which sayings to use.  Here were the saying I liked.

1. I'm cute.  My mom's cute.  My dad is just lucky!
2. Sorry Angelina, I'm taken.
3. I'd rather be with my aunt.
4. I drink until I pass out, like my daddy.
5. Photo with baby $0.25.  Saving for my college fund.
6. I just got here and I'm already awesome!
7. My aunt feels guilty for living so far away.  So, I got this shirt.

I sent out a few text messages to ask my mom, friend, and husband which two sayings were their favorites.  The bad thing was they all chose different ones.  My mom liked #1 and #2.  My friend liked #4 and #6.  My husband liked #3 and #5.  So....since that was not helpful at all, I posted on my facebook (but hid the post from my sister, her husband, and my older nephew).  I got a lot of #1, #2, #4, and #6.  So, which ones did I choose?

The sayings after I printed them onto the transfer paper

I have never actually showed the process of doing the shirts in the past.  So, here you go for those who want to see it.....

Me trying to type the sayings up on my "paint" program

Me "trying"to take the backing off of the transfer paper

 

Place the transfer on the shirt....I wish I would have cut out around the letters better

place the rice paper over the transfer paper

set a 2 minute timer

constantly move over the rice paper and transfer paper for the 2 minutes

completed shirt.  Once again I wish I would have cut around the letters more

second shirt.  Much better!

Book Club Gifts

As much as I would like to be creative, I am willing to be crafty.  I say this because over the last couple of weeks I have done a bunch of crafting, but it has mostly been coping great ideas off of pinterest.  But, I am ok with that (for now) because there are some awesome ideas on there. 
Two of the great ideas I have found off pinterest were these babies.

For website, click here

For website, click here

These were perfect for the book club I am in.  This was all I needed.

Bag of cheap Gummy worms, plastic baggy, staples, and cardstock with saying on it

just "ONE" book, tape, hot glue gun and sticks, and some type of ribbon/yarn

There really is not a lot of explanation needed for the gummy worms.  Pretty much stick them into a bag and staple the saying on the top to attach it to the bag and to close the bag up.

For the ornament, I will not lie, each ornament took me a good hour or so to make.  So, yes they were time consuming.  It was a lot of trial and error to get the size I liked.  I recommend cutting the page down in halves three times for the bigger outer layer and four times for the inner layer.  You roll each section into "cones" and tape to hold in place.  I then made a square out of a page of the book and glued the larger cones to it.  I only have pictures of the first one I did (and for some reason I used tape to adhere the cones to the square and it was much much bigger) but, definitely use glue.  It is so much cleaner and doesn't weigh as much.  I made a whole on the back square piece and threaded the "ribbon" through it and made a knot.  Easy peasy.

This is only halved twice.  I have each of these again for the outer layer.  Then halves that sized once more for the inner layer. 

Roll them in a "cone" shape

tape the "cone" in place

in this picture, I taped the cones down.  But, in the ornaments I gave away, I hot glued them down.  Plus, in this picture I used a larger piece of paper than the piece of paper I used in the ornaments I gave away.

Once you get into doing this, you will come up with your own technique to glue them into place. 

Here is one of my completed ornaments I gave away.  I tied the ribbon (that hangs the ornament from the tree) to the back "square" piece

Labels

I am so addicted to Pinterest.  I think I have wrote about needing an intervention for this addiction before, but it has gotten worse.  I have been pinning printables like crazy especially with Christmas right around the corner.  I have been trying to track down cute Christmas tags.  I have had this printable pinned for a while now.  Since I have been making one gift per person this year, it would be perfect if it were more Christmas themed.

So, I set out to make my own.  I found this blank template for printables. 

I used the paint program that comes with most computers and added a Merry Christmas and changed up the colors and it was that simple.  What do you think?