Make my own Christmas gifts

Everyone loved their presents. I even got special compliments on my aunts stationary… she didn’t know 3/4 of the facts on them. She was happy that they were one of a kind and knew that I took a lng time to make them, she made a special phone call today to let me know how much she loved them.
I will be back on here next year doing this same goal… and hopefully I will take more time to complete them :O)
So the result of making my own presents… a hit… would I do it again??? For sure!!!

K these are done… I ended up just cutting the pics out and putting the round magnet on the back… everything else I tried either looked bad or well… looked bad hehehe
I made some up for both of mt grandmas and a group of pics my daughter took… that just make me laugh… and I am giving those to my parents because they will find them adorable too :O)

I MAY have waited too long for his but it is done… They might not be dry by christmas!!! hehehe

Here is the recipe:
Treasure Stones
Materials Needed:
• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup used coffee grinds
• 1/2 cup salt
• 1/4 cup sand
• 1 cup water
Instructions:
Mix all dry ingredients together. Slowly add the water to make a stiff dough; you might end up using only half the water – add it slowly or your dough will be too runny!!
Knead on a floured surface until fairly smooth. Break the dough into desired rock sizes. Hide toys and surprises in the center of a ball of dough. Set in a safe place until totally dry. At least 3 – 4 days.
Once it is dry, the dough will look and feel like a rock. You can carefully break open the home-made rocks with a hammer to reveal the hidden treasures inside.
I put those little shiny gem looking things in there and tried to shape them like river rocks. :O)
I will add my pictures to this once my daughter isn’t right here hehehe

and get down to business :O)
I have finished my cousins bead baskets… and had to cancel my brothers gift to him and his girlfriend… didn’t think it would go over too well… maybe not be recieved well… maybe it is the time restrictions I have… either way… I went out and bought them something :O)

This is what I NEED to complete.

Started:
(ALMOST DONE!!!) Jenna’s Box of Treasure (varnish) A couple
of hours.

Need to Start NOW:
Treasure Rocks… You put little treasure inside of this
mixture and the mixture looks like stone… the kids then
break the ‘rock’ and find their jewel, treasure, etc. (Get
the ingredients then make it up!!!)

Fridge Magnets… Can’t figure out how the heck to do it the
best way. For mom and dad… maybe both grandmas too.

I only have three left to do now… pheew… I went on a crazy womans spree there for a bit… now I THINK I have some time to slow down :O) This is TOTALLY motivating!!!

K I LOVE photography… and this is a staple in my gift giving every year… but this is the first time I have done a series of my daughter.
I took shots of her up against one of my white walls and put her in a white shirt then shot away. I cropped the pics printed them on photo paper and put them in the frames with a matte. I tried to get each series pretty similar or balanced/symetrical.

I think next year I will do some work on maybe:

The four seasons

Earth, Wind(how I will do that…I have no clue), Air (again no clue hehehe) and fire.

Some tree shots… maybe different seasons

Country buildings

Anybody have any other ideas for clusters of photos??? I am by no means a pro photographer but I LOVE it!!!

A while ago I had made my daughter a wooden box at the wood shope and painted a whimsical butterfly on it. That has since been used as her box for all of her drawings. When we paint her room I am putting a few of these butterflies up on her wall.
I decided to stick with that butterfly design and draw it on her treasure box for Christmas. This has almost turned into her signature design hehehe.
So the treasure box… I kind of wanted to start her on a jewelry collection…so she needed a jewelry box…this is it. The box is a plain wodden box from the dollar store, unfinished. I bought a bunch of play jewelry that was still somewhat grown up… she just loves that stuff… she is four. I drew the butterfly on the top of the box and shaded and colored it in with crayola pencils crayons… the metallic ones. Now all that is left to do is to varnish the while box and then wrap it up. I can’t varnish it until I have a day or so without her so I might have to do it in my garage. So here it is!!!
As far as using the pencil crayons… it was MUCH easier to paint the other box. I think I should have put one coat of varnish on before the drawing just so that I would have had a flat smooth surface to work with. You live you learn ;)

I found this poem and just loved it… Both of my Grandma’s are widows… one just recently. This is a true woman power poem so I just had to. :O)

So all I did was… took pics of their fave flowers and put them into a word document. I then changed the margins so that they were a cm in from where the matte would end on the one… and on the other just the size of the viewable portion. I set the pics to sit behind the text then typed in the poem.

There are a few versions of this poem out on the internet… and I didn’t even think to look through the whole thing without questions… turns out there was a spelling mistake in one where it was learning it should have been ‘leaning’.

I printed these up on photo paper just because it looked much nicer. I used Dollar Store frames and picked up the mattes there as well…The first frame I got I managed to break so I was back off to the store. :O) Both of the mattes were supposed to be he same size but my four year old got a hold of it… and ripped it and drew on it lol. I just used the smaller one that came with the frame… it was nice anyways, with the bevelled edge and everything, and pretty close to the original color I wanted.

...8+ to go
I am attaching a picture of this stationary It is for my Aunt who LOVES elephants. There are 6 categories that I seperated these into. I gave each one its own picture and each category had five seperate sheets with it’s own fact on each page.

First I looked up a bunch of elephant facts onlne and double checked them.

Then I messed around with the layout for a few weeks…the printer wouldn’t co-operate with me!!! Each one was a new document on my computer… so now I have a whole folder of 30+ documents on this one present… just in case she needs re-copies :O)

I thought this would be a great idea because there are some things about elephants I am sure my Aunt will learn from this, and when she writes a letter to someone they will also get to learn about it.

This was pretty fun for me too… now I know alot more about elephants then I ever knew before.

I am sure you could do this with anybodies passions… if they are a cook… put recipes you have found at the top or bottom of the stationary… or cooking facts… If they love soccer.. soccer facts… etc. You get the idea.

How many days till Christmas???
This is what I NEED to complete.
Started:
Aunties’ Elephant Staionary
Mom and Dads Framed pics of Jenna
Grandma J’s Framed Poem
Grandma G’s Framed Poem
Maria’s Bead Basket
Rina’s Bead Basket
Jenna’s Box of Treasure (paint then varnish)

Not Started:
Ryan and Amy’s recipe cards
Treasure Rocks… You put little treasure inside of this mixture and the mixture looks like stone… the kids then break the ‘rock’ and find their jewel, treasure, etc.
Fridge Magnets… Can’t figure out how the heck to do it the best way.

I have set myself reminders for everyday so I will hopefully get SOMETHING done lol

I will try to post some pics after I have done it… so you all can see the finished products :O)