Items of 2010

A Look Back at 2010

I wanted to showcase some of the things that the girls and I made for last year. For all of the teachers and special ladies in our lives we made bath salts. I found everything I needed at the dollar store, the containers, the salt, and even the CD's. For the smell we used some perfume that was sweet pea, they smelled wonderful. We also found some Salt City Candles on .88 cent Tuesday so we gave them some nice candles as well. We came up with a little poem for them as well:

"Time for you to take a break,
So draw a bath to feel great.
A bit of salt, a nice calm tune,
The stress will leave all to soon."




My oldest, "Princess", has two special friends that she wanted to make gifts for but she waited until the last minute and had NOTHING to give. I had to buy some last minute items at the craft store and found these light bulb buttons and immediately thought they would make GREAT earrings. I picked up the button pack and the earrings hooks for her and she put them together, they came out to be only .76 cents per pair of earrings.



For my 2 year old nephew and my best friends daughter who is 18 months I found a great pattern from Simplicity that includes a shopping bag, fruits and vegetables. I ran out of time to make the cupcakes and cake but there is always birthdays. I wanted to give them something sweet and I came up with these "Chips ACount" cookies. I made 10 cookies and they had a certain amount of chips on them and the back it had the number. I then made a bag that kind of replicates a "Chips Ahoy" cookie package. I love how these turned out and love that they are educational as well. I hope to post a tutorial soon on these cookies.



My Grandmother turned 95 last year and as she gets older she gets more difficult to shop for. She loves nice jewelry but I don't have a budget for that so I came up with the next best thing, a nice quilt. This is the first quilt that I have ever finished and it was a really simple quilt, I got the idea from Bloom. I added pictures and used a nice feature on my machine to label every picture, Daughter, Sister, Wife, Mother, Grandmother, Great-Grandmother. I think it turned out great and it is so nice and cozy. Unlike on Bloom I didn't bind it but I just sewed a seam all around and kept the edges raw, they didn't fall apart and it has held up really nice.



My dad who is the greatest man on Earth and also the most hard to shop for I didn't have anything for him until the last minute so, I made a Root Beer Sampler I got the idea from homemade by jill and from Giver's Log. I really like how it turned out and it was really inexpensive.



My dad loves nuts, so I found some pictures of him with my girls and made labels to go over the canisters. I love how these turned out. I would have liked to have added some funny nutritional information on my label and fun ingredients but time got the best of me. On the side it says handmade by.... I just used Microsoft office to make the labels.



I made this mirror for my sister-in-law, it was this hideous thing I found at the DI, but it was actually an IKEA mirror that someone made hideous by trying to stain it this awful color. I saw this technique on Vintage Revivals and really wanted to give it a try it is tinfoil that I modge podged on and then what I did differently because I couldn't find any of the items that she suggested, and because I wasn't willing to spend $20 on the paint suggested is I used acrylic paint and some of the gloss mixed them together. I don't think it looks like tinfoil anymore but a nice metal. I used black paint but I like that I can very easily get a different paint and change the color I think a copper color would be beautiful. I then glass etched a quote in the mirror.



For my 2 girls and my 2 nephews I made art sets. I've seen these nearly everywhere but I took most of my advice from a Lemon Squeezy Home. My girls and my nephew are 8 and 9 years old so I wanted to use the twist-able crayons. My nephew is only 2 so I got the triangle crayons, which made his smaller, I love how his turned out. They were allowed to open these for Christmas Eve and it was nice seeing them sit there quietly coloring in them, it was a nice break from all of the excitement.






I had a blast making and giving gifts last year and I am excited to get started on gifts for this year. I have so many things already planned out to make so keep checking back as I'm sure more fun things will be posted.