30 things for 30 years

My cousin celebrated her 30th birthday last summer.  My sis and I wanted to make her something different and something that stood out from your normal birthday gifts.  Upon browsing pinterest, I saw a pin of 30 gifts for 30 years.  I thought that would be perfect. Here's what we came up with:

We found 30 random things that we thought she would like, and we wrapped it up into a gift basket, with cellophane and a bow on top (we added a bow after the picture... sorry).  We added a card where we wrote inside all 30 gifts.

These were what was inside:

We did face some challenges:

1.  It sounds easy, but after a while it gets hard finding small random gifts.  I think the last 10 were the most difficult.

2.  We used this small sand bucket to hold all the gifts.  Lucky for me, I played a lot of tetris, I was able to get it to all fit, and not be top heavy.  Good luck to her if she ever wanted to take it out and fit it back in tho.

3.  We put small bottles of alcohol in the mix.  Ususally, this would not be an issue, however, when the party was inside a small water park, having alcohol is more than frowned upon.  Not a big deal, the weather was cool enough that I could leave it in our car without worrying about melted chocolate.

I'm happy to say that she loved the gift and all the thoughtfulness that went into it.  :)  

Overall, I'd do a gift like this again.  Hope this gives you an idea for the next birthday gift you give. :)

Washcloth Rose Favors

We used these for our wedding favors.  When I went looking for ideas for favors I wanted something that was gonna be useful to my guests and eye catching.  I saw roses created with a baby spoon and a baby washcloth, and decided to expand on that idea. These are using regular washcloths, a small drinking glass, and a small bottle of hand sanitizer.

Materials:
The glasses I used are from Ikea (love that place).  (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/80094014/)
2 washcloths (one the color of the rose, and one green for leaves)
a dowel (painted green)
hand sanitizer (small ones from Bath and Body Works)

For tags:
Iron-on adhesive,
cardstock (with leave shapes and thanks printed on)
green fabric (for leaves)

1. Fold the colored washcloth diagonally twice.
2. Lay the end of the dowel as shown in the picture, and slowly roll the washcloth around.
3. When you have a couple of inches left, start folding it down while continuing to roll.

4. On the long side of the washcloth, fold up.
5.  Follow the fold and wrap the folded part around the rose (as you would if you were rolling up a sock).
6.  Position and fix so it looks like a rose.

7.  To make the tags, take your printed cardstock (with leaves), and use iron-on adhesive to iron on fabric on the back side.
8.  Cut the leaves out.
9.  Use a hole puncher to punch a hole.
10.  Slip the leaf onto the dowel.  You can put a slight bend on the leaf to help it to hold on the dowel, and for looks because leaves have that natural bend anyway.

Final assembly.
11. Attach the hand sanitizer to the dowel.  Tape seems to work pretty well for us.
12. Lay out a green washcloth, and fold the top and bottom corner in.
13. Stand the hand sanitizer and dowel above the center of the washcloth.
14.  Bring up the sides, hold it and flip the whole thing upside down.  This allows you to fix the green washcloth so it fits nicely into the glass. Slip the glass on top.
15. Flip back right-side down.  Fix the green washcloths so they look like two nice big leaves or a bed of greenery for the the rose.

And that's it. We got a lot of compliments on these favors.

Candy Lei

These leis are great as gifts for graduations, weddings, birthdays, or really whatever occasion.  What is nice about this kind of lei is that you can put anything you want in them, as long as their small and lightweight.

What you need:

- cellophane
- items to put in the lei (I've put in candy, little bubble bottles, small matchbox cars, and for adults: small bottles of liquor).
- curling ribbon
- (optional) ribbon for aesthetics -- perhaps school colors if this lei is for a graduation

Here's what you do:

1. Cut cellophane to about 6 inches x 6 feet (this size can vary depending on the item you're putting in the lei, and the length of lei you want to have.)  A good test is to roll the cellophane around the fattest item, and make sure it holds in place and doesn't slip out.

If you don't want to cut a really long piece of cellophane, you can use 2 pieces of cellophane with the ends overlapping.  If you do it this way tho, it's a bit trickier to roll, and you need to make sure the overlapping pieces are between items (this is where you would tie the ribbon).

2.  With your cellophane laid out, arrange the items you want to use along the center of the cellophane.  You can add a ribbon (optional ribbon) along the length of the cellophane to add to the aesthetics.  Lay out the items with a few inches in between.  If you're using relatively heavy items, you may want to distribute the weight more throughout the lei.

3.  Carefully roll the cellophane and items so you have a tube of items.

4.  Cut several pieces of curling ribbon and use a piece to tie around the cellophane tubes between the items. I like to start in the center and work my way out.  Use a double knot to ensure that the ribbon stays in place.  Once all of the ribbons are tied on and your items are secure, you can curl the ribbons.

5.  You're almost done.  The last thing you need to do is tie the ends together.  Hold both ends together where the ribbons are tied on, and tie on one more ribbon to hold them together.  Again, use a double knot here to make sure it stays in place.  Curl the ribbon for looks.

You're done.  Your recipient will love the lei and it's contents. :)

Here is one made with small liquor bottles for my cousin's birthday

Happy Lei Making!

Decoupage Box

With a bit of work you can decoupage a cheap paper mache box to look like a fancy expensive-ish box.

Here's what you need:

2 sheets of nice scrapbook paper or as much as it will take to cover the box.

1 paper mache box (I got this one for $1 at Joann's)

Mod Podge Glue

Here's how I did it:

1.  Cut the paper so it covers the box.  I outlined the bottom of the box onto the paper, then marked the paper to cover the sides. Cut the paper.

2. Any places where the paper edge meet and you're not certain it'll be completely covered, cut a small piece of paper and glue it in place.  For me, it was the side corners of the box.

3.  Double check that the paper is cut to where you want things covered in the box.

4.  Glue the paper to the box using mod podge, and a nice brush.

5.  Wait for it to dry.

6.  Paint on a good coat of glue onto the box.  Putting it over a tin helps let you paint throughout the outside of the box. Let that coat dry and paint on another. I painted on about 5 coats on the outside of the box, and another 5 coats on the inside once the outside was dry.

7.  Do the same procedure for the lid of the box.

That's it, simple decoupaged box.  You can decoupage stickers, or other papers, or even fabric, onto the box the same way.  The box can make a great gift box.  

DIY Christmas Ideas

It's that time of year again... where we start trying to think of good christmas gifts to give the special people in our lives.  Here are some Do It Yourself Christmas ideas that may make a special gift and maybe save you some money in the process.

Easy Gift Card Holders

As Christmas gifts, since we usually end up having to travel in a car with our dogs and our luggage and several gifts, it has become easier to resort to giving the impersonal gift cards. Oh well. So, as an effort to make it a bit more personal, I decided to make my own gift card holder. :-) Anyway, I found this site that showed how to make Easy Peasy Snap Wallets and basically used the same technique with Christmas fabric and called them giftcard holders.


Here's how I did it:
Materials:

• fabric (in this case Christmas... but can easily be for a birthday or any other occasion)

• interfacing (I don't know if this is really necessary, but it does make it slightly thicker to have)

• easy no sew snaps (trust me, these are the way to go if you are a beginner to sewing – super easy to use.)

*Please note that I started making one wallet with one fabric then decided to use another fabric afterwards because the details showed better on it. Sorry if that makes it confusing.

Instructions:

1. Cut your fabric. You need two rectangles that are about 5 x 8.5 (I cut out a piece of paper to that shape as a guide.... and yes, TigerDirect.com is pretty awesome).


2. Cut your interfacing. You just need one rectangle of this... about 4 x 7.5, basically enough to cover the center area of one of the rectangle so it doesn't hit the sewing line.

3. Iron the interfacing on one of the rectangle fabrics (onto the wrong side of the fabric). You'll want to center the interfacing onto one of the rectangles and make sure that the smooth side is on top and the bumpy side is on the bottom. Then go ahead and iron it on, it should take a few seconds on each area. The interfacing will basically attach itself to the fabric.

4. Sew together the two rectangles with the right sides together and the wrong sides away from each other. You'll sew almost all the way around leaving a small opening in the middle of one of the small sides. See the picture for the sewing line. The small opening is on the right side.



5.Cut the corners off. This gives you cleaner corners when you invert the fabric.


6. Invert the fabric by pulling the inside out and the outside in.

7. Use a pen to form the corners from the inside.


8. Optional: Here I try to iron down the long edges flat on the sewing line. This makes a cleaner fold when you fold down on the sewing line. (I actually did this after step 10 then did step 9 again, but it probably would have made more sense to do it on before step 9.

9. Iron the edges of the rectangle. Particularly, fold and iron in the opening so that the edge is straight


10. Sew the edge with an opening from long side to long side.

11. Fold up the side with the sewn edge to form the pocket area.

12. Sew along both side edges, do a small reverse sew right where the folded up edge meets with the rest of the fabric.

13. You're done at this point. The only thing left to do is to add on the snaps. The craft blog (craftster.org) where I found the original easy peasy wallets also do a great job of explaining how to add on these snaps to the wallet. I wanted to do the instructions for these as well but, my pictures didn't come out... so just follow the instructions on the craftster site. Sorry!

14. Put the gift cards in, attach a gift tag inside, and give the gift to someone special.

I hope that gives an idea for this Christmas (tho, it might be a little late, sorry again), or maybe for other gifts throughout the year.... or maybe for a wallet or for a business card holder, or whatever. I've recently made a camo one to store some gift cards that I've recently received.
Also, as this will probably be the last post that I'll put out before Christmas, I'd like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas!