Tag Archives: christmas crafts

Quick and Easy Homemade Christmas Gifts

Posted by Lesley on December 24, 2010 2 comments

It’s 4:30; dinner is at 6:00; I just finished crafting…phew! A quick blog post and then it’s right to the shower for me. Here are my top three homemade, quick, easy, and cheap Christmas gifts…

  • Crazy Crayons – Peel and chop your old crayons into psychedelic jumbo crayons.  Bake them at a low temperature (150 – 170 degrees) for about 20 minutes.  Use non-stick muffin tins, and they’ll pop right out when fully cooled.

Before:

After:

  • Personalized T-Shirts – Supplies can be bought at any craft store (Michael’s, Joann’s) for under $15.  My youngest brother is a huge Taylor Swift fan.  He proclaims to be her future husband, so this seemed fitting.

  • Treat boxes – Fill them with anything you can make or bake. 

These are Martha Stewart compartment treat boxes filled with pantry soaps…

Peanut butter and banana dog biscuits…

Speclatz…

Combine 4 cups flour, 2 cups sugar, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, the rind of 1 lemon, and 1 teaspoon baking powder.  Cut in 1/2 lb. whipped sweet unsalted butter, then add 3 eggs.  Mix thoroughly and refrigerate overnight.  Let stand 1 hour, roll thin, cut cookies, and bake 350F 10-12 min.  Thanks Grandma for this delicious German family recipe!  Merry Christmas!

Free Christmas Cards

Posted by Lesley on December 15, 2010 None comments

My manic crafting led to an overage of Christmas cards.  And with only 10 days left until Christmas, I’m feeling the season!  Email your name and mailing address to lettuceshare@comcast.net by this Sunday at 12am EST to receive a free handmade Christmas card with envelope.  I’ll be mailing the cards Monday morning, so USPS willing, your card will arrive with time to spare before Christmas.  Ho ho ho!

Edison’s Christmas Ornaments

Posted by Lesley on December 14, 2010 2 comments

Although they’re called the Edison and Ford Winter Estates, Thomas Edison was the first of the two to settle in Fort Myers and the estates showcase more of his life than Ford’s.  Two of the three houses are Edison’s, and visitors can also tour his research lab.  Aptly, the Christmas decorations not only celebrate the surrounding landscape but also Edison’s inventiveness.

At $20 a piece, the picture is my souvenir.  I’ll wait for a light bulb to blow around here and make my own.  A small drill bit will poke through the top of the bulb, and a lightweight wire hanger can serve as the hook.  I love how the beads are worked in.  They keep the wire in place but also add some finishing flair.  The garland was finished with citrus and equally charming.

There were lots of natural ornaments on display too…

White Angel’s Trumpet- Brugmansia x candida – Peru

Cluster Fig – Ficus racemosa - Asia

Nagami Kumquat – Fortunella margarita - China

Limequat – Lime x kumquat - China

    

Christmas Crafts

Posted by Lesley on December 6, 2010 None comments

I remember being a teenager and coming home at 2 am to find my mother baking gingerbread houses.  She wasn’t waiting up for me; she’s just a little crazy.  She’s probably never slept eight straight hours in her life, so she becomes narcoleptic the minute a television turns on.  But to be fair, that’s only when she’s idle and she hardly ever is, which brings me back to the gingerbread houses.  With all that extra time on her hands, she does a lot of crafting.  If she’s not building a gingerbread house or marbling a pot holder, she’s sewing or stenciling something.  My whole life I’ve watched her create.  It was amazing to grow up with such a crafty mom.  I could flip through a book and say, “I want that,” and voila – a two-story gingerbread house with Smurfs in every window would appear!  I was never subjected to those cheap Halloween costumes with the flimsy cardboard masks and matching plastic smocks with pictures of a superheroes on them.  My costumes were made-to-order, some of my clothes too.  She made a gorgeous velvet gown for me to wear in my sister’s wedding.  The reason I’m thinking about any of this is because at 2 am Sunday morning, John was asleep in our bed, covered in card stock because I decided to make Christmas cards.  I was up most of the night, slept on a button and when I got undressed to take a shower on Sunday, a scrap of paper fell out of my flannel pajamas!  It’s official; I am my mother.  Thank God I don’t mind!  Now that I’ve shown you my metaphorical cards, here are some of my literal cards.  Everything I could find got glued – deconstructed jewelry,

magazine pages,

fabric scraps, and buttons.

After I was done with the Christmas cards, I pulled out my grapevine wreath from last year.  Without a Holly tree to snip from, I traded out red berries for white blossoms and tested out the Jasmine. 

Gorgeous, but it’s a good thing it only took five minutes to make because this is what it looked like by lunch today…

I was hoping the cold weather would keep it perky for a few days, but it may have even worked against me.  Oh well, I’ll try the Ligustrum next.  And btw, it was in the 50′s today and this transplant is cold!