homemade Christmas gifts 4.0 and 5.0

As I said before, I found a version of my mother-in-law's gift on Pinterest. She's difficult to shop for, so I thought this little wrapping center was adorable for the woman who has everything . . . 

I took some creative liberties to transform the idea into something a bit more personalized.

*** 

I drew Jordan's cousin Morgan this year. I started about 3 different projects before deciding I didn't like any of them. Morgan really wanted a free hamster on Black Friday this year, but she didn't get one. . . Until Christmas Eve!!

I decided to attempt crocheting for the first time, and made these little guys. (My dear Emily gave me crocheting lessons before I started. She's like. The best at everything in the world. Bless her.)

They got a bit excited when I put them in their cage, and pooped all over. Imagine that!

***

Overall, our homemade Christmas gifts have been a hit, and I'm glad to finally have the messes from all of our projects out of my apartment. I hope it was a very merry Christmas for all. I've already started the countdown for next year!

homemade Christmas gifts 3.0

Jordan drew his cousin Tanner for homemade gifts. Tanner is 17, and a boy-- so I think that pretty much sums up how hard it was to come up with anything for him. Jordan, in his infinite wisdom, came up with a tie holder! Tanner's preparing for a mission, so it seemed fitting.

homemade Christmas gifts 2.0

I drew my sister Bobbi for sibling gifts this year. While I struggled a lot to come up with anything, the biggest issue proved to be the $20 limit we have for making these gifts.

The only thing I could come up for Bobbi would be jewelry. She is fancy and feminine, and it packs in a suitcase easily so she doesn't have issues with the TSA when she flies back home to Arizona.

My project was brilliant-- or so I initially thought. Making earrings from scratch is definitely not the funnest time I've ever had. I thought I'd make a mold to start, so all my earrings would be the same shape and size. Short story: that idea did NOT work. Waste of time and money. Instead, I carefully dripped epoxy into circles on wax paper for hours. And ruined most of them. And ended up mostly with misshapen blobs. I just cover up the pain of this project with cliches like "it gives them character!" and "it's the thought that counts."

I used this resin kit. It was OK to work with, but I do wish it dried harder. That was probably a "user" issue, not a product one, though.

LOOK AT THE BEAUTIFUL GLITTER!! I was so excited to have an excuse to buy all that sparkle! I chose a color from each area of the color wheel, and combined the resin and glitter. As you'll see, not all of those actually worked. Boo. Once the blobs were dry, I attached earring posts with glue.

And here's the final product. Certainly not my best work, but considering the time, energy, and tears that went into them, I called it quits at this point. I used a piece of cardboard, poked holes though, and stuck the earrings in . . . Just like you see in stores, only with more "character."

A couple days later we were at a craft store, and saw embellishments that looked exactly like this. Only rounder. And cheaper. And cuter. Sooooo that was encouraging.

homemade Christmas gifts

Both of our families have this annoying tradition of doing homemade gifts. On Jordan's side, the whole Peterson family-- grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, do an exchange on Christmas Eve. My family recently started doing homemade sibling gifts. 

Ok, so it's really not that annoying . . . when you can come up with gift ideas. This year was the hardest yet, though. Luckily, we finally got them all figured out. 

Jordan drew my brother Alex this year. Here's what we know about Al:

- he lives in Denver

- he likes to pretend to be super manly

- he likes to drink

and . . . 

That's pretty much all we could come up with. So, we combined all three of those attributes and came up with this:

We got to go to the liquor store, grab some booze, use it in a million different recipes (I've had about as much BBQ as I can handle), and make some homemade aftershave. Aftershave because, you see, it is manly, but also important for the dry climate skin maladies Denver surely poses. BOOM. Mind blown, I know. 

We used a variation of this recipe which includes witch hazel, apple cider vinegar, distilled water, olive oil (that stuff at the top of the bottle), and essential oils. We chose eucalyptus and peppermint oils for their refreshing, yet masculine flavors.

Cheers to a creative Christmas!

camera roll gems

   

For your my viewing pleasure.

is butter a carb?

I often make undetectable references and receive obligated pity laughs. Or blank stares. My life is fun.

If I'm being honest, I must say . . . I sorta hate Pinterest (GASP!). It's beautiful and entertaining and inspiring, and then suddenly . . . it's not. I have gotten a few brilliant ideas, of course (RE: my mother in-law's Christmas  gift-- hallelujah! Hardest woman on the planet to find gifts for. . . Love you, Frankie!) But it annoys me that everyone's weddings look exactly the same, and their houses, and their gifts, and their decorations, and their LIVES. I miss originality. I miss creativity. I miss making something and not having everyone assume I got the idea online.

HOWEVER, I do not miss my life before these pretzels. People. If you ever want to experience true, intense, incomparable bliss, make these (on the off-chance that you're in the .01340198 percentile (is that even the right use of "percentile?" statistics has never been my thing. . . ) of the population that hasn't already).

via

Mmmm . . . buttery, salty, carborific goodness.