Last Minute Handmade Gifts

Here are five handmade gifts that can be made last minute. I am still mostly making mine so you'll just have to trust me that I have tried these and they are great. Also, all no sew.

Healthy Frozen Dinners! - I made my mother and father in law five dinners, they were all hearty, healthy, and a little involved. If they were too easy they wouldn't have made a great gift! The point is to gift meals that are saving your recipient a night of work and kitchen clean up. I included directions, coffee, wine, frozen rolls and bread (made fresh at our market with organic ingredients). I tried to buy nice items and use high quality ingredients. It started out seeming a little overwhelming but what I ended up doing was just having a huge cooking day and I doubled almost everything I made them and froze it for us as well which meant I also had a week of no cooking for myself after my crazy, intense day! ... guess what though I don't have any photos ;)  

 

Name, Birthday or Anniversary Photo Collages - My photos for this project are sitting at Walgreen's right now, that's one of Ava's A's above. Go to this Flickr site (try not to spend hours looking at the galleries) and pick a name or a birth year or anniversary year and download the numbers or letters you like. Next upload them to your favorite one hour photo place and have them printed at 4x6. When you go to pick them up stop by TJ Maxx or Walmart etc. and pick up a good frame with the right amount of openings. It is easier to make dates if you do this last minute because 4 opening photo frames are easy to find! You can make your own of course (like this) by gluing cheap dollar store frames to a board and spray painting it all - but remember you have less than a week now so maybe next year. If you buy a mat that is pre-cut and print them in black and white then they will look a lot more like the classic ones you see everywhere. The one below could also be pretty cool - it looks like it is just those cheap packs of Ikea frames glued to a black board cut to size. 

 Jewelry - there are some awesome jewelry tutorials online. I want this bracelet and it has a video! I would wear this everyday. Making jewelry is easy and can be done in front of the TV in one night. 

We did make bracelets but we went a little lower-end than the one above ;) Ava made these for all her cousins and a few friends too with a bag of beads from the craft store. Everyone loved them. I really wanted to help Ava made bracelets with all their phone numbers on them but the number beads for those turned out to be too hard to find enough of for everyone. Most kids need ten numbers on their bracelet now since almost all of them memorize cellphone numbers. 

Chalk Board - These are great for kids and adults. I made this one for our entry with a dollar thrift store frame spray painted gloss red. I had my husband cut me a cheap piece of wood scrap which I painted with chalk paint to put in the frame (we tacked it in on the back). I made my own chalkboard paint with this tutorial. Apply chalk board paint on with lots of thin layers and then 'season' it well as directed in the tutorial link. If you aren't making several boards or aren't using the chalk paint for other projects then you would be better off just buying the chalk paint pre-mixed, because the DIY version leaves you with a ton of extra ingredients.

I plan to mix up some more paint to make Ava a board book like this one.

Penny Keychain - I am still looking for my last few but simply putting pennies from each important year on a keychain is such a sweet gift! The ones sold by PatsDesign (photo below)  are also affordable and come with a stamped coin. It is pretty simple to drill through a penny but practice on a few first. 

Other things I have made as gifts in the past include superhero capes (for girls and boys) and embellished tea towels. I also really want to make some enhanced silhouettes like these.

There you go! Happy Crazy Crafting!

The Perfect Gift - Simple, Beautiful and Practical

I love holiday blog gift posts! I honestly have a hard time finding just the right gift for a few people on my list. I hate giving candles that will never be lit or 'one more' toy to add to the box. For birthdays I typically give gift receipts but at Christmas I buy ahead or buy on clearance so I don't always have a gift receipt!  My default gift when someone is very hard to buy for is always a restaurant gift card because who doesn't like free food?!

Here are some other gifts though, that have gone over really well for me -

For Babies 

Kid's regulation sized sports balls. Babies love balls and these are a 'grow with me' toy that most babies don't have. At our house my three year old only plays with her soccer ball for 'real' soccer but our baby is memorized by this cool bright red and black ladybug soccer ball.

My other default gift is a classic board book signed to the baby. Even if we have a book - a dedicated book feels like a keepsake, just make sure it is truly a classic book like Ten Little Babies - there isn't anything worse than a dedicated Elmo book that you feel like you have to keep because it is signed!

Older Kids

If I can't figure out what to get a kid over the age of three I always default to nice art supplies or nature gifts. Children love to create and be outside. I have never gone wrong with - 

sun print kit, flower press, magnifying glass, regional plant and animal guides, binoculars, or nature art / activity books like Blossom Buddies.  Another idea that would work for lots of kids is an Audubon iPad or iPhone app.

For Adults

My adult ideas aren't that original but I can tell you my husband's perfect gift involves good beer and an iTunes gift card. My favorite thing to give to women though is small, original framed art from Etsy. You can of course go larger but almost anyone can find a good place for original art. Photographs are easy but I try to branch out, I think you could easily find a piece of art to fit anyone's personality on Etsy. I would pick the print below for myself, it is an 8.5 x 11 limited edition print of 100 for $28 by Elsa Mora the author of Blossom Buddies. This print is beautiful and unique and would be a bargain to frame. A less expensive option would be framed art note cards like the ones from Sarah Jane Studios. I adore her holiday line for framing and I have the three little bears cards framed in Ava and Lilly's room. 

I am working on my top DIY gifts post too - I have some great, easy ones! 

Preschool Activity Swap - such a mom thing to do!

I organized a preschool activity swap for a preschool homeschool cooperative I am a part of here. We basically take turns teaching a lesson to the kids every other week or so and do some cool field trips as well. It went so well we are already working on our next one! So many of my friends have asked me for these and so here are the activities from the first swap:

1. Cookie Matching - This one was made with circles of felt hot-glued with cotton in the center for flipping them more easily. The mom that made them provided some awesome extension activities. There might be a simpler way to make this by using heavy weight interfacing ironed onto felt but these came out perfect. 

Shown here with my own cookie sheet and spatula. 

Lilly (12 months) loves to take these out of the red container and put them back and to inspect the toppings. 

 2. Lego Math - Just print on cardstock and provide a sheet protector. these have been so much fun for us. Ava has some trouble with the subtraction but not with the addition and they are really fun to use with your real Legos. http://thesixkents.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/lego-math-worksheets/

3. Emotion Play Dough Mat - Print in color and laminate. We have had so much fun making angry and scary faces for this poor girl. http://kidlutions.blogspot.com/2011/10/fun-with-feelings-faces-playdough-mats.html

 4. I-Spy Bag - Simple I-Spy bag with card. I did do coins to make it a little more academic. This is a huge pain to sew and if I did it again I would use fleece instead of felt. Also I used painters tape to tape the window in and then sewed through the tape and that made all the difference. I-Spy bags are much easier than jars because you can manipulate them with your hands. However if no one sews or is crazy like me then you could do this in clear plastic bottles or glass jars. 

5. Pom-Pom Magnets and Boards - These pom pom magnet activities are all over the internet so this starter set it nice to build on. You just put your cardstock mat on a cookie sheet when ready to play. Use hot glue to adhere the magnets and remove any paper backing from the magnets before gluing. http://engagingtoddleractivities.wordpress.com/2010/12/06/homemade-toy-magnetic-pompoms/

6. Consonant, Short Vowel, and Long Vowel Cards - 

Print Consonant Cards here http://homeschoolcreations.com/files/Consonant_Cards.pdf

Print the Short Vowel Cards here - http://homeschoolcreations.com/files/Short_Vowel_Cards.pdf

Print the Long Vowel Cards here - http://homeschoolcreations.com/files/Long_Vowel_Cards.pdf

7. Read, Build and Write Mats with sets Word Cards - http://homeschoolcreations.com/Read_Build_Write_Printables.html 

http://homeschoolcreations.com/files/Read_Build_Write_Mats.pdf

I think if I did this one again I would make it worth 3 and have the main mat laminated, sometimes the sheet protector slips on us. We also use magnetic letters at home on a cookie sheet instead of the letters provided. 

8. Clothes Pin Number Match - http://shared.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/math/ClothespinNumberMatch.pdf

9. Felt Board Skeleton - I did this one and we love it, but I don't know if I would recommend it for a swap. Only because if took hours and hours to cut these out and it doesn't take any less time to cut one out than it does to cut lots. We swapped in October though so I thought skeletons would be fun and we love felt board activities. I am showing them here with some word cards and a skeleton print out which I didn't give with the activity but it might have been nice. The kids aren't ready to read those words yet but some of the parents needed some help remembering the bones! 

10. Roll A Rainbow - This was laminated and given with m & m's and a die. http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/57547407?access_key=key-25r11p880rr7qp12ndj2

11. Shades of Color - Walmart is the only place we found that had enough shades of one color on a strip.  http://www.walkingbytheway.com/blog/?p=327

12. Play-Dough Number Mats - The moms that printed these just had to provide one sheet protector but we bound ours like this so Ava could easily just work through all the numbers and letters on her own.  http://homeschoolcreations.com/files/Number_Playdough_Mats_1-10.pdf

http://homeschoolcreations.com/files/Number_Playdough_Mats_11-20.pdf

13. Play Dough ABC Mats - There was the direction here to print these in color but the mom that did this one had them professionally printed in black and white on cardstock and they turned out very well so that may be an option if you want to make these mats worth only two activity choices. Printing 8 sets in color and on cardstock can really add up. http://homeschoolcreations.com/files/Playdough_Mats.pdf

14. Fabric Roads - These denim roads have been a huge hit in our house. That might be because we don't have any other car tracks but Ava loves making a track for cars with these. There are lots of learning extensions as well like talking about directions of cars, setting up traffic lights etc. I am planning to make her more. http://lilmoptop.blogspot.com/2010/10/easy-fabric-roads.html

15. Felt Pizza - This one was me again. I had made these Pizzas for Ava and she loved them so I made this small set for the group. This was time consuming and so I didn't provide lots of toppings but it would be pretty easy for anyone that wanted to create more toppings. The crust is two circles sewn together with a small opening, then flipped inside out, and sewn again just inside the edge in order to catch the opening needed to flip it. I think everything else is pretty self-explanatory. These are just for play but they are also great for teaching fractions too (i.e. "Put cheese on half the pizza").

 This is a photo of Ava's big set at home with a cut pizza and more toppings. 

16. Two-Sided Popsicle Puzzle - http://www.amazingmess.com/2010/07/popsicle-stick-puzzles.html

Ava is fascinated with the color wheel side. I can hear her singing "red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple it's a rainbow!" right now ;)

Notes on organizing - I ended up with one master list that everyone chose off of. I came up with almost all of the activities this time but next time we are going to do some suggesting but still have one master control list. The real challenge is always getting everyone on board with what makes a good swap activity and what really doesn't. For example, providing the ingredients for homemade play-dough is fun but that is pretty easy to whip up on your own. The point of the swap is to spend time pulling together materials that if you did one of each would be very time consuming but since you are doing several (in our case 8) then it cuts your time down and in the end you have a whole bunch of great activities. The other thing is talking to the group about quality, including printing on cardstock, in color, taking the extra step of getting some things laminated instead of just proving a sheet protector etc. We have some crafty and non-crafty members so there are a mix of things you can just take to Office Depot and pay for and things that took a considerable amount of time to make. I figured if everyone did about $30 or so worth of printing or 10ish hours of work or some combination of that then we were fair. So everyone had to pick three but some activities were worth three (like the play dough mats for example) and some were worth two like the magnets pom poms. If you aren't familiar with how much printing in color on cardstock at home or at an office store is then you might want to check that before organizing something like this. I think some of the moms that picked the 'easy' printing activities were surprised by the cost. 

First Birthday Prints and Our Mia Nolting Draws Letters Prints

I can't wait to post about Lilly's birthday it was perfect! In the meantime here is Lilly's takeaway print. I decided it would be more fun just to have this be a keepsake as opposed to my regular first birthday invitation, plus me pulling together mailing anything is almost impossible these days. Even though alas I couldn't get it printed at 5x7 for less than $1.50 a print! So now I have to mail them with the thank you notes anyway, but they are all ordered on Arts Cow for a very good price. We did two different main images because one was from my phone and I was worried about the resolution - but just fyi they both printed well. These both came from KM Thomas and I am always happy with her work and she is super speedy too! Ava's first year invitation is still up on Oh Dee Doh.

Also! I got back my Mia Nolting Draws Letters files back and they are great! I sent her the names and $1 per word via PayPal (so $2 per print below) and two weeks later I got a high res .jpg file. I can't wait to get them in some sweet matted frames but I supposed there are lots of cool things I can do with them. The bonus is that Ava (three) is at the age where she loves to read her name and she was so excited about the prints. 

I want to hold up a sign that says ‘WHOA!’ and other thought s on being a new Stay at Home Mom

I had my first paying job at 15, by 16 I was up at 6:30 a.m. on Saturdays working the local Mc D’s drive-thru window, at 17 I waited tables and so on. I worked from 15 to 29 without interruption and then all of the sudden just stopped.

After we had Ava I started working from home almost immediately and by the time she was three months old I had directed the entire marketing plan and public face for a new Children’s Museum. I was busy! I had great flexibility at work and often while I was typing away or reflecting on strategies Ava was right there in my arms. My husband works in the retail industry and so we just adjusted our work days so that she went to daycare only three days a week and we sucked it up and paid sky high bills for a daycare with internet cameras in the classrooms and really good teachers. It was the hardest thing I have ever done taking a 10 week old to daycare but really with the camera I kept open in an internet tab all day at work and the cool stuff I had going on professionally I didn’t really have much time to reflect on my feelings about motherhood. We just made it work, like most parents that work do.

I still planned stuff for Ava to do on my days off. As soon as she was old enough we were building her kitchens and filling up sensory boxes. We had all kinds of little infant learning activities thanks mostly to stay at home moms who blogged about what cool things they were doing at home. I started this blog and although I certainly have increased my level of sewing and decorating and cooking I think that for instance building a light table would have been something I would have jumped on even when I worked. All that to say that I really didn’t parent all that differently when I worked from how I do now – I just like to make and do stuff, it is who I am.

Overall, society was incredibly generous to me. Sometimes I had a few instances where professional people treated me differently when I was pregnant and several times where people planned to take over my job when I was on maternity leave. Overall though, everyone seemed very impressed that I could work and still take time for Ava. After I had Lilly I did work for a very short time but I haven’t gone back to work since we moved from Florida to Georgia last January. Honestly, the traffic situation in Atlanta makes it pretty difficult to consider most of the jobs I am qualified for. Almost all of them would require an hour commute each way for me. Leaving my girls in daycare for 10 to 12 hour days isn’t going to happen. Plus, I really have been overwhelmed by how amazing this (almost year) home with them has been. When you are working a pretty intense job it takes up almost all of your spare thoughts. When you stay at home there is quite a bit of ‘down time’. Life slows down. There is time to think, time to play blocks for an hour, time to fix lunches and breakfasts and dinners. Going to the park or the museum or to meet up with other mom’s is your task of the day, not how you relax on your day off.

Sort of like a brain renaissance really.

The one thing that has been totally crazy is how all of the sudden I am under a weird mothering microscope. Not just other stay at home mother’s but lots of parents compare their children to my children right out loud in front of me! ‘They’ criticize my parenting choices or other’s right in front of them! I mean LITTLE things like how you feed your baby or what TV choices you make for your toddler. When I was working people were just happy my baby did eat, they didn’t care how I fed her and I guess TV was just something working mom’s need. (I feel the stay at home parent need to insert here that we only let Ava watch one hour of commercial free TV a day max* – SEE HOW BRAIN WASHED I AM!)

People were proud when we made Ava a wood kitchen not jealous that they didn’t make their kid one – hey for the record it is cheaper to buy a wooden play kitchen – we just like to make things! When I would tell a friend that Ava could walk or recognize her letters or something else fun and new I wasn’t seen as taunting or comparing I was just proud of my kid. But now I am sadly realizing that maybe it was ‘o.k.’ that Ava walked early because she had the ‘handicap’ of being a ‘daycare kid’. Can you believe that I have actually felt bad before that my kids were behaving and almost all the other kids were going crazy – as in ‘look at the weird well behaved kid, their mother must be crazy and scary at home if they are still listening to her in this situation’.

Can I just say that I want a big huge sign that says ‘WHOA!’

Being a fairly confident person from a pretty intense childhood I never understood the need for slogans like ‘Be Yourself’ or ‘don’t let anyone rain on your parade’ until now. I have no other thoughts on this topic except that writing this has made me feel better and so I hope it makes someone else feel better too.

Staying at home to see every little yawn and look of excitement on my girl’s faces is amazing and life is so short and I am so so so blessed. So next time I get bombarded by someone who hasn’t learned at 30 or 40 to play nice and take responsibility for their own feelings I am going to remember to ‘Be myself’ and ‘Not let anyone rain on my parade’.

*on the TV note above also add “Unless I am sick, busy or feeling lazy.”

We did it! Black Rock Mountain in a tent

We did it! After going back and forth about it for a while we decided to take both girl's (3 and 11 months) tent camping. We camped at Black Rock Mountain State Park in Georgia which is about a 2 hour drive from where we live in Atlanta. It was beautiful and amazing. The park is within a twenty minute drive of Tallulah Gorge State Park. There are maybe fifteen different awesome short trips you could take from this park including checking out the trail-head of the Appalachian trail.

(photo - you could pretend they are 'telling secrets' or something cute but really Ava is probably patiently lecturing Lilly about not eating her headband)

Well one thing we didn't anticipate was a little bit of a confusing check in which ended with us setting up in one of the private walk-up sites without water OR electricity. Once we realized that it wasn't worth moving everything but I think in the end the trade off of camping up in the trees all by ourselves might have been worth the 'walk up' and the mild inconvenience of less lights at night and washing dishes (just really a knife and cutting board) down at the pump by the bath house. The photos below shows one of the walk up sites and the short-cut path to the site we picked so you can see our hike with our gear wasn't too far.

We got some amazing 'camping with kids tips'! The glow sticks or glow in the dark pj's like we ended up with for the girls at night in case they wander off was brilliant. Freezing most of our water and using that instead of ice really helped us pack more in our one cooler. We pre-cut the grill meals we prepared and froze them then pulled them out the morning we were going to cook them to thaw. We did end up eating way more than we would normally at home - the extra food really helped! A hot breakfast was super nice after waking up in the tent and bringing a cast iron skillet that you can use over the fire and clean over the fire saves you lots of dishes. As always taking the time to ask the park staff about the easy hikes and shortcuts to do with the girl's was a lifesaver. Then we did the things we already knew about like bringing every medicine imaginable and buying the biggest tent we could find (my husband can stand in ours with clearance and it is 100 sq. feet) so that everyone could have a real bed!

(photo - I packed Ava's 'rescue pack' with a rope, binoculars, magnifying glass, notebook, pencil and water. She was really into being an 'adventurer'. It kept her hiking really long distances without asking to be carried! As soon as her legs started to hurt we would take a break and do some investigation or let her pretend to rescue an animal out of a tree with her rope, etc. 

(photo - this was the view above our tent)

(photo - steak, potatoes, etc. getting ready to go on the grill.)

(photo - Glowing skeleton pj's via Walmart - they really glowed!)

Still the tent sleeping wasn't easy for us with our apparently sub-par air mattress (working on that for next time) and Lilly was pretty restless with the fall leaves rustling and the new environment. She didn't take one nap in the tent for instance and she spent the second half of both nights collapsed over me on the air mattress...which was slowly deflating...

This huge suspension bridge spans the gorge - it was quite a hike to get to it with the kids but worth it!

(photo - one is SUCH a cute age!)

Oh! and we had intruders, raccoons we think - both nights probably because we have a group member that throws half of her food on the ground when she eats - thanks Lilly! We are working towards a bigger trip at Smoky Mountain National Park in the spring so we still need I would say two more short trips before then to get the kinks out.

Any more tips for us - share (as always) please!