Homemade Christmas Gifts - Tidbits of My Life

Hello everyone! I'm Abby over at Tidbits of My Life and am so excited to be a guest blogger and take part in a Homemade Christmas here at The Scrap Shoppe. I love crafting and am excited to become a mommy in a few weeks, which has inspired me to share with you this easy tutorial on a no sew blanket. You can make them in any size and they will sure keep you warm and snuggly during the cold winter months. I hope you enjoy the tutorial and please stop by and say hello. I am always posting crafts, recipes, and little tidbits here and there. Have a Happy Holiday :)

Here's How to Make Your Own No Sew Blanket

{What You Need}

1 yard of fleece fabric in a print

1 yard of fleece fabric in a solid

Scissors

{Directions}

1. Look at the printed fabric and see if you have wording at the end of the fabric. If so cut the wording strip off. 

2. Lay the printed fabric on top of the solid fabric and trim the edges so they are the same size. 

3. Pick a side of the blanket and cut your first strip at least three inches from the corner. Cut strips that are about 2 1/2 inches long by 1 inch wide. Make sure the printed fabric is still laying on top of the solid fabric why you do this. 

4. Cut the corners of the fabric off. Continue cutting the strips along each side. If you want to work one side at a time you can. 

5. After the strips are cut, tie each of them in a knot. 

6. Work your way around the blanket and continue to tie each strip into knots. 

7. After all the edges are tied, the blanket is done! 

{A Couple of Notes}

I cut my fabric in half so I could have two blankets. If you want your blanket bigger leave the fabric whole. If you want an even bigger blanket then get at least 2 yards of fabric per each piece.  I hope you enjoyed the tutorial and have fun making a warm and cozy No Sew Blanket! 

NEW Chalkboard Bunting Winner!

I never heard from our original winner,

so we're drawing names again!

Congratulations Sonya Burton who said...

"I would love to have this... and I would write Love You More!! For my family and keep it up all the time! Thanks so much!!"

Email me in the next 48 hours to claim your prize, Sonya!

mmcustomcreations@dmaks.com

The next guest poster for Homemade Christmas - Gift Ideas will be up soon! Be sure to come back by!

Homemade Christmas Gifts - The Answer is Chocolate

Greetings Scrap Shoppers! I'm Carol from "The Answer Is Chocolate" the rest of which goes "Does the question really matter?" because for me, if it can't be answered by chocolate, it probably can't be answered!

I decided to combine my love of making things with my chocolate addiction and start a blog and am so excited to be guest posting here at Michele's. The only thing I love even more than chocolate is Christmas! I'm one of those who starts saying in January "only 11 months til Christmas". I know...one of those people. Today I'm going to show you how to make something I've shared on my blog that can be used as a hostess gift or just to decorate your own home: an altered and embellished glass candle. These are Christmas themed but you can adapt for any time of year.

You'll need:

• Glass Jar Candle ( also known as prayer candles, Novena candles) You can find these lots of places. I first found them at the grocery store but subsequently ordered a case of them from Dollar Tree's website.
• Scrapbook or wrapping papers
• Embellishments...ribbon, buttons, beads, die cuts etc.
• Mod Podge

I like to combine patterns and textures so I used three different papers:

Decide which paper you want as your base. Cut to 8x8 then tear top and bottom edges. Cut remaining papers to 8 inches length and decide how wide you want the next layer, I did 4 inches for the middle, and then 3 for the top paper. Tear top paper across the top and bottom as you did for the base layer. Mod Podge your papers together to form your candle wrap. Should look like this:

Patterned paper base, music paper middle, patterned paper top

Mod Podge candle wrap to candle. Cover top with more Mod Podge and you'll have this:

You can make the "wrap" cover as much or as little of the candle as you like. Now it's time to embellish which is the fun part! I used various things I had on hand like buttons, self adhesive rhinestones, ribbon, silver tinsel pipecleaners. I chose a couple of diecuts from a package by K&CO and adhered to the center with Mod Podge. Then I added these strips of rhinestones (Michaels Dollar Section):

I also added some buttons using a dimensional adhesive or you can use hot glue:

And some more coordinating self adhesive rhinestones on top of the buttons. To finish, I like to wrap the top "lip" of the candle with ribbon or you can use wire, beading thread or whatever you can think of. I used some vintage looking ribbon yarn and a silver tinsel pipe cleaner on these.

Hopefully this made sense but if you have any questions, please drop a comment on my blog or email me! There's really no right or wrong here. Thanks so much Michele for having me over for Homemade Christmas!

Carol,

Head Chocolatier, The Answer is Chocolate

Homemade Christmas Gifts - The Scrap Shoppe

Welcome to a Homemade Christmas
with The Scrap Shoppe!

Link up your projects at the bottom of this post.

This week we're showing of our homemade Christmas gifts!


I'm going to get the party started with an easy grandparent gift
that cost me $1.50 (plus paint).

I purchased two frames and letters from the unfinished wood section of Hobby Lobby. Everything was half off that week so each set cost a whopping $1.50!

I had some black Krylon paint on hand and purchased some Krylon Antique Brass to paint my wood pieces.

I painted the letters with the Antique Brass.

And painted the frames with the Krylon Black Satin.

I also lightly sanded all of the edges of the frame to give it a slightly distressed look.

The "g" I purchased is the start of the word "grandparent." So not to be redundant, I printed out my phrase without the g onto some coordinating cardstock.

Click on the image above to download your own phrase if you want to make this gift for your grandparents!

I glued the g to the front of the frame, added my printed phrase, and photos of the great grandkids (these set of frames are actually for my and my husband's grandparents, so the great grandparents of our son!). I inlcuded my son Gavin's latest daycare photo and little Caleb is represented by his latest ultrasound image.

I love the phrase and, the photos can easily be changed year to year as the children grow!

- - - - - - -

We all want to see what you're making, too, so be sure to link your homemade Christmas gifts to the party below!

The link party will be open until December 19th then I will pick some from the list to show off!

Please link only homemade gift ideas!

Chalkboard Bunting {{WINNER}} & Homemade Christmas Reminder

First things first, the winner of

the set of 10 chalkboard bunting is......

 Chris who said...
I love your DIY chalk board fabric. I'd write my boys' names & hang it in their room.

Congratulations, Chris!
Email me at mmcustomcreations@dmaks.com in the next 48 hours to claim your prize!

 

 

I still have chalkboard bunting available in my Etsy shop if would like to purchase some!

 

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

And don't forget that tomorrow kicks off the start of my Homemade Christmas Party!! I am sooo excited!

I've got some wonderful bloggers lined up to share some special ideas that we can all make this holiday season.

A link party will be up so that everyone can participate so grab a button in my sidebar and plan to play along!

See you tomorrow!

One Last Turkey

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Did anyone do any Black Friday shopping today? I'm too chicken to get out in the mess. :) I'll be shopping online!

I wanted to share one last Thanksgiving project then I swear I'll switch gears into Christmas!

I was completely inspired by the hand print turkey applique my blogging bud Alison at Oopsey Daisy made for her little guy to wear for Thanksgiving last year. I decided I totally needed to make one, too!

I traced my little guy's hand on some printer paper, cut it out, and used it as a stencil to cut ut out of my fabric. Since I'm a non-sewer, I used fusible webbing to iron on the design to the shirt. Then I hand stitched some feet, a gobbler (what do you call that red thing???), and outlined the turkey. I finished it off with a fun eyeball which I glued on with some Fabri-Tac.

Pretty cute!! I can't wait to make one for both my boys next year!

Here's an action shot of the shirt at work. Little man helped his grandma make one of the Thanksgiving dishes and absolutely had to give it a taste test. ;)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, my bloggy friends!

I picked my little guy up a little early from daycare today so we could make these fun candy turkeys. I saw them at Choose To Thrive and knew they were the perfect thing for us to make together for Thanksgiving! They will be going to Grandma's house with us tomorrow for Thanksgiving dinner.

It might have been a messy process, and there might have been a lot of "No, you can't eat that!" being said (you can see how well that worked out), but just look at that smile and tell me he didn't have a blast!

I think I like his version of turkey feather better than mine!  :)

I hope you all have a fantastic Thanksgiving and get to spend some time with your loved ones!

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And if you haven't done so yet, be sure to enter my Chalkboard Bunting giveaway!

I'll be picking a winner on Saturday.

T-Shirt Tuesday - Thank Goodness!

This year for Thanksgiving, I am definitely thankful for scrapbooking. A creative outlet is just what this girl needs!

 

Happy T-Shirt Tuesday!

Blog Makeover

I gave the blog a little makeover today. What do you think?

I'm not a big fan of change. In fact, I downright resist it.

But when it comes to playing with graphic design and HTML I can't seem to help myself!

:)

DIY Chalkboard Bunting & {{GIVEAWAY!!}} - CLOSED

GIVEAWAY CLOSED
You can see who won here.


I am SO excited to share today's project with you! Its something I've had in my head for a little while now but only recently had a chance to bring it to reality. And I'm LOVING it!!

DIY Chalkboard Bunting!

Let's do a little tute...

I started with some unbleached muslin remnants that I found at JoAnn's.

(Can I just say that right after Halloween is the BEST time to peruse the remnants section??)

I ironed my muslin, then measured an marked where I would be doing my cutting.

I cut 6" strips so that my bunting would be 6" long vertically.

Then I started cutting my triangles...

...And in no time I had a dozen pieces of bunting!

I got out my handy dandy acrylic chalkboard paint and set to work painting my bunting.

Ummmm, so you guys might already have known this so bear with me for a minute.

I naturally laid out my bunting on newspaper to do my painting.

DO NOT DO THIS!

Since the muslin is thin and obviously porous, the paint did go through it which resulted in the muslin sticking to the newspaper.

I peeled it all up and relaid it down on some freezer paper. Much better! 

I cured my chalkboard by rubbing chalk on it then wiping it off.

I trimmed the bunting by backing the edges with lace. I then covered the front edges with some thin cream ribbon.

There is a fabulous lace shop in a nearby town where you can purchase it by the yard for as little as $.25-.$50 per yard. So needless to say I have a large stockpile!

I decided to give my bunting a more eclectic look by using different pieces of lace for each piece of bunting.

I obviously did not want to adhere my bunting to any string because the beauty of the chalkboard bunting is that I can erase and rewrite any saying I want, adding and taking away pieces as needed! So I clipped the bunting to some twine with miniature clothespins (from Walmart). And to make the clothespins blend better, I inked them with some black distress ink.

(See my post about using your distress ink for staining wood!)

When I hung the bunting I ended up overlapping the pieces. But I'm loving how it looks!

Since I'm currently hanging it with a Thanksgiving saying, I clipped on some fall leaves for an extra embellishment.

I love it on my hutch!! It will definitely be a staple for ALL holidays and probably birthdays, too!

Did you notice my pumpkin vase? My real fall bouquet finally died, but I found these great silk flowers for 80% off at Hobby Lobby. LOVE!

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Ready for that GIVEAWAY??

This bunting was so fun to make that I ended up making a TON of them.

I'm going to give one away to one of you!

It is a set of 10, unembellished (I know the lace isn't for everyone), and includes a piece of chalk.

All you have to do to enter is:

 Leave a comment telling me what you would write out with your chalkboard bunting!

For an extra entry be a public blog follower of The Scrap Shoppe and leave a comment stating such.

The winner will be announced next Saturday (Nov. 27th).

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Not feeling lucky or don't want to wait? I'm selling these in my Etsy shop, too!