Holiday Hacks

Easy Gift Giving Guide

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With Christmas just around the corner this is usually where my sheer panic sets in, between the boy's large family, our neighbors and our friend's growing families the gift count gets higher and higher each year. It's easy to break the bank and overload anyone's schedule! With a newborn in tow this year I've opted for a more simple solution! 

1. Break Everyone Down into Groups

Make a list of everyone you need to get gifts and break them into more manageable groups (such as: neighbors, teachers, grandparents, friends etc.) This way you can come up with 3-4 gift ideas that work for everyone versus coming up 563 different gifts for everyone. Now when you find that perfect gift for the grandparents just times it by two and you've got two sets of people done!

2. Go the DIY Route

Going the DIY route is not only fun but it can save you some Christmas cash as well! It's also a great excuse to try out some of those favourite pins on Pinterest you've been dying to try. (Check out some of my favourites) All my neighbors this year will be getting a cute little Christmas tree cupcake! They will be fun to make and lets me cross all my neighbors off my list!

3. Check Out New or Small Businesses

I love supporting entrepreneurs and small business owners, but there is also an added benefit around Holiday season, many of them offer great deals to compete with the big box stores, and they offer more unique products for the ultimate gifts. Check out one of my new favourites Lost My Name an adorable personalized story book for kids, not only a great gift but a wonderful keepsake.

4. Convenience Over Time 

Anyone can buy a gift card and unfortunately they can come across as impersonal, so what's a gal to do? This predicament often puts us in a time crunch for the holidays. Well now you don't have to give up personality for time. Awesome sites are popping up all over the place that offer the perfect solution, with customized gifts that are both time savers and extremely personal! My new favourite for this holiday is Chat Books which turns your favourite Instagram photos into your own book for only $6! In the Christmas Spirit enter the code: GYAC6NLU and get your very first book FREE!

Comment with your favourite Holiday hack or gift idea this holiday season and automatically be entered to be 1 of 3 winners to receive 15% off your very own Lost My Name Book!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS & HAPPY WRAPPING!

DIY Baby Blanket

A Quick & Easy Project

This was a blanket I made while I was counting the days for my little one to arrive. The blanket stitching at the end was the perfect way to pass the time until my girl decided to make her debut! It's a great project to customize yourself for a baby shower or your own little nugget. 

What You'll Need:

1. Three prints of flannel (I used these great one sided receiving blankets here) 
2. Pen & Paper
3. Scissors
4. Pins
5. Needle & thread

Here's What to Do:

• Trace any letters and designs onto your first desired print and cut out. If you're not the best doodler you can print out images or bold letters and use those as easy stencils!  

                                 

• Place your cutouts as desired on the fabric you want for the front of your blanket and pin into place. 

                                                                              

• In a contrasting or coordinating thread (I went with hot pink) stitch around each cutout to securely fasten it to the front of the blanket.                    

 

• Once the front of your blanket is as desired, line up the front fabric with the remaining third fabric (wrong side to wrong side) and sew all the way around.
• With the same bold thread as before use the blanket stitch to go around the outside of the blankets, you can make the stitches as close or as spaced out as you like.

You're All Done!

Finally, gift it or wrap your little bundle of joy in it!

Happy Sewing!

DIY Fabric Flower Letter

Adorable Floral Letter 

This is a great project I found on where else? Pinterest! I wanted to recreate it for my daughter's nursery door. But I've seen these floral letters used for home decorations, wedding tables and much more. You can make them festive with holiday colours or make it to match your decor. 

Here's What You'll Need:

1. Cardboard box (I used a family size Cheerios box)
2. tape & scissors
3. decorative paper
4. scraps of fabric
5. hot glue gun
6. ribbon

Let's Get Started:

I traced out the letter of my choice on my cereal box (It took me a few tries to get it just the way I wanted). I cut the remainder of the box up into the same size strips, these will be used to make the letter 3-D. Mine were 1" wide, but you can make them smaller or larger depending on how deep you'd like your letter to look. Tip: If you're planning on making larger flowers a deeper side helps contain them, whereas a smaller edge shows off smaller and flatter fabric flowers well

Next, tape the strips to each side of the letter, making sure to use a little extra tape on any place it curves so there aren't any gaps! I then chose to cover my outside edges with a decorative turquoise paper so you wouldn't see the plain cardboard. 

Now, we're ready for the flowers! You can make them all uniform or mix and match different styles and colours. I used a couple of different fabric flower techniques and a variety of colours to give it a bright cheerful look. Here are several great blogs with different types of fabric flowers that you can easily create. Mix 'em up or pick your favorite! 

• Full Textured Flower from Make It & Love It
• Rick Rack Rosettes from Crafting Chicks
• Fabric Rose from Project Wedding
• Dahlias from It's the Little Things
• Tight Lollypop Twist from Mad Mim 
• Pansy & Dahlia Flowers from Flax and Twine

(If you're wanting to hang your letter now is a great time to punch holes on the back of your letter and tie on a ribbon of your choice!)

Once you're satisfied with your fabric flowers it's time to attach them to your letter! I laid mine out until I had a look that I liked then hot glued the bottoms of each flower to the bottom of my letter. I fluffed up each flower. You can also hot glue paper folded like an accordion or styrofoam on the bottom of your letter before gluing your fabric flowers down to give them varying heights. 

And Viola! You have a fresh, fun, fabric flower letter! Make a bunch to spell out something fun or just make one for a special someone. 

Happy Crafting!

DIY Bridesmaid Bags

Fun Way to Ask Your Girls. . . 

Among all the wedding planning the boy and I had to sit down and come up with our bridal party, which wasn't an easy feat. Having four younger brothers himself and each of us having best friends that were the opposite gender made it a little difficult. We're having an intimate wedding so it didn't make sense to have five or six up on each side, essentially that would be a third of our guests! We decided to  only include family or friends that had been apart of most our lives to help narrow down our list. We wound up with three each, three ushers and two younger ones being included. We also decided to ditch the traditional route and have a mix of girls and guys on either side.  This forced us to have some creativity with the names of each bridal party member. Here's what we came up with:

The Boy's Side:

Best Man

Best Woman

Coolest Groomsman

My Side:

Maid of Honour

Man of Honour

Best Bridesmaid

Butterfly Girl & Ring Security

So all that left was how to ask each of them in a fun way to be apart of our wedding.

Here's what we came up with for the girls. . .

I put together a little nail care kit with nail clippers, toe separators, nail file and cuticle stick all in one of the colours of our wedding. I got each of them nail polish that would go with their bridesmaid dresses (I picked nude it's one of my favourite nail colours and think it always looks so fresh and gave my butterfly girl coral to match the big girl's dresses!) and threw in a fun matching lip gloss in there as well. I made each of them a manilla tag that said Will You Be My (or Our) ___? I tied it all together with some twine.

Next I made little notecards on card stock, one asking them to be apart of our wedding day and bridal party and giving some brief information on the wedding like the day and location. On the next one I told them our wedding colours which are: Coral, turquoise and touches of yellow. I went to Home Depot and picked up paint swatches in the colours I wanted and cut out little squares for each one. 

The final card was for just the bridesmaids with details about their dress. Again, I went a slightly more non-traditional route although it seems to be a catching on trend. I'm allowing the girls to pick their own dresses. Not only do I have three girls of varying height, skin tone and hair colour but completely different tastes in style. They manage to dress themselves adorable any other day so I'm not sure why my wedding day would be any different? I included that I wanted them to all be knee length (except the maid of honour) and pasted on an array of coral colour swatches for them to choose from. This way they will all coordinate but be comfortable and happy in what they're wearing, this is also a great way so they can buy a dress in whatever price range they're comfortable with! I asked for them all to wear nude shoes to tie everything together. I'm really excited to see what they come up with! 

I wrote on the bottom the link to one of my Pinterest boards where I've been pinning the cutest coral dresses so just in case they are stuck they can go here for inspiration and really get an idea for the feel of my wedding I'm trying to create! Gotta love Pinterest!

I used craft scissors and cut brown lunch bags in half, taping the bottom together so they would lie flat with turquoise duct tape. I stamped each of the girl's names on the outside and put all the cards and the goodies inside. I used a flower hole punch at the top of the bag and hot glued on pieces of lace on the inside flap. I laced the lace through and tied a big bow to keep everything secure! They were complete!

I mailed them in bubble wrap lined envelopes just to make sure they made it intact, especially because one had to go completely across the country to my best friend!

Next up will be the boys. . .

DIY Cozy, Comfy PJs

The Perfect Pair to Snuggle up in This Season or For a Great DIY Gift!

Difficulty Level: EASY

What You'll Need:

• A Pair of Scissors
• A pair of PJ pants that fit you
• A sewing machine and your choice of thread
• Pins
• Elastic
• Large Safety Pin
• About 2 yards of flannel or polar fleece in your choice of colour
• lace or any other trimmings *Optional

Get Everything Ready

1. Lay out your fabric on a large surface and fold in half longwise (hotdog style)
2. Place your original PJs on top folding them directly on the seam, so you can only see one solid panel of fabric at a time
3. Leaving about an inch all the way around cut out the shape of the front, if your current PJs are elastic waist make sure to add additional space at the top otherwise these will be too small!
4. Do the exact same with the remaining fabric for the back pattern- you should now have four sides!
5. With the scraps of the fabric (still folded) cut around your hand to make a pocket, then use these pieces to cut out another exact pair.
6. Cut a long strip from the scrap fabric to make a mock bow drawstring- *this is optional

Start Sewing!

1. Stitch along the long strip of fabric for your drawstring, leaving either end open and cut with pinking shears along the edge or carefully close to edge with normal scissors. Turn inside out with a safety pin and tie little knots on either end, trimming any necessary threads
2. Stitch along the outside of your pockets (right sides together), if you have a surger, surge the edges after if not- just switch your sewing machine to a zig zag stitch and do the same. Do both sets of pockets
3. Sew the crotch together (right sides together) on the front pattern of your PJs, then surge/zig zag the edges. Repeat with the back pieces.
   
4. Open the stitched together legs and place right sides together so now you can see what your PJs will look like. Match them up at the seam on the crotch and sew downwards on the edge to the end of the leg, and then repeat for the other leg seam. Surge/zig zag the edges.
5. Figure out where you want your pockets to start (HINT: if you have low waist they will start a few inches from the top, if you have a longer waist it will be several inches down) Mark them with pins the length of your cut out pocket. Make sure to only mark from the seams of the pocket not the whole length
   
6. Sew the sides of your PJs together back stitching when you hit the start of your pocket, and picking up again where your pocket ends, back stitch, and all the way down to the bottom of the leg. Surge/ Zig zag the edges, being sure to skip over the pocket area. Repeat for other side. 
7. Turn your pockets inside out, doing the same to your now sewn PJs, Stick the pocket from the outside through the hole you left on the side of the leg. Match up the fabric (right sides together) and pin. Sew around the circle of the pocket from the inside and surge/zig zag after. Push your pocket to the inside of the pant and repeat on the other side.
   
8. Fold down the edge of the waist of your PJs and stitch all the way around, fold it over again making sure to leave enough room for your elastic to be threaded through (Style hint: Mens look better with wider elastic and small elastic is good for dainty Womens) and pin.
9. Sew carefully around the waist leaving about half an inch from the start open. When you're done sewing, thread the elastic through the small opening with a large safety pin (push the safety pin through the edge of your elastic and close the pin then use this as a guide to thread through your fabric).
   
   
   
   
   
   
10. Once you've threaded the elastic all the way through make a cross box stitch stitching the two edges of the elastic together to ensure it holds.
11. Then stitch up the opening. If you chose to make a drawstring, tack down the center of the string on the front of your PJs. Then tie it into a decorative bow. 
12. Lastly fold the hems of your PJ pants down and sew around, fold up again at desired length and sew around once more. You may add any additional trimmings if desired. 
    

Viola! See, not so bad? You can have fun enchanting them in any way you want with top stitching, lace or actual drawstrings. Make a matching pair for you and your boo, or make several to gift out to your friends this season. Perfect for anyone!

Now Pour Yourself a Cup of Hot Chocolate 

and Put Those Comfy Suckers On!