DIY Inexpensive Christmas Gifts

Everyone has those people that they want to get gifts for, coworkers, neighbors, babysitters, etc but you're not sure what to get. That's where Pinterest comes in. Pinterest has everything holiday related from decorations to food to gifts.

Here are a few I want to try out this year:

1. Cinnamon wrapped around candles. This would be a good gift for neighbors or family or friends.

It would be cheap and easy to buy cinnamon sticks and vanilla scented candles and ribbon. I'd hot glue the cinnamon to the candle to ensure that it stays together.

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2. Candy Sleighs: This might be my gift to Trevor's classmates. It'd be cheap and easy to make 14 of them.

This requires candy and hot glue. Cheap and Easy. Glue a Kit Kat to two candy canes to form the base. Use any other candies to fill up the sleigh, but 10 mini hersey's candy bars fit perfectly into a pyramid on the sleigh. Neatly tie with a ribbon. Done.

3. Coffee Cups: This would be a good teacher gift.

Buy a coffee mug, inside include either a hot cocoa packet, individual coffee mix, $5 Starbucks gift card, candy cane. Customize with a cute Christmas-y label. Done.

4. Candy Bottles: This would be a good gift for the little ones in my life. I have three cousins under 7 years old who would love this. And you could even just give 1 bottle per person and use as a stocking stuffer.

5. Holiday Dough: This would be a great stocking stuffer for Trevor.

Roll up some $1 bills and create the label. Easy Peasy.

6. Hand Santa-tizer: Coworker gift. Easy. No one likes germs around the office. Goes with the season and is practical.

Just buy the bottles of hand sanitizer (purse size is the perfect size as it's easily portable) and create some custom paper wraps.

7. Coasters: Family or Neighbor or Friend gift. Even works for a teacher.

Simply buy some plain white tiles at a hardware store, and either draw with sharpies, use a Silhouette to cut a pattern, or paint a design. You can also try to modge podge pictures onto them. (Ask if you want more detailed instructions, as I've done most of these methods before).

8. Hot Cocoa Snowmen: Neighbors, Friends, Teachers.

These are baby food jars. The bottom of one is glued to the lid of the next. The top is filled with marshmallows, middle with the hot cocoa mix, and the bottom with peppermints. Then Make a hat and scarf (felt would work for these). Use a sharpie to draw the face and buttons on the jars.

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Who's on your gift list this year? Do you have any creative gift ideas for teachers, neighbors and coworkers? What about for kid's classmates?

Christmas Wishlist- Decor

I love Christmas decorations, but I prefer simpler, classical whites and silvers and reds. I don't like a lot of over the top decorations that you see these days. I don't need a rotating tree with colorful fiber optic branches. I don't need a 2,000 piece Santa's village with moving trains and lights. I don't need a 12 foot tall inflatable Santa in my front yard. I don't need lights from the top of my house to the bottom and everywhere in between. Basically I don't need (or want) this:

If that's you, then great! If not, that's great too! It's just not me. 

Last year we didn't even put lights outside (I know shameful of me). This year, it will probably be traditional white lights, probably the icicle ones since I love how they look at night after a snowfall. This is what the interior looked like last year: 

All of these pieces were my Grandma Smith's who passed away before Trevor was born, they're the only ones I'll ever own, because I just can't see myself buying more. I put them out more in honor of her than for me. 

We actually had two small trees, one in the living room and one in Trevor's room. The one in Trevor's room (on the left) is actually just the top of our big 6.5 foot one that we chose not to use this year. 

We also had garland and lights on the banisters on the stairs, our stockings hung, pictures and some small knick knacks but that's about it. 

Like I said, simple but still Christmasy.

This year, I have a small wish list/inspirational list of sorts for decorating (which I'll be doing next weekend!!!!) to keep with the simple, classical look and here it is: 

Clockwise from Large Photo on Top Left:  Mantle: via, Candles: via, Cutlery: via, Canvas: via, Wreath: via, Cinnamon Candles- Source not found

I think these are all simple ways to bring in the holiday look and feel without going overboard and look forward to recreating/re imagining some of them for our house this year!

What are some of your staple decorations? What's on your decor wishlist?

Grinch Crinkle Cookies

Earlier today, I posted about our 25 days of Christmas and how last year we made these Grinch Crinkle Cookies:

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I found a recipe on http://tastykitchen.com and modified it slightly for our liking (and what we already had). 

INGREDIENTS: 

6 Tablespoons Butter

1 cup Powdered Sugar

1 teaspoon Cornstarch

1 box of cake mix (we used white, the recipe called for French Vanilla originally)

2 Eggs

1 bottle of green food coloring

PREPARATION: 

Preheat the oven to 375°F.

Melt the butter and set aside to cool. 

In a shallow bowl, mix the powdered sugar and cornstarch with a fork. 

In a large bowl, mix the cooled butter, cake mix and eggs. It will be a little tough to stir together. Add the green food coloring and make sure it is all mixed in. 

(we added a step of let the child lick the beaters once mixed)

Take two spoons and drop a blob of the dough into the powdered sugar mixture. 

Move it around with a spoon until it is mostly covered in the powdered mixture. 

Once it is coated, roll into a ball and place it on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. 

Bake for about 9 minutes. Take out of the oven and cool on the pan for one minute, then move to a cooling rack. 

Then take a picture with your best grinch face and enjoy your cookies. 

 These were really soft, moist cookies as they were made with cake mix rather than traditional cookie mixes. They were a big hit in our family and were gone quickly!