Think Crafts Blog - Craft Ideas and Projects - CreateForLess

Wishing everyone the best of the holidays and a very merry Christmas!

What is your favorite part of Christmas? It’s hard for me to decide.  I love sitting in my living room at night just watching the lights upon my Christmas tree.  I enjoy putting my handmade ornaments on the tree remembering when each was given to me and by whom.  Some are very rustic made by little hands. Some are delicate made by careful hands.  Some are whimsical made by happy hands, while others are just beautiful and made by very skilled hands.  But each is special to me and makes me smile.

I actually enjoy addressing, signing, and sending holiday wishes in the form of purchased and handmade cards. It’s a quiet time when I can just be still and know how blessed I am to have such wonderful family and friends. Baking and exchanging cookies is a bright spot of my holidays.  I’ve got a sweet tooth and it loves cookies!  I also like singing and listening to carols.  I’m a bit tone-deaf, but during the holidays everyone seems very forgiving of my throwing the whole choir off-key!

I try to make my holiday spirit last 264 days until the next Christmas.  The world is a better place during the holidays with hot cocoa steaming, white snowflakes glistening, and colorful lights shining through the night. Christmas is an extraordinary gift to us and a time to show off our creativity.  Which brings me to my favorite part of the holidays! Presents under the tree!  I’m looking forward to unwrapping some handmade gifts this year and hope there are a few handmade gifts under your tree too!

Sometimes we just don’t have the time to make crafts totally from scratch! And you know what, you don’t always have to make projects from scratch! Here are some quick and easy ideas for those little holiday gifts you need to give.

• Buy plain cloth napkins and add the handmade touch of embroidery, felted flowers, buttons, or beading.
• Buy pillar candles and add the handmade touch of decorative paper, punched shapes, craft jewels, or paint.
• Buy small baskets and add the handmade touch of melt and pour soaps, potpourri, or chocolates.
• Buy inexpensive frames and add the handmade touch of a paper cast, scrapbook page, or collage.
• Buy blank cards and tags and add the handmade touch of embellishments like buttons, lace, or stickers.
• Buy T-shirts and add the handmade touch of silk embroidery, needlepunch, or fabric painting.
• Buy small purse blanks and add the handmade touch of ribbon roses, beading, or felted shapes.
• Buy plain cell phone totes and add the handmade touch of beading, jewels, sequins, or dimensional paint.

Do you have some quick and easy gifts you make for the holidays?  Share your ideas with us!

Where has the year gone?  It seemed to fly by so quickly this year that I’m having to do some last minute thinking about what to make for gifts I want to give my family and friends!  I recently found an interesting website, Buy Handmade. The site asks you to pledge to buy handmade items this holiday season and I think that’s a wonderful idea! I signed the pledge and I hope you do too! I also think we should pledge not just to buy what others make, but we should make our own handmade items to give!

This holiday season I’m giving:

• Handmade rubbing salts (recipe below)
• Bracelets that include handmade beads I purchased in China
• Decorative soaps in slumped soap dishes (My husband helps me with the glass fusing and kilns)
• Handcrafted holiday cards and tags (Made from all my paper scraps and card blanks)

Handmade rubbing salts are a great winter holiday gift.  You can use the rubbing salts in your bath or shower and your skin feels so soft afterwards. Here are the instructions for making your own rubbing salts!

Materials

• Canning or glass jars with air tight lids
• Vitamin E or Grapeseed Oil Extract (found at health food stores or pharmacies)
• Essential Oil (scent of your choice)
• Table salt (fine salts)
• Carrier Oil (any oil without a scent like almond oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil)
• Embellishments for jars (ribbon, lace, stickers, labels, etc)

Instructions

• Pour salt into jar about 3/4 full.
• Pour in carrier oil, completely covering salt.
• Add 5-8 drops of essential oil (scent) to mixture.
• Seal jar tight and embellish.  Allow salt rub “rest” 3 days, after 3 days scent is at its peak.  If you desire more scent then add more essential oil.

The first thing I do Christmas morning is run to my stocking hung by the fireplace!

I love stocking stuffers!  It might be because I love digging into my Christmas stocking each year with the glee of a five-year old!  I have such wonderful memories of finding oranges, apples, chocolate bars, and also a little piece of jewelry left just for me in my stocking.  I still have my childhood Chistmas stocking.  It’s seen its share of time passing (49 years!) and rough handling, but my mom stitched my name across the top and it will always be a precious keepsake for me.  What kind of stocking do you have and what do you enjoy stuffing into Christmas stockings? I’d love to hear what you’re putting into stockings this year!

Here’s a list of my favorite stocking stuffers for my creative family and friends!

Scissors!  Creative people never have enough scissors.

Cat’s Eye ColorBox Inkpads!  These small little ink pads are so easy to use and come in amazing colors.

Blue Moon Bead Mixes!  Every color and size you can think of these mixes are used to embellish everything.

Craft Knifes! Sleek and slim craft knifes slide right into a stocking! And don’t forget the refill blades!

Hand Drills! Very handy for so many creative uses plus perfect size for any stocking!

Floss! Needle artists always love an addition to their thread stash!

Stitching Needles!

Paint Brushes! Brushes are used in many craft techniques and nothing beats a perfect new brush!

Happy Stuffing!

I love birthdays.  I know some of us aren’t as “happy” on our birthdays as we get older, but to me it’s a day to celebrate life.  I love parties too and what’s a birthday without a party!  I always want something special to be done on my birthday.  It’s best when family and friends are able to spend the day with me!  Birthdays can be so creative.

I tend to give out little keepsake gifts on my birthday.  Part of crafting is the joy of giving what we make to others.  I usually decorate bags or baskets and fill them with little toys, candy, balloons, soaps, candles, and more! It’s just my way of spreading some birthday joy.

This year is not a milestone, that comes next year when I hit the big 50! I already have lots of plans including a trip to Hawaii (love island crafts!), a tattoo (still a little undecided on this), and a rocking island themed party with guests making fresh flower leis, sea themed glass bead bracelets, and woodburned key chains!

Do you have special things you do on birthdays?  I have a friend who decorates special cakes for friends on their birthdays, what a talent!  Kids parties are usually a blast so I think we should include that silly, carefree fun in our birthday parties through out our lives.  Getting older has its advantages including being a little smarter each year and also having a little extra dough for buying craft supplies!

I love to hear from you about birthdays!  Is there a birthday that stands out in you memories?  What birthdays should be milestones?  There is Sweet 16, Finally an official adult 21, everyone seems to remember 30, but what birthdays to you think deserve special recognition?  Does your family have a unique tradition done just for birthdays?  And I always love to see craft projects, so start commenting!