Merry Feet & Happy Toes (For Christmas and Chanukah)

With so many amazing people in my life, I can’t help but want to give a gift to each and everyone especially during the holidays! Between teachers, neighbors, friends, and that certain someone who just makes me smile, I like to give a little something that says you’ve left an imprint on my heart.

I love homemade gifts! I love making things from scratch and packing them up with special handmade gift tags! It satisfies the creative bug in me especially during a hectic time of the year.

I wanted to give something really special to the teachers this year. With three children now in full day school, the amount of teachers add up and purchasing something really special sometimes can become expensive. So I decided to make something special instead! Teachers are on their feet all day long, so I searched for a homemade foot soak recipe, created my own little tags and wrapped them pretty into a canning jar. We added cozy slip-on socks for the finishing touch! The Recipe for the foot soak is so simple and I altered it a bit but you can find it here.

Here is what you need but first figure out how many jars you’d like to fill and how large the jars will be. So easy to make big batches of this foot soak.

• 1 pint for large or 16 ounce Mason Jars. The size is up to you.
• Epsom Salt (I found that Walmart had the best price) I made about 12 large jars and 12 Small jars and used about 4, 3lb bags.
• Instant Dry Milk. ( I bought about 3 boxes at the supermarket)
• Chamomile Tea bags. I purchased 3 boxes with 20 bags.
• Lavender Essential oil ( or any scent you prefer)
• Ribbon
• Hole Puncher
• Decorative Scissor
• Holiday Scrap Booking Paper
• Printable Gift Tags
• Hanukah Gift Tags

I used equal parts of Epsom salt and Dried Milk. Added about 20 bags of Chamomile tea bags per Box of Dried milk/ bag of Epsom Salt. I used a little less amount of the Lavender oil that was recommended here. Using a large basin or Tupperware, I mixed all ingredients together and using a measuring cup I scooped mixture into the jars filling it to the top. Once they were filled, using the lids as a guide I traced circles onto decorative scrap paper cut them out and placed them onto the top of the lids and sealed jars tightly. You can print the tags straight onto a thick hard stock. I used a decorative scissor to cut out the tags, popped a hole through them and used bakery string/ribbon to tie the tags around the jars and tah-dah! Merry Feet!

These make great gifts all year round! Just create a new gift tag for each season.

We were on a hunt for a couple of quilts for the girls’ beds so we figured we’d head down to Barntique Village and see if we could find something there before paying full price at a department store. Well, it must have been my lucky day because one of the shops had just gotten a couple of quilts in which were pretty much in brand new condition and half the original price. We bought two sets! The woman at the shop was so sweet and of course we started talking. She was enjoying the girls and shared with them a bunch of bottle caps made by her grand daughter. The girls loved them! Not only did we walk out of there with two beautiful quilts but we were also inspired to go home and learn how to make our own bottle caps!

These little caps are so much fun! You can turn your crafty bottle caps into magnets, earrings, hairclips, pushpins,the possibilities are endless. But let me warn you, once you start it’s really hard to stop! We literally made about 50 bottle caps in like one day! There’s four of us so I guess that’s not as crazy as it sounds!

Along with some pretty scrap paper I also chose a couple of  family pictures that I love and printed those to use as well. These also make cute little gifts!

Here’s what you’ll need

Magazine clippings, scrapbook paper, photographs, newspaper, cereal box, or you can even create your own computerized images and print them out

Basic Elmer’s or Tacky glue

Epoxy Stickers for Bottle Cap Pendants, 1-Inch, Clear

Bottle Cap 50 Multi-Pack Bottle Caps

Martha Stewart Crafts Punch, 1-Inch Circle I wasn’t so crazy about this hole punch. But it was good for the price.

3/4  Inch Diameter Adhesive Magnets 54 count or backing of your choice: Clasp, hairclip, push pin etc.

Step 1:
Use your 1” hole punch to cut out circles to fit inside your bottle cap
Step 2:
Use a paintbrush to paint on Elmer’s or Tacky glue on the inside of the bottle caps. Place your circle cut out on top of the glue and press down.
Step 3:
I Placed a 1” Epoxy Sticker over the cutout to protect the image placed inside of the bottle cap. I liked the Epoxy sticker because its so quick and easy and I didn’t have to wait for it to dry. This was also easier for the kids to handle. You can also fill the inside of the cap to cover the photo or paper with Modge Podge Dimensional Magic. Simply fill the cap with the Dimensional glue and let dry for at least 24 hours.
Once your bottle caps are complete, using Gorilla glue or Tacky glue you can attach a little magnet, clasp or hair clip. You can even glue them onto a pushpin!

These make great little gifts!
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Since meeting my husband in 2001, one of my favorite Jewish traditions has been celebrating Sukkot.  I love the fall and this is such a beautiful way to celebrate and give thanks for the harvest even if you are not Jewish! This holiday is usually celebrated in September shortly  after Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. On Sukkot, Jewish people remember their ancestors who traveled for 40 years in the dessert by building a temporary shelter called a sukkah. Families decorate their sukkah with fruits and vegetables, gourdes, leaves, twigs.

The Jewish people are expected to spend as much time in the sukkah as possible, eating meals in there and sleeping as well. It is a mitzvah (good deed) to welcome people into your sukkah, as a way for the Jews to remember the way their ancestors Abraham and Sarah welcomed people into their tent.

For the past few years my husband has built a beautiful sukkah made out of wood (picture above was taken before we decorated it with gourdes. Not sure what happened to the after picture!) This year since he was away in Taiwan, I wanted to be able to honor the holiday by having the girls make their own mini versions of a sukkah. Granted, we can not fit inside to eat or sleep in it ourselves but its been great fun letting their little dolls and shopkin’s hang out and celebrate the harvest. There are so many ways to build a mini sukkah. I believe there are many guidelines that must be followed in the construction of a real sukkah, but I let the kids have fun with this. As long as they stuck to traditional materials, and understood the true use of a sukkah I gave them all creative freedom. You can use a shoe box, card board or purchase Styrofoam or use any pieces of scrap wood laying around to build the sukkahs structure. Go hunting for natural materials in your yard to help decorate the top and around your mini sukkah such as leaves, twigs, and acorns. I was also able to find little mini, super tiny, decorative pumpkins in the artificial flower section of Michael’s. You can use tiny gourdes if you can find any small enough! We also used colored paper to cut out little veggies and fruits. The kids absolutely loved creating their very own sukkahs!

Materials we used to build our sukkahs

• Shoe Box
• Acrylic paint (to paint the boxes)
• Colored paper to cut out fruits and vegetables
• Inexpensive artificial fall leaves and mini pumpkins from Michaels Craft store.
• glue dots or tape
• Twigs
• String
• Mini wooden bench and table from Michaels Craft store.

The possibilities are endless! Prepare your structure (sukkah) by painting or using craft paper to decorate the walls. You can leave them plain if you wish. Using glue dots and tape decorate the outer part of your sukkah with your collection of harvest, twigs etc. Add a little table or chairs inside your little sukkah. You can place mini play food on the table and prepare a yummy harvest feast for your little dolls. Happy Sukkot.