Month: December 2016

Homemade Holiday Gifts

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holiday-foot-soakimg_7287Merry 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.

foot-soak-jar

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 Tagsgift 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!

gifts

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

 

Eight Nights of Dreidels

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a-paper-dreidal dreidal paper-dreidal

I’m actually pretty excited that Hanukah will continue well after Christmas is over. Although the two holidays begin on the same night we still have 7 days of Hanukah left after the Christmas celebration is over. Being Catholic, Hanukah is still one of my favorite holidays to celebrate with my husband and children. This beautiful festival of lights, is a quiet, peaceful holiday, filled with candles burning bright and the aroma of sweet sufganiyot (also known as hanukkah donuts), cottage cheese latkas, potato latkas, delicious soups and of course yummy gelt.

One of my best friends from Kindergarten sent my girls this beautiful wooden advent calendar from KidKraft. The kids have been so excited each day to open one window and find a little surprise awaits them while counting down the days until Christmas. I wanted to find something as exciting for them to do for each night of Hanukah. I found this simple DIY Dreidel template from FamilyFun magazine. I simply printed it out, cut it and used it as a template to make 8 paper dreidels. I happen to have a large selection of srapbook paper and simply picked papers with blues and gold tones. I placed the template over the paper that I chose and traced the pattern onto it. I then cut it out and folded the tabs and taped all of the side’s together. My intention is to fill each one with a special surprise for each of the girls like a little trinket, or a note mentioning a special event we can do for the evening , or a hint to where their presents await them. I’m definitely filling one with gelt and requesting a night of spin the dreidel. Happy Hanukah!

The Holidays Are Here!

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Christmas WonderThe holidays are already here it seems. This is an exciting one for me! The girls are bigger and their excitement radiates throughout my home.  These lucky gals get to celebrate Hanukah and Christmas all on the same week! I’m trying hard to come up with fun crafts and projects for both holidays.