Tuesday, December 31, 2013

A DIY Christmas

This year, I decided to give my family homemade gifts! 

1. Sugar Scrubs
The first and easiest project I tackled was homemade sugar scrub. This one is super simple and easy to customize. All you need is sugar (white or brown depending on the scent you use, oil (olive oil works fine but you can get fancy and use any massage or skin oils), and essential oils for the scent. The scents I used were eucalyptus, peppermint, warm vanilla, cinnamon cran-apple, lemon, and coconut lime. I put them in cute little jars and tied a ribbon around them. They were a hit and smelled wonderful!


2. Wine Bottle Candles
This one turned out to be a bit trickier than I expected. The Pinterest way of cutting the bottle by wrapping an acetone soaked string around the bottle, light it on fire, and dip in ice water, did not work. After several attempts, I gave in and bought a bottle cutter at Hobby Lobby. It made it a lot easier. Once I got the hang of it, it turned out to be a lot of fun. You score the bottle with the wine cutter, and alternate dipping the bottle in boiling water and ice water. It breaks off on its own. I then measured and cut the wicks, melted the wax, added the scent (I used cucumber melon because it's my favorite candle scent) and poured the candles. They smelled delicious. I added cute yarn pom poms and they were done! Look how cute! 


3. Artsy Coffee Mugs
This one was quick and easy as well. I bought a bunch of plain white dollar store mugs, a few sharpies, and started drawing. I did a bunch of different geometric designs, flowers, and polka dots. Set the oven to 350 and bake for 30 minutes. Once cooled, I sprayed them with acrylic spray just to make sure the design didn't wear of. They turned out super cute. 


4. Coasters
I made two different sets of coasters. One was made out of wine corks. I cut the corks to relatively the same size, mod podged them to felt, and added a layer of mod podge to the top. The trick is to make sure the corks were glued tight together and all about the same size. After a trial run, I finally got the hang of it. I added a strip of felt around the sides and filled in the gaps with more mod podge. 


The other set I made were beer carton coasters. I bought a few square tiles, cut the carton to size, and mod podge it to the top and felt to the bottom. I didn't get a change to snap a picture before I wrapped them but I made them with Newcastle cartons. 


5. iPad/Cookbook Stand
The final DIY project I worked on was an iPad stand. This one was very satisfying when I was finished. I bought a finished wood board a bit bigger than iPad that had carved edges, some wooden pieces that were the width of the board, and hinge, and a few decorative piece. I glued two of the long pieces on the front bottom to form a ledge to hold the book or iPad. I glued a few more pieces together to make the stand and screwed on the hinge. I tied the stand off with a piece of ribbon and secured the ribbon with screws. I painted it gray then added white crackle paint and sanded it to give it an aged look. I was very proud of it when I was finished. 




Well, those were all of my gifts to every one. Everyone seemed to like them! Maybe, I will make more next year. 

Thanks for reading!
Burgundy

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