Homemade Christmas Gifts - One More Great Idea

Yesterday’s post was getting a little long so I thought I’d share this idea in a separate post. It is certainly a great enough idea to deserve its own space.

Along with the hand bound journals I gave my girlfriends soy wax candles in recycled jars. I came up with the idea of making my own candles a few months before Christmas. Sometime back in September I purchased several of these $1.99 candles from IKEA. For $1.99 they come in decent scents and the ugly label peels off cleanly. Once the candles were all used up I hated throwing away the perfectly good glass containers even though they were so cheap to replace. I’ve never made my own candles before so I headed off the A.C. Moore and bought a package of microwaveable soy wax, some wicks, and cinnamon essential oils. How hard could it be right? Well, it took a bit of trial and error. Turns out I bought the wrong type of wicks for soy wax (a pretty inexpensive mistake) and you should not try to microwave wax in a plastic container since you are attempting to get the wax to reach about 160 degrees. Lessons learned. Even with the wrong wicks and melted wax all over the inside of my microwave, my first attempt at candles making turned out fine. The candles melt pretty evenly and certainly smell like cinnamon.

I don’t know too many chicks who don’t like candles so I knew my friends would love to receive some as gifts. A few weeks before Christmas I started saving jars instead of tossing them in the recycling bin. If I had started collecting them earlier I might have ended up with jars that were about the same size but instead everyone ended up with a different sized candle. I’m sure they didn’t mind. I went online and started researching better candle making supplies. Once again I found these items at A.C. Moore to be a bit pricey. The initial package of wax that I bought at the craft store was 2 lbs. and probably cost me about $9. I was able to find a 10 lb. bag of soy wax or $18. At the same site I found the right kind of wicks and chose pomegranate sage as my scent since it sounded Christmassy. The only downside of buying supplies online is not being able to test the scents first so I was at the mercy of the online reviews.

With all supplies in hand it was just a matter of melting the wax (in a double boiler on the stove this time), adding my scent, and pouring (carefully) into the jars. Allow to cool overnight and add a pretty label. It’s amazing easy to make container candles (pillar candles are a whole other animal but I doubt I’ll be attempting that anytime soon). I have a crummy inkjet printer so instead of making my own labels, I used holiday stickers that I bought to use as package labels. I plan on investing in a decent printer soon so I can’t wait to design my own labels make a many more candles in the future.

Homemade Christmas Gifts

Now that Christmas is over I can finally share a few of the homemade gifts I handed out this year. Since the recipients of these gifts occasionally read this blog I had to keep my ideas a secret until after the holidays were over. Many family and friends received homemade gifts this year. Aside from setting a tighter shopping budget this year than usual (and almost sticking to it) I wanted to incorporate reused and recycled items into my gifts. Also, people seem to really appreciate the fact that you took time to make them a gift.

Aunts and uncles all received boxes of homemade cookies and chocolates. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of the wrapped boxes but they sure looked great. I bought dessert and candy boxes from the craft store so the gifts looked professionally packaged. Next year I will have to source out some better deals for the boxes because I think stores like A.C. Moore and Michael's are actually a little overpriced for these sort of things. Inside the boxes were sugar cookies that I sandwiched with raspberry preserves and Nutella (the Nutella filled cookies were outstanding, those are definitely getting made again) and what the New York Times calls "the perfect chocolate chip cookie". I don't know if I am qualified to judge the perfection of these cookies but they were pretty delicious. I think the real secret was the sprinkle of sea salt each cookie got before baking. The tiny taste of salt before biting into a chocolate chip was divine. Notice I say was, because they are already gone.

I made a few super easy chocolate candies to go along with the cookies. Peppermint bark is something I started making last year and will definitely be something I continue to make year after year because it so simple and everyone seems to enjoy it. All it takes is melting a layer of white chocolate on top of a layer of dark chocolate and sprinkling the top with a few smashed on candy canes. It's yummy and pretty. I also made Oreo truffles which are too easy for words and another item that garner rave reviews from family and friends. Open one package of Oreo cookies, dump in bowl, mash to smithereens, add one package of softened cream cheese, dip in melted chocolate to cover, let cool and enjoy.

In addition to edibles gifts, I made a few gifts for my closest girlfriends. I was inspired by a post from Design*Sponge with instructions on making journals from office paper that has been printed on one side. Since I find it painful to throw out paper that is still good on one side (GOOS) I always have a stack of it sitting on my desk. I won't give you a fully tutorial here because the the Design*Sponge post does a pretty good job but I will give you a sort explanation of how I put the journals together. The covers for my journals were actually not made of recycled materials. As I've mentioned my love for scrapbook paper in the past, I found yet another use for it. I purchased a package of beautiful papers (a box of 60 is so much more affordable than the individual sheets) and 9"x6" boards used for water color painting. I trimmed down the boards and adhered the paper to them with Elmer's glue (which probably wasn't the best option but it's all I had in the house and forgot to pick up spray glue at A.C. Moore). I choose a coordinating paper to cover the inside of the front and back covers as a nice decorative touch.

Here's just about all of the supplies it took to pull this project together. The original post recommend using a binding machine to hold the journals together but the only type I had access to was the one my office uses for reports which is really not that pretty. Instead I read a few short tutorials on hand binding (words made it sound more confusing than necessary, a short YouTube video made it all really clear) and decided to use a coptic stitch to bind the journals.

Here's a shot of the finished product with a close up of the binding. I am so proud of the finished product I will definitely be making more of these for myself. Hope the girls liked their gifts.

Holiday Decorating

I wanted to share this simple Christmas centerpiece I threw together this weekend. The weeks approaching this holiday season have been pretty crazy so I didn't have a lot of time to devote to decorating the home for Christmas. I still want our home to fell festive so I did a few easy things here and there to bring some sparkle to our space. I adorned a few shelves with glass cylinder vases full of silver ball ornaments. So easy but also very pretty. I also snagged a great idea from Real Simple magazine and took a cork message board, covered it with wrapping paper, and am using that to displaying Christmas cards friends and family send. And lastly, the coffee table was looking a little bare so I threw together this ridiculously easy centerpiece that would be great on a holiday table.

It's a long rectangular serving platter I bought recently at CB2 with some white and silver candles that were stashed away from last year. Add some silver ornaments from the dollar store and viola! Fabulous. And cheap, since I had everything but the ornaments this entire centerpiece cost $1. Can't beat that.

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Crafty DIY - Decorative Paper Covered Vases

Hey guys, sorry for the lapse in posting. It's really easy to get out of the blogging groove when holidays get in the way. One crazy week of cooking turns into two once you factor in a week of recovery but I'm back in the saddle again.

Today I've got a super easy diy project that may come in handy when decorating for the holidays. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, in addition to my day job as a scientist, I also cater parties with a few close friends. We don't just supply the meal, often clients request decorating services for their party as well. In the case of the most recent party much of the decorating focus was directed to the buffet tables (there was a "neighborhoods of new york city" theme so each table was decorated to represent the neighborhood the food was from) which left only a small budget for the individual tables. Since the party was November 1st and the room and tablecloths had a very warm fall feeling I wanted to carry that feeling to the centerpieces as well. Here's how I was able to accomplish that.

I've never had even the tiniest bit of interest in scrap booking but I have to admit that I often find myself drawn to those packages of assorted scrap book paper. I bought a pad full of beautiful fall patterned papers that I was able to incorporate into this project. I already own about a dozen of these simple cylinder vases that I've used for previous parties. If you don't already own something similar, I recommend heading over to save-on-crafts.com (if you've never heard of this site before today you will definitely thank me) and scoring a couple for about $3 a piece. So aside from the vases and the paper, the only other supply you need for this project is double stick tape. Double stick tape is my new best friend.

Here are the super simple project instructions. Measure and cut your decorative paper to match the height of the vase. The vases I used were 7" tall. Wrap the vase with the paper and adhere with double stick tape. I let the paper overlap about 1". Viola, here is the decorated vase. Pretty, no?

Then I stopped at one of the many bodega/flower shops that New York City has to offer and bought an assortment of really inexpensive mums. The berries in the arrangement are actually fake. I discovered if you wait until the week before Halloween all of the fall themed stuff at Micheal's is ridiculously marked down. I think these cost me about $2 a stem and I was able to cut the stems apart and use one in several arrangements. Total cost was about $5/centerpiece not including the cost of the vase since I already had them and they can be reused for another party.

While I was busy at the dining room table covering all of my vases with paper my boyfriend asked if I was making candle holders. No silly, but that is an excellent idea. So I took a few tea light holders that I had and covered those for myself.


I think they look pretty when lit and you can trust that I field tested them. The paper is safe, no fires I promise.

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