Holiday Ornaments – Personalize Your Gifts

I love making my own ornaments to use on packages and boxes of cookies that I share each holiday season.  This year I was looking for a new idea and I decided that these little glitter deer were the perfect answer.

I found a couple deer patterns and morphed them into a deer figure that I liked.  Then I drew and cut out my template, traced them onto a  thin piece of 1/4” Luan plywood, and had hubby cut them out on his jigsaw.  After he cut them out I took back over.  I painted them white, sprinkled a multi-colored gold, white and silver glitter on top, and I finished them off with cute little gingham bows and hangers.

If you make these ornaments and don’t want to share, I can relate!  Just go ahead and decorate your tree with them.

Are you gearing up for the holidays?  What is your favorite thing to do to prepare for them?  Are you most happy shopping, baking, decorating your house, crafting, or none of the above.

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Making Gifts to Give

Yes, it’s almost that time of year, and yes, they have already started playing holiday music in the stores.  I prefer to skip the chaos in the stores this time of year, and spend my time in my craft room and kitchen instead. 

Personal and homemade gifts are perfect for just about anyone on your list, but they are especially nice for the teachers, bus drivers, neighbors, co-workers, hairdressers, mail persons, and the paper boys on your list.

I picked up these plastic containers at a dollar store – 3 for $1.00.  With a little scrapbooking paper, embellishments, and a rubber stamp, I made these cute little paper bows and gift tags to decorate them with.  Very inexpensive to make, yet bright and festive.

And of course you need to fill the little boxes, so I  found a perfect recipe for that too.  I made these Chocolate Peanut Butter Crisp Bars from a recipe in the Kraft Food & Family Holiday 2006 Magazine.  I will be sharing the recipe with you in a later post, so make sure you don’t miss it.

The secret to making your own gifts to give, is giving yourself enough time to make them.  Start your projects now so that you won’t be overwhelmed trying to do it at the last minute. 

Do you like to shop till ya drop, or do you like spending time making your own gifts to give?  Or, do you like to do a little of both?