Homemade Gifts

If you ask my friends to describe me, "crafty" would not make the top of the list. This year, I decided that I wanted to make some of the Christmas gifts and for the third year I made our cards. Needless to say, due to my deficiencies, some projects took me longer than they would most, but I had a great time making them!

Karen and I made these notebooks and pens one day for teacher gifts. She was so kind not to laugh in my face at all my silly questions. By the end of the afternoon, Karen was finished with her gifts, but me, I had a long way to go. She learned to make the pens at the blog Stamping and Stuff, here is a link to the tutorial. But the jar, I am proud to say was my idea!
My cards were cased from Split Coast Stampers - that site completely overwhelms me! The lady's card I cased, has a blog called Fun to Stamp - she has a lot of great examples of different cards. She also has two great tutorials on how to make the perfect bows and knots.
Thanks to this early Christmas gift from my sweet husband (thanks again) we were able to make the following two items.
We made Ree's sugar cookie recipe. I loved the slight orange flavor and the egg wash made them not super sweet. Give them a try - delicious. The boys (& their dad), prefer plain sugar cookies, but they had a great time cutting out the shapes and painting them. So I kept some for myself and gave the rest as gifts.
Martha Stewart would be a little disappointed in my decorating effort, but I don't care, I had so much fun making them with my boys.
I co-lead a Bible study group, and we gave this Hot Cocoa gift set (recipes) to the ladies at our table. I had a great time making the gifts!
I think this was my favorite new recipe that I made over the holiday season! The popcorn is really easy to make and tastes yummy. I plan to make this every Christmas from now on.
So that is a tour of my homemade Christmas. I hope you make some of these recipes and enjoy the blogs I shared.