DIY Handmade Gifts

This year I did a lot of homemade gifts. My friend Ashley asked me to be a guest blogger and show some of them on her blog. It was really exciting to actually be the guest blogger this time. It was my very first guest appearance and it was really sweet of Ash to ask me. I thought I would share it also here too.

This year, I made my niece her own coloring book. I took pictures of all her family members (including extended) and took it into Photoshop to turn the photos into coloring pages. I just sent it off, so I'm not sure how she likes it yet, but my kids loved it. They thought it was so much fun being able to color their family members. You can get the how to from Photojojo at this link. Also, if you want to do this but don't have Photoshop you can also do at the Crayola website. A few tips if you use Photoshop: use the burn tool to help darken the edges and use the brush tool to create better outlines. I bought a cover for it but I was originally planning on making a cover for it. You can find the tutorial from Angry Chicken here.

This is a page from the coloring book of my adorable niece.

Since I'm always making accessories for Chloe, Elijah gets left out sometimes. To compensate, I make him ties. He loves them. He picked out some fabric and I'm making him some for Christmas. He also loves bow ties. I also made a few bow ties for my nephew this year. For babies I always attach elastic instead of a clip since they normally try to pull at them. This is something my sister in law can do (and has done) but I loved the fabric he chose. For the tie tutorial I used these two tutorials: Purlbee and Sharing the Wealth and for the bow tie I used this link from Prudent Baby.

Chloe loves backpacks right now and I thought I would make her one for Christmas. I looked at this tutorial from Prudent Baby for the drawstring backpack. I haven't finished it but this is the look I'm going for:

* this is from Goodies

I'm always making headbands for Chloe, or flower clips, and I made her this one for Thanksgiving. These make great gifts though and are easy to make and less than $1 to make. I used the tutorial from Mary Jane and Galoshes.

If you're not into sewing try this tutorial from 'A Girl and A Glue Gun' for a car mat. You can see her boy and girl versions. I haven't started this one yet (I might wait for his birthday in February). I thought this was cute and affordable. I also wanted to try a Batman theme since Elijah is really into Batman right now.

If you remember my earlier post that I did for Jed's Christmas gift, here it is. He loves it! He loves getting to open one each day and one of the things he liked the most were outings for him and the kids. He also likes the notes that I have attached to each day. Elijah also loves this. He is so excited to give it to Jed and even gets excited about the date ideas. He wants to come with us. 

Since I'm also really into baking and I'm loving the mason jar gift ideas right now, I thought these were a cute ideas. I found a bunch on Tip Junkie and Under the Table and Dreaming. I thought these would be really cute to give to neighbors, friends, co workers or for the people I visit teach. Another cute idea is to give hot chocolate with a dessert tasting spoon for a stirrer. My husband's co worker gave us one and it reminded me of these dessert tasting spoons that I once saw. It's such a cute idea and easy and affordable to do.

*image from Tip Junkie

*image from shutterstock

I hope these help you with your own Christmas projects. Merry Christmas!

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