Diy Chocolate Pop It Fidget Toy Candy

Check out my new video on YouTube on how to make this fidget chocolate!

Inexpensive Gift Ideas For Christmas

Trying to stretch your Christmas budget to include everyone can be quite stressful. In fact, it’s the kind of thing that can distract you from focusing on the more positive aspects of the holiday season, and you deserve better than that.

With that thought in mind, why not take advantage of some inexpensive gift ideas for Christmas? First of all, you can start by looking for coupons to such shops as Kohls, which should be easily found on Discountrue or other helpful websites. It will allow you to save a great deal on the items you already know you're going to want, and leave you with more options. When you find the appropriate coupons the savings can be astronomical. And after that step, there a few other cheap X-Mas gift ideas you can consider.

Moving, deeply personal Christmas presents don't need be expensive. There is a plethora of ideas that keep go well with the fact that most of us have to work with a very tight budget, and as they're DIY your loved ones will surely appreciate the effort and thought you put into their gift. If you’re stuck without knowing what to give to some special person this holiday season, consider the following:

Personalized playlists/mixtapes: If you want to go old-school, why not make up a mix CD of music you know your friend or family member is going to love? There is also the option to create an entirely digital playlist for that special person, which makes it more modern.

Personalized coupon book: This is also a great idea for a cute Valentine’s Day gift. Make up a list of cheap-yet-sincere things you know someone you love is going to love in turn. Put all these ideas into a fun, distinctive “coupon book.” The receiver of this book can then redeem the coupons for anything from free backrubs to free dinners, or anything else you might have in mind!

Write a poem: Have a creative side that loves any opportunity to come out? Think about writing a personal poem to someone you care about. Really, you can apply this idea to any artistic endeavor you can possibly imagine. It's highly personal and all the love you put into it cannot be underappreciated!

Make cookies: This doesn’t sound very exciting, but trust us, it can be a wonderful holiday gift for someone who deserves the very best.  After all, who doesn't like to indulge in sweets from time to time? There are tons of creative, inexpensive recipes that you can turn into reality for someone. Think about what she or he likes best and surprise the person in question with a treat they’re sure to love. You can try making these yummy sugar molasses cookies.

Handmade crafts:  Gifts such as a custom ornament or these easy paper dolls make great gifts for kids.

A real photo keepsake: This also is an old idea, but it’s still a goody. In a digital world, a physical photo keepsake can be absolutely delightful, reminding you of all the wonderful memories you share.

Woven Wooden Paper Ball Vase Fillers

I made these faux wooden ball vase fillers a while back.  All you have to do is print out wood grained paper.  I usually just find wood grain images from google images. Next time I would print on both sides so the white paper doesn't show through on the inside.  This is a cheap and easy thing to make that's fun for kids too.  You can weave it to make balls to throw around with them (depending on what you weave it from).  In Thailand they weave these balls out of Palm leaves to play with.

Below is a video tutorial on how to weave these wooden balls.  Part 1 of the tutorial shows how to braid a four strand braid (which is the basis of weaving the ball).  Part 2 of the video shows how to weave the ball.

Print out wood grain and cut into strips.  See video tutorial below for instructions.

Part 1: Four Strand Braid Tutorial
Part 2: Paper Ball Tutorial

I've made these balls for Christmas as ornaments also.  See my post here.

Building a Real Dollhouse

I've been building a dollhouse.  Not a premade easy assembly Costco dollhouse. This is a real dollhouse,  one where you have to paint every wall, stain the floors and shingle the roof.  I have to admit when I first saw this dollhouse online I was super excited.  Then when I received it and opened the box I felt overwhelmed.  The dollhouse sat in the corner of our room for months (8 months to be exact) before I opened the box again and decided that I had the confidence to build it.  The dollhouse had what felt like a million pieces all which needed to be primed, sanded, painted, assembled, sanded again, and touched up.  The interior needed to be wallpapered and all the moldings needed to be put together.  The floor sanded, stained, sanded again, cleaned off for a top coat.  This was a real serious dollhouse.  It was just as much work as my real house (except I couldn't hire a contractor to do the work).


Here is timelapse video of all the work.  It isn't a tutorial, but it will give you an idea of how much work goes into building this house, if you ever decided you want to build one.

Finished dollhouse.  I picked colors like the Disney movie "Up" house.

Each shingle needed to be hand cut to get the angle on the roof!

The house isn't furnished yet.  The current furniture is too small a scale for the house.

Purple room for my Avery who loves purple.

I still need to wallpaper one last room with the crazy angles.  I'm saving that for another day.

I got the dollhouse is from ConsumerCrafts.com.

How to Upcycle a Leather Belt

This is an old post that I wrote for Craftzine, but just in case you didn't get to view it I am posting it on my blog.

While cleaning out our closet to find items suitable for donation, my husband found a huge pile of old clothes that no longer fit us.  Experts say that after the age of twenty, the average person gains a pound a year.  By the foreboding stack of clothing that he managed to collect, I knew that we were no exception to the rule.  While bagging up our bounty, I noticed that my husband was donating some nice leather belts that could no longer accommodate his waistline.  I snatched up a couple of them, figuring that I could repurpose them for myself.  I just loved the worn leather look of them, but the belts were in need of a feminine touch.

Step 1:  Lay out the belt flat.  Using a utility knife and a ruler cut the belt into three strips lengthwise. The left strip should be one quarter of the width of the belt, middle strip is on half of width, and right strip is one quarter of width.  Cut the strips up until you reach the belt buckle (strips should still be attached to each other as well as buckle). To cut the leather, it is easier to score it slowly and go over several times.

Step 2:  Loop left strand over middle strand (figure a), then loop right strand over the left strand, under middle strand and then between the left most strand and middle strand (figure b), and tighten (figure c).

Step 3:  Loop right strand over middle strand (figure a), then loop left strand over the right strand, under middle strand and then between the right most strand and middle strand (figure b), and tighten (figure c).

Step 4: (Same as step 2) Loop left strand over middle strand (figure a), then loop right strand over the left strand, under middle strand and then between the left most strand and middle strand (figure b), and tighten (figure c).

Step 5: Continue with 2-4 (next step would be step 3), alternating the starting strand until there is not enough of the left or right strand to make a tight weave.  Turn the belt over.

Step 6:  Take the left strand and tuck it under the middle weaved part all the way up until strand is hidden.  Do the same for the right strand.

Step 7:  If the belt is too long, punch a new hole and cut the extra length of the belt.  You can also tuck in the extra belt length as seen in the diagram (the belt leather is actually going through two holes and looped back).