A Crafty Christmas

So I need to be better about posting...I'm on my computer enough, you would think I'd be better at writing on my blog. I have a few to catch up on, but I'll start with the fun I had with my Christmas gifts this year. I don't know if it was just that I got motivated earlier, or that I became addicted to Pinterest (probably both), but I had a great time making some DIY gifts this year.

Here they are below:

For my dad and brother: I've seen the last-name letters for awhile now, and always thought it would be fun to try. I had a great time finding the "letters" around South Tampa and using them on these plaques. ("Marcus" is my maiden name, for those of you who don't know). I was just going to frame them, but all the frames with 6 frames were too large and too expensive, so I found 2 wooden plaques for $6 each at Michaels, painted them with black paint, and then added the letters with Mod Podge. I love the way they turned out.

For my mom: This is a little difficult to see, but it is a vintage memory bracelet for my mom. I found pictures that would be signs of my mom's childhood. From left to right: our Dutch hometown (Holland, MI) festival "Tulip Time" is represented with a lady at a tulip farm, a tennis racquet (similar to the one my mom had) while she played tennis through high school, an old photo of downtown Holland, Holland's lighthouse, "Big Red", a photo of my mom's parents on the beach when they were newly-weds, Holland Christian School's logo (my mom's alma mater and where she now works), and a piece of vintage sheet music, "Blessed Assurance," one of my grandpa's favorite hymns (he passed away a year ago at Christmas). The pictures were printed on Shrinky Dink printer paper. I then hole punched the holes and baked them to harden and shrink. I then put the bracelet together with jewelry links.
For my sister-in-law: yarn knot headband. I saw this on pinterest. So easy and fun to make!

For my dad: license plate bird house. My dad loves bird houses and loves license plates, so I used a $3 birdhouse from Michaels, my old license plate, some paint and a rope to put this together. :)

For my father-in-law (sorry it's sideways): Hannah's handprints with this quote I found online, and framed.

For John and I: Every year I buy a new ornament for our tree. This year, I decided to make one. I used 3 plastic ABC blocks that I had laying around, painted them, printed a picture representative of each month of the year, decoupaged them on, attached with ribbon, and added a little charm at the bottom that says "2011 Memories" again used with Shrinky Dink paper.

The last one (pictures coming soon) was, believe it or not, a last-minute gift that I really had wanted to do for Hannah and only got to it right before Christmas. But I'm so glad I did it! A "Quiet Book" is what I've seen it called in places like Pinterest. I had one when I was little as well and absolutely loved it. Hannah has also really enjoyed it. One thing I'm planning on doing is putting a zipper all the way around the outside so the little pieces stop falling out and getting lost.