DIY Christmas Gift Ideas

Alrighty MOPS of West Salem, this one is for you! Are you ready for some gift ideas? I've got just a few...  These are all gifts I've made in years past... The first one we have is an ornament. Pretty simple, all you need are: 

• some pretty balls (sorry, I'm a 12 year old girl and just giggled a little)
• some foam stickers (I chose glittery red ones)
• Glitter glue
• Glitter
• Fancy (or not) ribbon

 Use your stickers to write out the name of the recipient on the ornament, make some fancy (or not) shapes with your glue and pour the glitter over the top (make sure you have something under it to catch all the extra glitter, or you might be cleaning up glitter for many moons). And when it's all dry, add your ribbon!

 Another fun project is to take some old frames, fancy them up, and add your kids' photos. Always a winner for grandparents. You will need:

• Frames
• Mod Podge
• Old magazines
• Scissors
• Pictures of your kids

So first things first, sit and go through your magazines and cut out anything that fits your kid. In Tatum's case (my little on the far left) she LOVES pink, so I just started cutting out chunks of pink. As I was going, I would keep each kids name in mind and cut out letters as well as cute little sayings.

 No start mod podging. There's no rhyme or reason to it. No right or wrong way. As long as the paper wraps around to the back and covers the sides, you're good to go.

 Here's a project for the quilter, or even the NON-quilter. I made one for my mom and one for my husband's mom and I've never made any more quilts. TOO much work for this tired Mama. Again, you don't have to use a quilt, you can just use a blanket that you buy from the store. The key to the gift is the foot prints. No one can resist a cute little baby footprint!

 You can use extra fabric, scrap fabric, an old sheet, really any fabric. The hardest part of this project is getting your kid's feet covered in paint and getting them to put their feet nicely on the fabric. Do many takes. If you do enough, you're bound to find some prints that actually look like feet and NOT blobs. I found the easiest way to do this is to have your kid sit in your lap on the floor (laminate, or otherwise washable) and do multiples of one foot. Wash. Repeat.

After your footprints dry, cut them out and iron them onto fusible wonder under. This stuff is awesome and everyone should ALWAYS have it on hand. If you follow the directions, it fuses to the bottom of your footprints, you peel away the paper backing, place them where you want on your blanket, iron them again, and they fuse to your blanket. It's THAT simple. Love it. I also like the hand sewn look, so I went ahead and used some embroidery floss and stitched around each footprint. A little time consuming, but worth the effort.

These went over so well, every time I have a kid that starts walking I have to snatch the quilt from the grandparents' houses, add a child's footprints, rewrap and regift for Christmas!

 Speaking of little kid footprints. This was a pretty simple gift for my husband. I bought a cheap tee at Walmart, used some white paint and did my daughter's footprint and my son's handprint. I added a little "rad dad" and $5 later, done.

 Another alternative to the rad dad shirt, was the dress shirt. I literally had one child use their feet and walk all over the side of the shirt, waited for it to dry, then had the 2nd child do the same with a color only slightly darker. Made for a cool effect, and you can only tell they're footprints if you look really closely for toes!

My kids LOVE to paint. Abstract art is still art right? So no matter the age, give your kids a canvas and a paint brush. If you're super anal like me, you can give them one color at a time and let it dry in between. Right before Tatum was born, Spencer painted a canvas for himself and one for his new baby sister. Right before Lucy was born, Tatum got to paint one for her baby sister... This is hers:

One last gift project is the ever popular pretty magnet. Very simple. All you need is:

• Mod podge
• Pretty paper OR wee photo of your child or someone equally important
• Scissors
• Self Adhesive magnet

Mod podge your glass piece onto the top of the paper. Let dry. Cut around the edges. Add a self adhesive magnet to the back and you're done!

Make multiple ones from the same or different paper and put in a pretty gift box!