DIY Christmas Gift Ideas

I always love homemade gifts.  I love making them and I love receiving them!  Right now I'm busy working on a special little gift for a special little two year old. 

Here are some of my favorite homemade gifts.  Links to each gift is below the picture. You have plenty enough time to make something homemade for Christmas!!  Get crafty!!

Family Memory Game

Fairy Garden

Block puzzles

Rainbow Peg People

Pretend Make Up

DIY Shapes Book

Can you guys tell that I love mini books???  

This is another little book I made mainly for my 20 month old son to take on our vacation trips, but my three year old has definitely enjoyed it as much, if not more than my son!!

All of the shape book printables are awesome and are from here.

Instead of using a binder, I just laminated my pages and used book binding rings (which can be found in the office section of Wal-mart for super cheap).

To keep all of the shapes together, I used a page protector I had on hand.  It's hard to tell in the photo below, but all the shapes fit nicely into the page protector and are easy enough for little hands to grab and pull out.

We love this book!  And like our Dress Up book, it's been a hit with car travel this summer!!

Let's Play Dress Up Travel Book

I wanted to share a sweet little dress up book that I made for my daughter to take on our travels this summer.

Anna is all about dress up and pretend play right now and this book is just perfect for her!

All of the little printables came from Babalisme and are just too cute!  I used some of the same printables in our DIY Quiet Time Book.

Here are the different "dolls" I included in our dress up book.

After I printed off all the dolls and accessories on card stock, I laminated everything and attached velcro dots to both the dolls and accessories so they could be "dressed up".

My daughter has truly enjoyed this little book!!  And it has been just perfect to take on vacations and car trips!!

Family Memory Game

This family memory game has been on my to-do list since I saw this post from Charla Anne.

It took a while to find all the right pictures, print them and cut them out, but the finished product is so seriously awesome.

My daughter loves playing this game and it's really neat to see all the pictures.  I bet it will be even cooler in a few years when my two kiddos are older.

It would be an awesome birthday or Christmas gift too!

Father's Day: Back Rub Road Map Shirt

I know Father's Day has come and gone, but I really wanted to share our special Father's Day gift!  It would make a great birthday present too!

I originally saw this idea on Pinterest and knew I wanted to make one for our Dada for Father's Day.  The kids and I had so much fun making the shirt and playing with it before we gave it to Dada.

It got a lot of use on Father's Day and I'm pretty sure my husband wasn't too disappointed with the "Daddy, will you lay down so I can play with your shirt" questions.

I pretty much followed the tutorial in the link above, but I used fabric paint pens rather than fabric paint and a paint brush.  The paint pens were soooo easy to use and the drying time was great!  I also let the kids color and draw all over the front of the shirt after the back was dry just to give it a little more "kid character".

Dada sure loved it! 

And so did the kids!

DIY Tabletop Art Easel

I saw this idea during one of my Pinterest browses and thought it was pretty genius.

My son and daughter love to paint.  Well....my daughter loves to paint.  My son loves to paint paper and eat paint....silly boy.

I put these two easels together while we were traveling at our Mimi and Poppy's house.  The kids had a great time using them and I even toted them home for use here!  

I didn't follow any sort of tutorial, but it's pretty easy to figure out.  Just cut off a part of a box and then loop the two ends together to make a triangle shape.  I taped the bottom two pieces together with scotch tape and they have held up great.

I added a little close pin to Sweet Girl's so she could easily change out her paper.  Little Man just gets a piece of tape.  That close pin would be waaaaay too distracting for him!  

I also keep our used egg cartons and recycle those as paint holders.  They work out perfectly and are easy for tiny hands to hold!

Happy painting!

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Momma Made - A Fairy Garden

As soon as I saw this fairy garden over at Lil Blue Boo I immediately jumped in my car and headed to the craft store.  I'm always on the lookout for fun DIY type of projects and I also am obsessed with anything "mini" so this was perfect for me, ahem...I mean Sweet Girl!

All of the mini fairy house are just painted $1 mini birdhouses you can find all over the craft stores.  Aside from the fabric for our play mat, the whole thing cost us about $7.  

Can't beat that for hours and hours of imaginative play!

My super sweet hubby helped me cut out all the little doors for the fairies (after lots and lots of nagging, begging and pleading).  I'm pretty sure my husband thinks I'm a hoarder and also no older than age five.  Oh well!

We painted wooden mini pots and put some fake flowers in each one to add to the garden feel.  For Tink's house, I added polka dots and stamped out her name on a piece of card stock.

I hand painted all of the little houses with acrylic paint and added different little things to each house (fabric roof, painted flowers, signs).

And what's a fairy garden without a toad stool table and chair set???

I saw this idea at Little Red Whimsy on etsy.....and figured I could make them quite easily!!

And when the fairies are all tired, they can rest their teeny tiny little heads on these super cute pillows and leaf beds. (Idea also from Little Red Whimsy .....I just sewed mine from my felt stash).

I sewed together a piece of fabric and piece of flannel to make a little play mat for all the fairies.

It was so fun to make and I, Sweet Girl has spent a lot of time playing with it!!  

Here are some other cool fairy garden I found during my "fairy obsession":

Chasing Cheerios Felt Fairyland

Pink and Green Mama Fairy Garden

The Magic Onions Fairy Garden

The Life of Jennifer Dawn Hat Box Fairy Village

What's on your "to-make" list??

Off to look for my next project!!

And in case you missed the weekend post....Playing House is now on Facebook!!  Come on over and join in the fun!!

Goodbye January, Hello February!

I can't believe January has already come and gone.  In addition to my personal goals for this year, I am also trying to set some monthly "objectives" for myself.  I love, love, love having a list of creative things to do and feel sort of lost if I don't have anything on my plate.  But I'm not locking myself into anything nor will I force myself to do something if I'm just not feeling it. 

My January "to-do" list consisted of:

DIY Love Wall Art

Finishing our 2010 and 2011 family albums

Organizing our art supplies

Re-learning how to knit

I managed to check everything off my list.  Yay me!!

And here is my February list...

DIY Stenciled Pillow

Knit a blanket...this will likely take me FOREVER to finish

Bake two loaves of bread (Cinnamon Pull Apart ,  Rosemary Olive Oil)
Make some sort of picture wall in our craft room (maybe this..)
Complete an indoor triathlon

So, here's to February!!

DIY Love Wall Art

I saw this during one of my many Pinterest puruses and really want to try to make my own.  I couldn't find all the letters I needed for my little saying at our craft store ( I wanted lowercase letters) so I used some of my alphabet stickers I had on hand instead.  They worked out fabulously!

I adhered my stickers onto the 12x12 canvas with some Mod Podge and then painted over the whole things with some white craft paint.  I'm loving how it looks in our kitchen!

DIY Thank You Cards

I searched and searched for photo thank you cards to send out after Little Man's birthday and Christmas but I just couldn't find any that I felt like were worth what they would cost.  I mean, it's just a card with a picture...  So I decided to make some instead.  Now they aren't as fancy as the ones found at online photo stores, but they are homemade and I love that. 

Not to mention that they were super simple to make and basically free (minus the postage, obviously).

I created a 3.5x5 file in Photoshop, layered our pictures on top of the file and printed.  Then I just rounded the corners and stamped "A note of thanks" using a stamp from my collection.  (I just love rounded corners....sigh)

Super simple, super cheap and super homemade.

Easy peasy!



DIY Wrapping Paper

Sweet Girl and I made wrapping paper today and it is so perfect for wrapping little gifts!

Here's what you need if you want to make some too:
Glossy white wrapping paper (finger paint paper works great too!)

Christmas cookie cutters

Red and green paint

I poured the red and green paint into two different plates so the colors wouldn't run together.

Then Sweet Girl dipped the cookie cutters into the paint and pressed them onto the paper.

(Can you tell she hates to get her fingers dirty???)

She stamped all the different cookie cutters over our paper and we ended up with some pretty wrapping paper!

Guess it's time to get wrapping!!