It’s holiday season – the sound of jingle bells, the nip of the frosty winter air, and the warm, invigorating scent of gingerbread – it’s a wonderful time of year.
It’s also really stressful.
DIY gifts are a great solution to help ease the stress of this well loved holiday. “What are DIY gifts?”, you might ask. DIY stands for do it yourself. The gifts are unique and handmade. They’re thoughtful, cute, and can also save you a lot of money. The best part is, many of these ideas are incredibly simple to do.
I found that many of the DIY gift ideas on the internet looked a little sketchy. This holiday season, I scoured the internet for a list of do it yourself gifts that look adorable and will definitely be treasured by your friends and family.There are plenty more gorgeous DIY gift tutorials out there, so I encourage you to go and look for more. Martha Stewart and the 36th AVENUE are great crafting websites.
Without further ado, I present to you my list of tutorials for some of the best handmade gifts of 2012. Enjoy!
Printed CandlesÂ
Turn boring, solid colour candles into classy-looking gifts! Perfect for so many occasions, and so easy.
Bread in a Bottle
Bread in a bottle. You can use mason jars as well. This is so simple, yet so effective. The idea of layering baking ingredients in a jar is definitely one of my favourites. There are so many variations you can do, both in the contents of the jar, and in the decorations. For more pictures, just google image search “mason jar cookies christmas”. They turn out so well.
Wrap It!
You can fill these little paper cones with small gifts(candy, popcorn, whatever you can think of) Â and give them to your friends! Great stocking stuffer.
Ombre Soaps
They look delicious and adorable. You can make so many different versions of this depending on the mould, colour, and scent of your soaps. Found on Soap Queen blog.
Sharpie Mugs
This one has been floating around on Pintrest for a while. I found the tutorial on abeautifulness.com. They made this awesome set of his+her mugs, but really you could do anything with this project.
As you can see, this is super simple. All you need are some sharpies in any colour, and a porcelain dish that you want to alter. You can find mugs at IKEA or the dollar store. Just draw whatever you want onto the mug, and bake it for 30 minutes at 350 degrees fahrenheit. Allow them to cool before you use or wash them, and then you have your own personalized mugs!
The creator of this tutorial tried these mugs out to see how well they would hold up against washing. Scrubbing them with a kitchen sponge and soap was fine, but once put in the dishwasher the design started to fade. So remember that these dishes will need to be hand wash only!Â
p.s. this is really easy, but it may not work out well for everyone. If you want a fool-proof method for altering your dishes, you should try  Pebeo markers.Â
Homemade Washi Tape
First of all, what is washi tape? In my own words, it’s super cool decorative tape – like masking tape, but pretty. It originated from Japan, as you may have guessed, and is made from paper. It’s perfect for anyone who likes crafting. For more on washi tape (and places you can buy it), click here.Â
You can buy double sided tape at Staples, and there is a huge assortment of decorative paper at Michaels! This tutorial is from niftythriftythings.com 🙂
tutorial
Mustache Cup Cozy
Okay, this one definitely wins “Most Cute Gift”. Who doesn’t love mustaches! What a wonderful project. Found on luvinthemommyhood.com
tutorial
Happy Holidays and best wishes for the new year! Thanks for reading.
Please comment if you tried any of these!
~Kathy
