Santa's Belt Gift Jar

Want to create a really cute and inexpensive holiday gift? I made these little beauties for my sons' caregivers at daycare. They're made from empty Starbucks mocha glasses (cleaned and sanitized of course). I washed them in hot water to remove the label and the gunk that adhered it. Then I filled them with holiday chocolates (mini Hershey's bars).

To create the Santa Bottle, you'll need scissors, paper, a printer, a glue stick, clear tape, aluminum foil, thin cardboard (like a cereal box), ribbon, and construction paper (red, white and black).

Step 1: Trim out a strip of red construction paper. You'll want it to be about 2.25" wide by 8.5" long. Wrap this around your empty bottle and adhere with a strip of clear tape at the back (have the back of your bottle be the side where they've printed the use by date).

Step 2: Trim out a piece of white construction paper, approximately .5" wide by 2.25" tall. Using the glue stick, adhere it on top of the red band (vertically oriented).

Step 3: Trim out a strip of black construction paper, .5" wide by 8.5" long. Wrap this around the bottle, adhering it with a glue stick.

Step 4: Cut out a small, square piece of  thin cardboard. I used an empty cereal box that I cut up. My square was about 2 inches square. Cut out a smaller square inside the cardboard square. My smaller square is about .75" square. Then I wrapped the entire thing with aluminum foil, just like a Christmas present. I used a sharp exacto blade to trim out the inside to create that hole in the middle of the buckle.

Step 5: I printed out the "Ho Ho Ho" label that i created in photoshop and glued it onto the top of the lid with a gluestick. You can download the free printable HERE.

After that, I just tied a bit of red ribbon around the neck of the bottle and filled the bottles with the chocolates. Super easy and super cute!

Teacher or Caregiver Gifts

So I've been MIA. Suffice it to say that some things got crossed off my to-do list. December is always a hectic month, but I have missed posting. Hopefully now that things have calmed down a bit, I can post more. Yay! At any rate, here's one thing that I've been up to lately:

Caregiver gifts for my boys' counsellors at their daycare. One of his teachers is moving back to the states at the end of this week so I had to get them finished. I think that they turned out pretty cute if I do say so myself. They're made from the drink carrier thing (cardboard) that comes with the starbucks mochas that you can buy in any grocery store. I wrapped the box with some cute wrapping paper that I had on hand, stuffed it full of goodies (more on that later) and wrapped the whole thing in clear cellophane tied with some twine and a gift tag. Drake and Lincoln loved giving them to their teachers and I think the teachers loved receiving them.

Some of the goodies inside the basket include a snowman Hershey's bar, a giftcard, chocolates, and an empty mocha jar filled with popcorn kernels.

I also included a packet of popcorn seasoning. Mmm ranch popcorn...

I turned one of the empty Starbucks mocha bottles into a Santa jar and filled them with Hershey's holiday chocolates. They turned out too cute! Tutorial coming soon.

Another overall view of my fun caregiver baskets. I'm so glad that the teachers enjoyed them. I wanted them to know that I appreciate what they do day in, day out for my kiddoes.

Snowmen Hershey Bars

I'm in the process of creating a gift basket of sorts to give to all of Drake and Lincoln's preschool caregivers (I'll post it later once I have all the parts assembled). Anyway, one part of it is a Hershey's chocolate bar wrapped up like a snowman, which of course I totally stole from was inspired by a pin on pinterest.

Too cute, right? It's not exactly like the pin but I like my take on it. I think it would have looked even cuter if I had some black round brads for the mouth and eye dots, but alas the craft supplies in Germany are sorely lacking.

To create this incredibly simple snowman wrapped Hershey's bar, you'll need sheets of white paper (I used cheap printer paper), a pipe cleaner, clear tape, orange construction paper, glue, a black pen, three scrapbook brads and of course a Hershey's chocolate bar.

What You'll Do:
Cut a sheet of standard US paper into half, while holding it landscape orientation, cut top to bottom. Each sheet of paper will make two snowmen. Place your Hershey's bar on top of the piece of paper to get an idea of where the middle is. Once you have the middle, punch three brads into the paper right in the middle for the buttons. Then draw in two eyes up top and five dots for the mouth. You could conversely use small black round brads, but I had none. Cut a triangle from orange construction paper for the nose, and glue it onto the face. Lastly, wrap a pipecleaner "scarf" around the chocolate bar, meeting up the ends in the front just off-center. Let each end hang down to be the ends of the scarf and trim as necessary. That's it! Very easy and very cute.

DIY pretty patterned binder clips

Drake's starting preschool soon. It makes me incredibly happy and sad all at the same time. I don't know how he got so old so quickly. As part of a teacher gift, I created some pretty patterned binder clips for his teacher. They're really easy to make, but they're such a cute little accessory. Here's the final version:

I used an old map that I printed out from an image online. To make it "antique" I aged it a bit, which I'll explain later. You can use any scrapbook paper that you happen to have on hand of course.

Here's what you'll need:

Binder clips (as many as you'd like)

Scrapbook paper or printed images

Glue, I used quick set crazy glue

Sealer, I used Martha Stewart's decoupage glue and sealer

Tea bag or two

Here's what you'll do:

Step 1: Print out the images you'd like to use. Keep in mind that these binder clips are very small. The largest one that I had was 1.25" by .625" on each face. You'll need a strip about 1.25" wide by 1.75" tall to fit one of the largest binder clips. If you already have pre-printed scrapbook paper printed, you might just want to trim it down to size. You can hold the paper up next to the clip to get a good idea about the size that you'll need.

Step 2: Trim down the paper to fit your binder clip, making sure that the paper wraps all the way around the clip. Make sure that if you have any text that it's right side up (not upside down) when measuring it. Once you have the correct size, glue the piece of paper to the clip. Press firmly on the paper for a bit after adhering it to ensure a good seal. I suggest starting at the main face and working your way across the top and back down the backside when adhering the paper to the clip.

Step 3: Skip this step if you're just using standard old scrapbook paper and you don't want that aged look. But if you want to age your clips to give them an antique look, follow this step.

To age your clips, brew a cup of tea. Don't throw away the bag of tea, though. You'll want to squeeze out the excess water (leaving very little inside the bag) and rub the bag over your designs. Pass over the designs as many times as necessary (allowing them to dry between passes) to age the paper as much or as little as you'd like.

Step 4: Once you're happy with the "antiqueness" of your design, seal the entire clip with a couple coats of your sealer (again, I used Martha Stewart's Decoupage Glue and Sealer).

Let dry, put them in a cute drawstring pouch along with some other cute teacher essentials and you've got yourself one cute teacher gift.

Linking to: Todays Creative Blog