I did manage to make a few homemade gifts this Christmas. Nothing spectacular, but fun, simple projects. I made two homemade ornaments from an idea from Pinterest. I took a friend’s wedding invitation, cut it into strips and curled them inside a clear ornament. Very simple and very elegant. For one of them I also put some cuttings from my Christmas tree inside to help fill the space. Unfortunately, I didn’t photograph them. :/ Court/Lena, if you have a picture of yours, send it my way! Courtney posted some photos of hers:
Rice Heating Pads with Poem
Another project: Bath salts and Heating pads. With the use of some essential oils, I made some fabulous smelling gifts! I found some cute colored glass bottles with cork stoppers at Hobby Lobby for the bath salts and I compiled some recipes from the internet and came up with these:
Soothing Lavender Oatmeal Bath Salts 1 cup of EPSOM SALT ½ cup of SEA SALT ¾ cup of finely pulverized OATMEAL Several drops of LAVENDER ESSENTIAL OIL Muscle Soothing Bath Salts 2 cups of EPSOM SALT 5 drops EUCALYPTUS OIL 15 drops LAVENDER OIL Energizing Bath Salts 1 cup of EPSOM SALT ½ cup of SEA SALT 10 drops MINT OIL 5 drops ROSEMARY OILA friend also told me about an easy-to-make infinity scarf and t-shirt flower pin. I made one for my sister and sister-in-laws. I made three turquoise and two reddish/pink. You just dye a men’s 2x tshirt and cut/stretch it! I’ll include the link with instructions. http://rebekahgough.blogspot.com/2011/08/make-something-monday-ombre-infinity.html
Here are a couple of my final creations:
Probably my favorite thing to do this Christmas was making my own wrapping paper! I know it seems silly…to spend so much time and energy on something that will get ripped up and thrown away, but it really was fun! And I made some cute linoleum stamps that I will be able to use forever. I carved out two simple images, one of an elephant and one of a bird. I had a huge role of newsprint paper that Henry uses to draw with and my mom and I both had boxes of printmaking ink and rollers. I used red and green for the elephants and blue and white for the birds. Henry helped me roll out the ink in between stamping. It was actually a break-through moment for us because his “helping” actually helped! So it was a fun project. 
