Christmas Gifts

Last year was the first time that I can ever remember MAKING gifts as an adult.  I was somewhat leery about it, but ended up LOVING IT!!!!  And everyone who got one of my hand made gifts loved them too!!  This year I am making more gifts than ever, scaling down and spending less.  I am ready to simplify and celebrate Advent and the true meaning of Christmas!!  I am ready to get more creative and make more gifts.  I recently posted a good stocking stuffer idea about making lip balm.  Another idea I heard this week was to buy a favorite children's book for your grandchild, neice, nephew, etc and record yourself reading the story so they can listen and follow along whenever they want!

Here is something I made for my son.  He is only 14 months and still too young for it, but I couldn't resist making if for him!  I will save it for his second birthday, but if you have toddler in your life who is the right age, this would make a great and inexpensive, adorable Christmas gift!

A hand made matching game!  I love it, it is SO cute!  Hubby drilled two holes in the back and I plan on hanging it on the wall in the nursery at some point when it is not 3:17am :)

 I found this frame at Ben Franklin over the summer on a huge sale and painted it blue to match the nursery.

 They also had these neat 12x12 metal sheets that fit perfectly inside the frame.  My awesome hubby attached it with some industrial strength silicone something or another.  He is a contractor :)

 Now to the fun part!!  I already had this really cute ABC paper with a different animal on every letter.

 I bought the matching set of chipboard so I had a thick duplicate of all of the animals.

 I Mod Podged them for added durability.

 And stuck magnets on the back of all of the animals.

 Now I have a super adorable magnetic matching game for my son to play and learn with when he gets a little older.  I didn't adhere the ABC paper to the sheet metal because the magnets hold it there just fine, and that way I can make him more matching games in the future.

I love the fat little elephant and frog!

 I cut ABC and 123 out of vinyl on my cricut and added them to the top and bottom of the frame.

I just finished this project tonight and I am sooooo proud of it.  It turned out really cute!!!!

Edited to add, now that it is not 3:17am I managed to get it hung in my son's turtle nursery.

 So happy I finally finished it and got it off of my scrapbooking desk!

 A super cheep Christmas gift.  I bought these metal re-usable drinking bottles at Wal-Mart for $1 each.  Then I grabbed my cricut vinyl and got to work cutting out words!!  On this one I wrote my little brother's name at an angle in a circle around the bottle and put a star at the end.  The one for my teenage brother is already wrapped, so sadly I can not show you, but I wrote his name in a straight line with Class of 2011 under it.  I used a silver water bottle and black vinyl.  I LOVE how it turned out and I think he will like it.  Great $1 gift!!!!

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