DIY Stocking Stuffers

So this Christmas I am super penny pinching and have saved a lot of money. I am also in charge of picking out things for my moms stocking. Now stocking stuffers can get expensive. Last year I set a budget of twenty dollars for stocking stuff and spent that and probably more. I tried not to think about it. Which is a bad idea. So this year I decided, hey I'm crafty. Why don't I just make all the stocking stuffers? And that is exactly what I'm doing. So after scouring the internet and Pinterest for ideas, I've picked out a handful of super easy and super cheap stocking stuffers to make. And today I am going to show you how to make two of them. Today I made DIY Garden Markers and I got the idea from Wit and Whistle. They are super duper easy to make. Took me 20 minutes or less to make them and I didn't spend any money on them. So here's how to do it:

Oh and I took all these pictures with my phone because I was too lazy to get the camera out so I apologize if some of them look like crap.

Supplies:
clay (you could use whatever kind you want. I just used some that I had. The tutorial that I followed used Polymer clay)
butter knife
letter stamps
rolling pin (or regular round glass for making them flat)

 So I started out with regular clay. I got this for Christmas like years ago. It doesn't really have any directions on it on how to treat the clay afterwards. It just says to let it air dry and that you can paint it so I'm just going to let it dry and hope for the best. I may look into sealing it later.

 

First, I took of a little hunk of the clay and just rolled it into about a 1 inch ball.

 

 

then I rolled the ball out into a little log and flattened it...

which I did by just rolling it out with a regular little round glass. which you could use a rolling pin. I didn't have one.

then I cut one of the sides of all of them with the back of a butter knife

then I took little letter stamps that I already had that I use for card making and scrapbooking and stamped them..

and now I'm just going to let them dry. Hopefully they will be done in time for Christmas!

The next DIY that I did today was a little Monthly Desk Caledar. It was also pretty simple. It did take me a couple of hours to make but again I didn't spend any money on it. I just used the supplies that I had.

So first I made all the individual months. I just used a little mini scrapbooking pad that I had so I didn't have to cut anything. This took the most time to do but just be creative and have fun with it...

 

Next I took a super old hole punch that I have and punched holes in the tops of all the months lining them up after I punched each month...oh and sorry this pic is super blurry.

Next for the stand, I took a shoe box and lined up my paper and cut out what I needed from the box and folded it into the shape that I wanted...

 

then I figured the fastest way to cover up the outside of the shoe box was a quick layer of paint...

 

 and by no means does it need to be perfect. No one should see the underside of the stand.

 

 after painting it I started the assembly. I just taped the stand to where I wanted it so that it would hold and then I punched holes in the top of the stand in the same place as I did on the paper. Then I threaded string through all of the pages and stand and viola!...

 

 and now you have a cute little personalized monthly calendar for your desk!

 Well I hope you enjoyed those two little crafts for today. I have a bunch more to do so stay tuned for more!

-Jaimee (: