A Late Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Hello internet! So I've been super lazy and busy and my internet hasn't been wanting to work. So that's why I haven't posted anything. I did finish all of my Christmas DIY presents and everyone loved them. I had a great Christmas and New Year with my friends and family. I did have to work on Christmas day but I actually really enjoyed it for some reason.  So since I last updated a lot happened....I finished all of my moms stocking stuffers for Christmas. I made some great orange sugar scrub that she loves. It was super simple to make. Recipe from thesweetestoccasion.com. They made lemon but I decided to do orange instead. Here's all of her stocking stuffers...

I was happy with how everything turned out and she seemed to like everything (:

Then my bff's had an Ugly Sweater Christmas party. Here's my getup....

 

My last DIY that I did was a sign that I made for my brother and his wife for Christmas that they both loved...

DIY tutorial comes from  Wendy Sheaffer Photography. It's pretty simple and uses minimal materials. I took a couple pictures of my process but didn't get the whole thing and they were taken on my phone so I'm not gonna post them. I've made another sign like this before for my bff and her husband for their wedding gift. I used one of their engagement photos that I had taken for them and personalized it. They ended up loving it and really I don't think you can go wrong with using this process for gifts. I need to make one for myself now (:

And then Christmas came and it was great. I didn't take a lot of pictures just because I wanted to enjoy the time with my family and not worry about doing anything...

I think almost everything my mom got me was owl stuff. haha...

and then here's a pic from New Years Eve with my bestie Danielle. Didn't do anything too crazy for New Years. Just hung out with some friends.

 

That's it for today. Not sure how much I'll be posting from now on. Hopefully I will every week but we shall see. Have a good evening internet!

DIY Sharpie Mug and Coasters

So I meant to make this post last night but my internet connection decided it wasn't going to let me. Anyway.....I've been very busy this week. Crafting, shopping, decorating, wrapping....all the fun stuff.

So last year I had mentioned to my dad that this year I would like to get a real tree. We used to get them when I was little and I thought it would be fun to have one again this year after so many years of having a fake one. So I had planned on Sunday for us to go and get one, but alas the weather decided to ruin my plans and when I woke up on Sunday it was snowing. And my dad was convinced that we would just set up the old tree. But I was not having that. So I decided to go ahead and decorate without a tree and wait to see what would happen the rest of the day. But of course I had to improvise until we got a tree....

 then finally, it decided to stop snowing and I got my way!

 

 

 It's huge and beautiful and I couldn't be happier. Haha.

So this year I decided making sharpie mugs and putting little mug cake starter kits in them would be a fun gift to give to my friends. It's personal and it's cake. What more could you want. I've done several sharpie mugs before and have used the same tutorial for all of them. This one is from Scribbles from Emily and it's fairly simple and allows you to wash the mug in the dishwasher, which is great. Except I'm too afraid to wash them in the dishwasher because I don't want them to get ruined. Haha. But it at least lets you wash them without the sharpie getting ruined. So here's how I did it:

Materials:
Mug
Oil based Sharpies (very important. I bought mine individually from AC Moore for about 3 dollars each)
Print out or drawing of your choice
Lead pencil
scissors
tape
oven

So first I got a mug. I bought this one from Big Lots for I think a dollar and it's perfect for the Wicked theme I'm going for...

 

and the sharpies...

 then I just found the artwork that I wanted and printed them out in the right size for the mug and cut off the excess paper. You could also draw whatever you wanted too...

 then I took my lead pencil and colored the back of my image so that it would transfer onto the mug..

then I just taped the print out where I wanted it on the mug...

and then traced over it...

and this is what it looks like after...

 then I traced over it with my sharpie....

and ta-da!

 I did the other side of the mug also but it was a little more intricate than the letters. So then you need to let your sharpie dry on the mug for at least 24 hours. And don't let it fool you. It will seem dry in a couple minutes but wait because if you bake it now the sharpie will flake off later. I learned my lesson on that the first time because I'm super impatient about finishing things. So after you've let it dry the baking step comes in. So what you're going to do first it set your mug into the oven without turning it on...

 then set your oven to 350 degrees...

 

and let your mug warm up with the oven. And then when the oven is at the right temperature set your timer for 30 minutes and let it bake, then when time is up turn off the oven but leave the mug inside and open your oven door just a tad and let it cool down before taking it out. And then you're done!

I decided I wanted to add a little something extra with this gift and include a little mug starter kit with just the dry ingredients. The recipe comes from The Novice Chef and it is by far the best mug cake I've ever had. Seriously. And it's soooo easy it's ridiculous. So I just took a bag and added all the dry ingredients....

 and printed out instructions for making the cake and the rest of the ingredients that needs to be added. And that's it!

 Oh and here's the other two mugs that I'm making for my best friend and her husband...

So the next gift I made is another one for my moms stocking, and it's super simple. I just bought cork coasters from Walmart for around 4 dollars and took some masking tape and paint and went to town...

oh and don't forget to get your hands all messy with paint. I always manage to...

and here's some of my wrapping if anyone's interested. I love to use plain brown paper with bakers twine and some washi tape and got some awesome printable tags from Shanty 2 Chic.

 Oh! and update from last week on those cute little DIY garden tags that I made. They are completely dry and look great ;)

So that's it for this week! I've still got a good bit to do before Christmas comes! A couple more DIY's and lots of cookies to make and some partying to do! Heck yeah! Hope you enjoyed these DIY's for today!
-Jaimee (:

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 (:

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving Internet! This post will be short since I'm stuffed and lazy tonight. No DIY's this week again. BUT, I should have something for next week. We shall see. I made some awesome cupcakes yesterday that were a hit at dinner today. They're Apple Beer Cupcakes that are made with Angry Orchard beer which is my favorite. I got the recipe from Brown Sugar. It's fairly simple and the cupcakes turned out great...

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of taking pictures for one of my good friends and his little family...

Love them (:

and earlier this week I bought a little heatable owl! So cute!...

Oh and I already have my black friday shopping done. Did it online and got the same prices. No shipping cost. And I didn't even have to wait in line. HA!

Well internet, I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. Until next time...
-Jaimee (: