Another Gift Idea

So I'm a little late showing you another piece of the gift baskets!

These are wonderful gift ideas, all alone... for people in your life that you want to give a little something to, but just aren't sure what... this is perfect!

They are hand scrubs!

Have you been to Origins or Bath and Body and used their hand scrubs? 

Dan and I LOVE them!!

These will be going to girlfriends.. a couple of the gals at Starbucks that are always so kind to me.. and a few relatives.

I used these tutorials - Lemon Hand Scrub & Brown Sugar and Vanilla Body scrub

I used these wonderful print out labels and hand wrote in instructions and such...

I used old jelly jars, small jelly canning jars etc that i picked up at the thrift shop...

and tied them with bakers twine and old tiny souvenir spoons that i had laying around from the shop and crafting. Cute right?? :D

 I don't know how I get anything done around here with jokesters like this following me around.... LOL

 He's like - MOM take the picture!! See? It's like the jar has bunny ears!! bahahahaha!!!

Yah. crackin himself up! LOL what a goofball!

Tomorrow i am going to show you one more thing! AND show you what i recently won and am in love with !!! wooohoo!!!!

Have a great day!

I am off to sew! (for the first time in... 2 weeks?!)

What a great day!

We're tired! :)

Happy and tired!

We had the most gorgeous weather we could have asked for, after several weeks of VERY cold cold cold, did i mention cold?  (-9* - w/o windchill!) 

Today was beautiful! I'm guessing high 40's or low 50's even.

We wore ourselves out for three hours, starving afterward went over to chili's and woofed on some great food... and then it was home for a couple hours of guitar hero together!

(yes, i'm proud to say i can actually hold my own in that game! lol)

All in all a perfect day!

Hope your Sunday was just as perfect!

xo

Bren

ps... hoping i don't scare ya'll with pics of me with no makeup!!!  ugh definitely looking my age without it! :(

Advent "Calendar"

Hello friends!

I am soo excited, I just got these done this afternoon!

I have been wanting to make a swag like this for years, but just never got around to it in the seasonal rush. This year, I said no more! I am going to take the time to do some of these things that are important to me! 

So I did! And i LOVE them!! 

And because I couldn't see worth a darn on my little (mini) laptop screen which pics were which while i was trying to upload - they are all mixed up! Sorry! 

And yes, since it's already the 4th and i didn't get this done by the 28th of november, i decided to just start on the fourth this year! LOL

But of course i did make the others as well for the coming years. 

Soo excited!

Had so much fun filling them with family activities and scripture! 

And today's activity is put up the Christmas tree and decorate... so I'm off! 

'Tis time for my elf self to take over for the next month! :)

And since we just got a gob of snow, and i got this made, and started on my gifts, i am now mentally where I should be!

Yay!

May you all be abundantly blessed this Christmas Season!!

xo

Bren

Starting on Christmas gifts...

Hi!

So this year I am way behind on making my Christmas gifts! How bout you?

Last year I made everyone quilts - and worked on them all year. This year... I just couldn't settle on anything. So I started scouring the web for ideas, and came across some great tutorials that helped me decide what I am going to do!

I have several women in my life that I like to gift to at Christmas, so it seemed fitting to make kitchen oriented baskets this year.  Here is the start of what will be going in the baskets.

Oven mitts made to their kitchen colors, with matching potholders.

 I used this tutorial for the mitts.  And changed it up a little bit, as the thumbs were just gigantic, as were the hand part, so i made them a little smaller to fit women's hands :)

I also added a loop on the side with snaps.  I don't know about you, but I never have a convenient place to put an oven mitt! And great... they all have loops... but i have no place to hang them! If only I could hang them on my oven door....

So by adding the snap closure to the loop and inside cuff, you can hang them on your oven and just pop them off when you need to use them, and then they will be out of your way when you aren't using them!

(please disregard my horrible sewing job on this one - it was my first and will consequently be staying with me, since i discovered so many things along the way! lol)

 Little tip if you go to make these: I used home dec weight fabric. Great for this purpose! But add the heavier fabric + insul brite+cotton batting+ lining for each side... it is THICK!

And word to the wise, when you quilt that kind of thickness the only bendability you are going to get is whichever direction you quilted! 

This one i did vertical lines.... um... yah... no bendy! :D

and the pot holder i did diagonal lines... care to guess which way it wants to fold when grabbing a pot?

Sooo... the next few sets I made I quilted horizontally - and voila they work great! LOL

Still have 3 more sets to make, but now that I know what I'm doing, it will go fast!

Next item in the basket will be home made vanilla!

mmmmmm!!!

yep, getting a late start these won't be ready to use until about feburary!

But I will be putting homemade labels on the bottles, and little hang tags that say "I'll be ready to use on this day"   - Here's what they look like right now...

Not very attractive yet. LOL

But they WILL BE!

I followed this fantastic and easy tutorial here.

And yes... that is a little mini cheap wine holder! hee hee... they were the only bottles I could find that would work! So hey... got a few glasses of (actually not too bad) wine in the process! :)

If you're interested in making some great vanilla follow the link!

I got my beans HERE.  Great prices, great fast delivery!

I'll give you a sneak peek to the rest of the goodies in a day or so!

xo

Bren