Creative Mom Cafe

There are some people in my family who love flowers. They love gardening and growing flowers, but during the cold winter months there isn’t much gardening to be done. So one of my favorite gifts to give is flowers that can be grown indoors and brighten up the cold months.

But you’re not just giving flowers. You are also giving them the flower pots. You can be as creative as you want to be painting and decorating flower pots for your flowers to grow in. Use large pots for bigger plants. Paint, glue on, and create unigue designs that make the pots stand out.

Some people love hanging baskets in thir homes for flowers and plants. Taking string, fishing line, or thin wire you can hang beads, shells, or anything else from. One great isea is to hang small metal discs from the bottom of the hanging basket. Then as the weather warms up the basket can be hung outside on a porch or patio and double as a wind chime.

For cooks you can give several small pots with herbs plantd in them. Paint or glue on photos of the herbs planted and stencil in their names. Stencil a letter on each small pot to spell the name of the recipient for a special flower gift. You can even create a beautiful center piece by gluing several small pots around a larger one. Paint and decorate them all and plant with flowers. You can even let kids paint and decorate pots to give to grandparents and other family members.

Of course you don’t have to give just pots. You can search through thrift shops and garage sales for interesting pots and containers that you can decorate as well.

flowers, flowerpots, 30 Gifts in 30 Days

After my craft the other day of making purses from recycled plastic shopping bags I wanted to share another recycling gift idea. Using up items you already have on hand is a great way to recycle and bring someone a smile.

Most parents have a small collection of those small, baby food jars. The tiny glass jars with tin lids can be reused in a though sand different ways. These are perfect for storing tihngs, for decorations, and for fun gifts. Here are a few ideas you can use to crate holiday gifts this year and clear out your old jars.

• Use the small jars as decorative candle holders. Tie ribbon or string around the jars. I have used small, clear glass rocks and glued them around the jars. Add a small tea light candle in the center and you have a perfect decorative gift.
• Create a storage unit with them. If you know someone who has a lot of small pieces, such as nails or beads, you can create a simple storage unit for them. All you need is a large board, a hammer, and nails. Nail the lids of the jars onto the board. Use strong nails so that they will stay in place. You can then fill the jars with what ever pieces and screw them into the lids. Use paint to decorate the board however you wish.
• Turn the jars into mini snowglobes. This is one project that my oldst loved doing last year. Use small figures, beads, or whatevr you want to create a personal snowglobe. Fill with water and screw the lid on tight. Add a few drops of superglue to make sure that the lid stays on.

baby food jars, recycled gifts, 30 Gifts in 30 Days

Is there a blooming writer in your life? Someone that you want to give the perfect gift to, a gift that will help develope those writing talents into something grand? Well I have the perfect idea. A writing prompt journal!

Remember my post about making a picture book for younger children? Well we are going to build on this. There is a great video at the end on how to make your own book. You can use this same method to create a personal journal. This will also work for the artist in your life, as you can create a one of a kind sketchbook that they can use to get their thoughts down on paper. And because you are making the book yourself you can create the cover that you feel suits their personality. Use scrapbook paper, glitter, ribbons, pictures cut from magazines, stencling, anything that you want. Design the cover to fit the recipient. You can even use your left over supplies and create a matching bookmark they can use with their book.

Once you have the book completed you need a list of prompts to give along with it. I created one of these books a couple yars ago for a friend. I choose 52 prompts, printed them on a sheet of paper, and cut them into strips. The strips were then curled on a pencil and placed inside a small glass jar. I decorated the lid of the jar with the same paper and ribbon as I used on the cover of the book and added a beautiful new pen. You can do the same, or print a prompt on each page itself. Decorate around the individual prompts then leave the rest of the page blank for writing or drawing.

You can find a ton of great prompt ideas at Creative Writing Prompts, Writers Digest, and this simple prompt generator. For sketch book ideas there is a group called Daily Drawing that has artistic prompts you can use.

book, journal, make a book, 30 Gifts in 30 Days

Sometimes you have that one family member that you just do not know what to get them for the holidays. This can be especially hard if you are trying to make your own gifts. They don’t want a quilt, or a scarf, or anything crafty. So what can you make them? That’s when I whip up a bath of cookies! Place them on a decorative plate, wrap them in cellophane and tie with a bow. It is an instant hit! Here are a few of my favorite treat recipes that you can give as a homemade gift this year.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup butter or margarine
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375° F. Mix flour, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Add sugar, brown sugar, eggs, vanilla and butter. With an electric mixer at medium speed, beat until smooth, about 1 minute. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop dough in tablespoon sized balls on an ungreased cookie pan. Bake chocolate chip cookies at 375°F for 10 to 12 minutes, or until browned.

This recipe makes 6 dozen cookies, so you will have plenty to go around.

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I’ll admit it, I’m a purse collector. While the common stereotype about women is that we have hundreds of pairs of shoes I survive quite well on just 3 or 4 pair. But when it comes to bags and purses, I just can’t get enough. As a mom I always have something that I need to carry with me, so carrying a fun and funky bag that shows off my personality really does it for me.

There are so many ways to create purses and bags that you can give as gifts this year. But have you ever thought of making one out of plastic bags? No, I’m not joking! Go on and click the link. You will see the cutest tote bag ever. And it was crocheted out of common plastic shoipping bags. The kind that many people have dozen of stuffed somewhere in their home.

I haven’t crocheted in years, but I am thinking about pulling out the hooks to try this soon! Using recycled material is a great way to go green and make a one of a kind gift to give. Of course you don’t have to just make a tote bag. There is an entire collection of patterns you can make from plastic bags. If you are not sure where to start you can begin reading here, where making the plastic bag “yarn” is explained.

I’ve mostly been posting gifts that adults can make and give this holiday season. But that’s not really fair. Kids can make some great gifts too, ones that many people would love to get. I know my mother would likely hang up anything my sons made and consider it artwork better than anything made before. Doing crafts with your kids is a fun way to gt some presents taken care of and sharing all the fun of creatiing with them.

A favorite craft project around here is making salt dough. It is simple, inexpensive, and you can make whatever your heart desires. Plus there is painting involved, which automatically makes my oldest son happy.

All you need is salt, flour, and water to make the dough. The recipe varies depending on where you look for it. There are several different recipes to choose from, I suggest experimenting and finding which one works best for you.

The dough tends to be a bit like Play Doh, which makes it perfect for shaping and molding. Create whatever you and your children want. Animals, people, designs, the possibilities are endless. Once you have what you want you then bake the pieces in your oven. Here are some tips on baking your salt dough pieces. You have to be careful as you don’t want to burn the figures or over cook them so that they crack or break. Once you have you baked (and cooled) dough pieces them you can lt your kids go wild with the paints. It sometimes takes several coats to get the colors to look right, but painting and repainting can be a lot of fun. Once the paint is dry you should add two or three coats of a clear varnish to protect the piece.

You can make Christmas tree ornaments by shaping a small loop to the top of the pieces and threading ribbons through once they are dry and painted. Or create a wall plaque by adding wire to the back of the clay before drying it. Instant holiday present!

Books you should find:

• Salt Dough
• Dough Folk Art: How To Make Beautiful & Lasting Objects From Flour, Salt & Water
• The Magic of Salt Dough

salt dough, kids crafts, 30 Gifts in 30 Days

If you have young children in your life you probably know how much they enjoy looking at picture books. You can easily put together a personal picture book just for them to enjoy. All you need is a good camera and you are ready to go!

There are online photo site such as Snapfish that print your digital photos for you as well as make special gifts with your photos. You can use their services to put together and order a special picture book full of people and things that your little one would love. Family members, favorite toys, important places, and even pets all make great subjects for photos.
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If you read my personal quilt post you saw the idea to use old t-shirts to make one of a kind quilts. But what to do once you have raided someone’s shirt stash? Why not try making them a new warddrobe?

Screen printing is a fun and simple way to add your own designs to shirts, pants, bags, and just about anything else. And it does not have to cost you a fortune! Here is my favorite cheap and easy tutorial on screen printing. This lays out what you will need and how to do it. If you want a more professional screenprint here is a fun video that shows you how also.

Screenprinting is a huge trend right now. There are hundreds of people selling screenprinted goods on Etsy right now. You can buy screenprinting kits that have everythign you need to start screenprinting your designs right now and get in on the fun, as well as make some great holiday gifts to give.

screenprinting, clothes, 30 Gifts in 30 Days

Today’s gift idea is one that I love to make for myself almost as much as I love making for others. Creating your own lotions, soaps, and beauty products is fun, creative, and always good to have on hand. I use the book Organic Body Care Recipes to get recipes from, though there are many more books out there that are full of recipes for making your own beauty treats to give. One place to start at is Make Your Own Cosmetics.

Here is a simple recipe that anyone would love to get as a stocking stuffer.

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Vanilla Velvet Honey Lip Balm

• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 tablespoon soybean or almond base oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoon beeswax
• 5 drops vanilla essential oil

In a small saucepan over low heat or in a double broiler, warm oil, honey, and beeswax, until the wax is just melted.

Remove from heat, add the essential oil, and stir to blend. Set the pan in a shallow ice water bath. Using a whisk or spoon, stir rapidly to 30 to 60 seconds until the honey is incorporated and the formula is like thick peanut butter. It will be a pale yellow-brown color.

Spoon mixture into storage containers and cap. Let the mixture sit for 2 hours.

No refridgeration is equired, but for maximum freshness use within 1 year. Store this balm in small plastic or glass jars or in tins.
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You can see three more great recipes for handmade beauty products here. There is a facial cleaner, a pH restorer, and a facial mask. All three would be perfect put together into a gift basket to give.

Making beauty products from home is a creative endeavor that many women are picking up. Even if you do not want to amke them yourself you can still buy homemade this holiday season. You can find soaps, lotions, and other beauty products for sale that are all made at home.

beauty products, homemade, lip balm, 30 Gifts in 30 Days

Scrapbooking is a fun craft that many people enjoy. I started scrapbooking when my first son was a newborn and I’ve been hooked ever since. It is a fun way to spruce up photos, tell a story, and let your creative side come through. It is also a great gift idea for this holiday season.

Putting together a special scrapbook to give as a gift can be a great way to share memories. If you have a child going off to college, a friend moving far away, or just a family member you do not get to see often you can share pieces of your life with them. Sift through your old photos and find the ones that really capture special moments. They do not have to be posed, in fact the best photos are spontanious and fun. You can also give someone a scrapbook that you put together to remember a special moment in their life. Use photos you have of thir wedding or of their children. Any moment that you think they would enjoy looking back on you can scrapbook.

If you do not have the photos to use you can still put together a fun scrapbook. Create the pages as you normally would but leave the places for the photos blank. You might include small tags that say “place photo here” and let them put in their own favorite pictures. Be as creative as you want to be! You do not have to stick with a specific theme. You can just create fun pages and let the receiver decide what photos they want to use.

A few tips for putting together perfect scrapbook pages:

• Map them out first. It helps you to have a ready made plan before getting to the cutting and glueing part.
• Lay out what you want to use and gt a look at it first. What might sem like a good match in your mind’s eye may not be so impressive in real life.
• Get inspired! Do a seach for scrapbooking on Flickr to see what great pages other people have made. If you see something you take take it and run with it.
• Have fun!

scrapbooking, photos, gifts, 30 Gifts in 30 Days

I’ve mentioned before that I love knitting. Even though I’m still fairly new at it, I’ve really ejoyed getting into it and trying to make new things. As it turns out, knitting is also a great gift idea. If you can knit you can create almost any gift for anyone, and it doesn’t take much. Yarn, needles, a pattern, and time is all you need to put together the perfect gift.

Beginnings of a scarf.

I have a warm hat and scarf knitted up for my youngest son, and now I’m trying to make a special scarf for my nephew to wear this winter. But you don’t have to stop at just scarves. There are tons of free patterns available on the web. You can make anything from sweaters to toys. And what I love is that it does not matter whether you are a beginner (like me) or an experienced knitter (like Barbara here), you can find something that you can make and give as a great gift.

If you are feeling really generous and think your knitting skills are up to par you might concider knitting a little poppet or two for the Softies for Mirabel drive. They need the softies by November 20th, so it would be a rush order for any slow knitters out there. But it is for a great cause. You could make a knit teddy bear, a rabbit, a robot, or a monkey. There are dozens of great free patterns out there. Just search for “free knit toy patterns” and see what inspires you!

knitting, toys, Softies for Mirabel

Jewelry can be a beautiful and thoughtful gift for many people. It can also be a great creative gift idea that you can make yourself. All you need are supplies and your imagination to put together beautiful pieces that are perfect for giving. I know that at last two people on my list are getting handmade earrings and necklaces this year.

Depending on what you are making you will need wire cutters, needle nose pliers, beads or jewels, and the specific jewelry supplies such as earring hooks or necklace and bracelet clasps. You can often find the supplies sold at crafts supply stores. You can also buy them online from small vendors on Etsy or Ebay. You can also find kits for beginners that have all the supplies already put together.

If you only plan on making one or two things buying the large sets might not be best for you. There is a much cheaper way to go. Head down to your local thrift shop. You can often find old, mismatched jewelry that can be carefully taken apart and restrung to create new pieces. Just be sure to carefully clean the thrifted jewelry before working with it.

If you are really talented or motivated enough to learn you can take it beyond simple jewelry. You might even find a new hobby to enjoy. If you want to get inspired check out some of the gorgeous necklaces my friend Sara makes and sells.

jewelry, beads, jewelry making, 30 Gifts in 30 Days

Almost everyone knows at least one person who loves candles. Whether they enjoy them scented, designed, or both candles can be fun for decorating your home. So why not try to make some? I know, some of you are probably sad that you were unable to win the craft books I gave away, which included a candle making book. But to make you feel better I am going to share a simple way to make funky candles you can give.

When I was in college my roommate and I would make candles late at night to give to our friends. They were very basic, inexpensive, and almost too easy to make. You need a double broiler to melt the wax, however we used a clean empty tin can that we sat in the middle of a small pot of water. Put it over fire to heat the water, add the wax to the can making sure to keep it upright and not spilled into the water and wait for it to melt. Often our wax came from the remains of old candles that were melted down to stubs. We would carefully remove the last of the wicks and break the wax into smaller pieces that melted easier. For dye we used the colors already in the candle pieces or added small bits of broken crayons to white wax. Scents came from a few drops of essential oils that we already had and wicks were found rather cheap at a local craft supply shop. It was fun, exciting, and gave us a creative outlet for cheap.

Of course you may want to be a bit more professional in your candle making endeavors. You can find a great set of instructions that show you how to do it the right way at Let’s Make Candles. From the basics to the wax you will find great info on making your own candles. You can also find a step by step tutorial here that will guide you through the candle making process.

You can also go over and say hello to Shelly, the new writer at Wax and Bubbles, who promises to share everything she knows on making your own candles. Who knows, you might become so excited making candles it turns into a fun project selling candles.

candles, making candles, gift ideas, 30 Gifts in 30 Days

Who doesn’t love snuggling up under a warm quilt? Even better is if the quilt is made just for you! Creating a personalized quilt is a perfect gift idea, and one that can be fairly inexpensive too.

If you have a music lover who has a dozen or so concert and band shirts, or a sports junkie that collects shirts for his favorite teams you can turn them into a one of a kind t-shirt quilt. This can be a great way to use what you already have and turn them into a unique gift that the recipient is sure to love. You can find several free patterns and how to guides online. A few of my favorite ones are here, here, and here.

If you do not have old t-shirts to cut up or do not want to make a shirt quilt you can still make a fun and personalized quilt. Choose a favorite color and create a quilt that you know they will love. If you are handy with embroidery you can add their name or a special message to give the quilt the perfect touch. You can find thousands of free quilt patterns online to fit any size or shape of quilt you want to make. And you do not have to spend a fortune to make a grat quilt ither. Use fabric from thrift shops, or remains sold in the clearence section of your local craft store. You can even make a warm quilt from old flannel shirts found at your local thrift shop.

Putting together a one of a kind quilt is a wonderful creative gift idea that almost anyone can make. From the simplest quilts to the most complex there are patterns for everyone and every style. And if you start now you might even be done in time for Christmas.

quilting, quilts, t-shirt quilt, 30 Gifts in 30 Days, gift ideas, holidays

Are you ready for 30 Gifts in 30 Days? I hope so because here it is! I have been really working my brain to come up with 30 great gift ideas that are creative and fun. I know that not all of us are talented so I am trying to make this a healthy mixture of easy and complicated ideas. We all know how hard it can be to shop for everyone, especially when the prices keep going up, up, up. Hopefully you will be able to find some great ideas that you can do this holiday season.

I thought I would start off with a gift anyone can make: the gift basket. Trust me this is the simplest gift to put togther and the most personalized. All you need is a basket and an idea of what the recipient loves. Line the basket with dishtowels and fill with kitchen gadgts for the chef in your family or line it with some great scraps of material and lots of sewing goodies for the crafter in your house. The possibilites are endless.

Here is how you can put one together on the fly. First you need a great basket. You can often find dozens of baskets at thrift shops. for a few cents you can find any size, style, or shape that you might want. Next you need to fill it. A coffee lover might like a collection of sample packets, the family photographer might enjoy some rolls of film and fancy picture frames, you can even put togther a kid’s basket with small toys and games. You do not have to spend a ton of money as long as you keep the items in line with what the recipient would love. Lastly decorate the basket to give it that finishing touch. Add ribbons, a bow, maybe even a balloon tied on. All it takes is a little creativity and you can make it look like you spent hundreds of dollars on it.

~Don’t forget to stop by my give away and enter to win some fun craft books! ~

gifts, gift ideas, 30 gifts in 30 days, holidays