Tag Archives: gift

5 DIY Gifts That Kids Can Make

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Are you looking for fun, inexpensive gifts that your kids can make themselves? Look no further! These DIY gift ideas are exactly what you need. Not only does creating handmade gifts help cut costs, but it can increase brain activity in children and help develop creativity. Check out these five simple craft ideas that you can try with your kids. They’ll love sharing their designs with others!

5 DIY Crafts and Gifts

1.     Photos with a Custom Frame

Photos never go out of style and are always cherished. Start by choosing a special picture (perhaps one with your child and the gift recipient), then search for a blank frame of any material that you can fully customize!

For example, decorate a premade foam or wooden frame with beads, glitter glue, and other decorations, or create your own frames from popsicle sticks and other materials that each child can personalize.

These added embellishments help you and your child create a gift that’s specifically tailored to the recipient, whether that’s a parent, grandparent, or a friend from school. The best part? This idea is great for any holiday or special occasion. Make a heart photo frame for grandma for Valentine’s Day or a special Fall photo frame for Thanksgiving. The ideas are endless for this project, allowing your children to dig into their creative designs.

2.     Coasters

Cup coasters are an easy and inexpensive DIY gift for kids to make, and can be a nice option for a parent on Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. Use a corkboard if you want to paint only, or use wood if you would like to engrave and paint your coasters. Here are the steps you need to follow to create these easy DIY coasters:

  1. Using the mouth of a cup, create a circle on your corkboard. Cut the circle out.
  2. Use acrylic paint to decorate the tops of the coasters.
  3. Once the coasters are dry, spray or paint on a clear coat to help seal in your kids’ art designs.
  4. If you use circular wood pieces, carve your designs before completing steps 2 and 3.
Image URL: ​​https://unsplash.com/photos/ZUgVjh7PFhk

3.     Pincushions

Pincushions have been around for years. Share one with the seamstress in your family to add some homemade love to their crafting area. Make a pincushion out of quilt fabric scraps or old pieces of clothing. Here are five steps to making a pincushion:

  1. Use the mouth of a cup to draw your circles for easy measurement. Cut two pieces of fabric in circles, and place the front of the fabric pieces together.
  2. Sew the edges of the circles together, but leave an opening for the stuffing. Knot your string and cut it at the gap. Turn the fabric right side out.
  3. Stuff your cushion with polyester stuffing until it feels full. You don’t want needles going straight through the cushion because there isn’t enough stuffing.
  4. Sew the opening gap together.
  5. Add some decorations to your pincushion. You can add string from the center around the pincushion—like you are cutting it into pie slices—and add a button to the middle.

4.     Painted Wooden Plaques

Wood design plagues are a home decor trend without an end in sight. These easy-to-do paintings are great for children of any age. This project requires pieces of wood, paints, and fun design stencils.

These are beautiful decorations for your child’s room, play area, game room, or as a gift for a family member. Tape the stencils on the wooden base and allow the children to paint as they desire. When you complete the designs, you can add a layer of clear coating or leave the paint as-is on the wood.

5.     Flower Clocks

Give Grandma a new flower clock made by her little flower. This piece will brighten up the room, give something to help Grandma remember the kids as time goes by, and help the kids learn time while visiting Grandma.

  1. Buy a circular clock that Grandma can hang in her living room.
  2. Add half-circle petals to the outside of the hand clock at each main number.
  3. On the petals, write the number of minutes represented at that time. For example, number one would have a petal with :05, two would have :10, and so on.
  4. Add a stem and leaves to the bottom of the clock to create a floral look.
  5. Let the kids design the flower petals and color around the numbers. Cut different types of leaves to make them extra unique.
  6. When you visit Grandma, hang the clock for her!

Add Love to Your Gifts

Fun homemade crafts can spur memories that will last a lifetime, and these five gifts make excellent home decor items for anyone to enjoy! You can tailor each gift to the particular recipient, adding their favorite colors and designs to the project. These kid-made DIY gifts are an easy way to share love with friends and family members, so start crafting today!

Majestic Lavender & Chamomile Gift Basket

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This exceptional gift basket is a bit of all the luxuries you want for a relaxing experience – even with some goodies to boot. When I opened the box it was delivered in I was overwhelmed with the great smells of lavender and chamomile. It has lavender and chamomile hand soap, lavender and chamomile exfoliating body soap, botanic shea butter, lavender and chamomile botanic body butter, lavender and chamomile lotion, Hickory Farms earl grey tea, a body loofah, mocha chocolate chip mini crunch cookies, Cashew Rocca butter crunch toffee with cashews. This is such a great assortment to give to someone you appreciate or even a special couple for their honeymoon or anniversary. I love many of the products and am going to share some with family and friends to spread the joy.

I would like to remind you that I do a monthly free giveaway. You can enter by subscribing, liking a video or commenting on a video on my YouTube channel. You can also go to the blog URL’s below and subscribe, like posts and comment on posts. Each thing you do is yet another entry for the month they are given. The prize is for gift cards to places like Amazon, McD’s, Starbucks, Target, Walmart etc., variety of items I have reviewed, or any other item I really like and want to share with you.

BUY IT HERE: https://www.jetgiftbaskets.com/

Awesome Long-Distance Birthday Ideas

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It doesn’t matter if it’s your partner, sibling, parent, child, or simply your BFF, being separated by distance is always hard. It can make you very jealous of people who get to see each other all the time. But birthdays can be the toughest of all. You want to make them feel extra special and loved, but you are there.

Birthday Party in A Box

If you can’t be there in-person to throw a birthday party, send them one in a box. You can DIY this. It is a super fun surprise, complete with card, balloons, confetti, sweet treat, and a personal note from you.

Best of all, most of the work is done by you.

Make a Video

Record yourself singing or saying happy birthday. You can send it privately, or make a public declaration of those long-distance birthday wishes on Facebook or even YouTube.

You can also make a cute montage. There are a lot of sites that allow you to easily create a video montage from friends and family and make their birthday even more special.

Send a Smile-a-Day

Glass jar with colored notes with blur and toning

Sending someone you love a whole bunch of open when notes is a great idea. Notes are a long-distance relationship gift that keeps giving for weeks.

But if you want to take it up a level, and get crafty, fill a glass jar or tin with personal notes, and customize the colours, trim, and package it cute. It will be gorgeous and personal. You can’t go wrong with it.

Throw a Virtual Birthday Surprise Party

Use Skype or Facetime or any kind of app like that, to connect friends from different locations to host a virtual party.

Make it even more fun by a party horn, and a hat to all those included in on the birthday surprise.

Advent Calendar

You’re probably used to advent calendars for Christmas, but what about making one that counts down to a birthday. Whether beautifully handmade or store-bought and re-done there are some lovely designs ideas out there.

The hard part is getting it done and sending it a month in advance.

Send Balloons and Flowers

Get balloons filled with helium, find the perfect flowers arrangement, and put them in a large box. You need to find a company that can safely send flowers overseas, so they are still intact when the birthday person opens the box.

Unfortunately, latex balloons stay afloat for a very short time with helium, so perhaps try Mylar balloons if you are sending in the mail.

Take Them on an Online Shopping Spree

Everyone enjoys online shopping. You can use all the different sites and apps to surf the web with someone anywhere else in the world. Surf some fun shops together and have a great time.

Let them pick a fun gift, your treat.

Even if you don’t end up purchasing a lot of things, you will find lots of fun items to laugh about.

Map Art of a Special Place

The most meaningful gifts are usually personal, so whether you get crafty yourself or let a professional artisan handle it, a map of a place full of shared memories is a beautiful and creative way to say that you are thinking of them.

Telegram Them

Even though email is awesome, but once in a while, it’s fun to do things the old-fashioned way. When it comes to communication you can’t get much more old-fashioned than sending a telegram.

Telegram stop charges one flat rate to send a telegram anywhere in the world, so it won’t be expensive.

Send a Birthday Countdown

Send a whole week of envelopes or small boxes leading up to the big day.

Label each envelope or box with which day to open each one. Put in a fun note, memory, photo, or treat in each one up to their birthday.

Whatever you choose to do, sending long-distance birthday gifts to your loved ones will most definitely make them smile.

A Sentimental Scent

Neurologists say that smell is linked with memory more so than any of our other senses, so try and find a scent that reminds you of a place that you were at together. Gift the feeling of cuddling up at home together in the scientifically-proven best way possible.

A Ticket To Meet

When you’re in a long-distance relationship, time together is the best present you can gift. Travel to see each other is a must, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be a present too. Consider buying a ticket for the person to come and see you, or the other way around.

Use Happy Pictures

Remembering the good times you’ve had makes you happier. If you’ve got photos of the two of you having fun, why not pull some of these together to create a highlight reel of happy memories.

You can do this the old-fashioned way with photos and a glue-stick. Find the perfect photo album and make start putting it together.

If a photo book is not your thing, think about buying them an electronic photo frame and loading it up with happy pictures.

A Special Cut Out Card

Store-bought cards are so boring and not personal. Make your cut out the card and truly express your feelings to the person you are making it for. Make their day by sending them your very own handmade and beautiful card with a unique message from your heart. It is guaranteed that they will appreciate the effort you put in and they do not need to know how easy it was to make.

Because wooing them in real life isn’t an option it that moment, these are the things to offer makeshift dates, cuddles, and more to let your people know that they’re always on your mind. Some are mushy gifts and some are more on the practical side, depending on if you need to up the romance or simply make their life easier, but no matter what you send them, they will be thankful for it beyond words.

Chocolate Covered Strawberry Penguins

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Dip the top pointed tip and back of a strawberry with melted chocolate. Before chocolate sets add candy eyes and insert yellow M&M’s sideways into strawberry making sure the top part of the nose gets pushed into the melted chocolate. It will make sure the nose stays on. Leave the stem on which becomes the feet and also helps this guy stand up. If you want to remove the stem did the top (feet end) of the strawberry into melted chocolate and push down on wax paper. This will create a flat area for the strawberry to sit without falling over.

My Cluttered Life – Part 2

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I can’t tell you the number of items I find around the house that were purchased and either weren’t what I was looking for, didn’t fit just right, or just decided I really didn’t want anymore. They get put down with the intention to return.

Sometime attempts get made to do the return but where is the receipt? If I can’t find the receipt you get store credit and, well, I really want my money back. So it sits, in a pile, until its too late to return. Now what do I do with it? Sigh….

If it really can’t be used it either needs to go to the trash or in a container to be donated. It can be given to a friend or family member, as long as it goes out of your home. A big rule: No holding or storing items for others who do not live with you.

Lots of money is waited this way. I wonder if you took one popular store and added all the sales of product from that store that were never used and had had intention to be returned but ended up in a death pile in someones home would tally up to. Shivers…

So not much can be done for these items once they have been in your possession for a period of time but to donate, five away or trash. But, what can I do to prevent this from happening again in the future. Here is an approach I have developed to keep this from happening.

Get a zippered pouch and keep it in your car and get in habit of putting receipts in the zippered pouch so returns are easy. If you find you need to return something put the item back in the store bag with the receipt taped to the item so it does not get lost and put it in your car. Next time you go to that store or drive by that store do the return.

Make sure you regularly purge your zippered pouch of receipts after a certain time goes by when you can’t usually return, like 90 days, unless you need the receipt for a warranty.

Since I have got this habit it makers returns easy, it keeps a pile from developing and I have not once had to dig through the trash to find a receipt.