Handmade Gifts (and other reasons I’m patting myself on the back right now)

So, I said I wouldn’t return to the regularly scheduled blogging for another two weeks (holidays are hard!), but I did want to do a little show-and-tell with some of the gifts I gave this year, particularly the handmade ones.

Oooohhhh………..

As you may remember, Josh and I made the (ambitious) commitment to making all of our Christmas gifts for family by hand.  We knew this would help us save money and create truly personalized gifts, but we also wanted to see if we were up to challenge!  You have already seen some of the gifts (via previous blog post), but I’m going to show them again anyway.  Because I can.

Here we go:

For my mother, I took a song that reminds us of each other (“You Are My Sunshine”), printed it out (it turned out to be three pages) and framed it in three black Ikea frames.  And then I proceeded to wrap it up, ship it off, and not take a darn picture.

(Insert tear-jerking picture here)

Oh well…

For my mother-in-law, I gave the beloved linen spray:

You remember that stuff I made here?  I gave it to her as a Christmas gift (along with a host of other bath/good smelling/candles-girly things).  I think this stuff is fun for any occasion, and definitely a great alternative to Febreze… or other sprays with ingredients that are more than five syllables long.

For my orange-wearin’, University of Tennessee supporting father, I gave him the string nail art of the state of Tennessee (check out the tutorial here).

After the warm fuzzies of successfully completing a crafty venture set in, I decided to do the same for my Georgia-born brother-in-law, this time making Atlanta the heart and point from which all of the strings “radiated.”  Not the winning-est pics, but that’s because I only remembered at the last minute that I should snap a few before giving it away.

Instead of buying a $10 pre-cut piece of wood from Michael’s like the last time, I decided to go with a wooden cutting board from the local dollar store (it wasn’t Dollar Tree, so the board was actually $3.99).  Then I sprayed it with a wood stain and painted the sides lime green (my fave detail).

The wooden cutting board came with its own hanger, and I let it remain, in hopes that my “utilitarian” brother-in-law will hang it on the walls of his spartan apartment (fingers crossed).

For my brother, we made a set of Scrabble magnets (heart-warming story found here… well, mildly heart-warming).

For Josh’s dad (my father-in-law), we decided to take advantage of a slightly long-term endeavor of mine.  Being a big fan of beer and an even bigger fan of preserving our planet, I have held onto to nearly all bottle caps whose removal I have been responsible for over the last year.  Other members of my family have been helpful in this endeavor as well (I didn’t really have to twist their arms).  At the time, I didn’t have a clear plan for said bottle caps, but I knew I would figure something out (I even have a Pinterest board devoted exclusively to this interest: check it out).

Well, I gave it the ol’ college try, and I came up with a fun art project:

I took a Ben Franklin quote (since then, I have learned that he may have not actually said this quote, but whatever), printed it off on regular printer paper, made a matte of hot-glue-gunned beer caps and stuck it in a shadow box (thanks again, Ikea).

In keeping with the beer cap theme, I decided to make some beer cap magnets for my sister-in-law’s boyfriend (who also came to visit us in NYC).  Then I liked them so much, I almost kept them… but Josh said no.  ”Oooookkaaaayyy, Jooosh…”

I took the beer caps and attached a small magnet with hot glue, but not before I added a spacer to fill the cavity of the beer cap.  And what did I make the spacer out of???  Champagne corks!  Turns out that a champagne cork fits perfectly inside a bottle cap, so after I glue the cork to the bottom of the cap, I used a serrated knife (and took my time) and sawed of the remaining part (and you’ll bet I used the rest for the other bottle caps).

See?

Two upcycling efforts in one!

For my sister-in-law’s gift, I re-used the same method from the previous post about tile coasters, but this time I used images from her favorite movie of all time, Nightmare Before Christmas (when asked whether she considers it more of a Christmas movie or a Halloween movie, she enthusiastically replies “It’s an ANYTIME movie!”).

Handmade Christmas Gifts?  Check!

Oh yeah, and of course the handmade gifty-ness extended to the gifts Josh and I gave each other!

But more on that tomorrow…

In the meantime, subscribe (duh) and check out these links to previous posts (you know, in case you’re wondering how I made some of this stuff).

Handy Dandy Links:

Tile Coasters

State Nail/String Art

Linen Spray (Febreze alternative)

Scrabble Magnets

Twelve Weeks of Christmas, Week 9: Homemade Linen Spray (Febreze alternative)

***To catch up on what you may have missed — the 8 other ”Weeks of Christmas” — go here.

Last year, I received a bottle of linen spray as a Christmas gift.  At first, I was dubious.  I mean, a gift like that reeks (get it!?) of just-something-else-I-don’t-need-that’s-going-to-take-up-space-that-I-don’t-have.  However… I soon changed my tune.

Linen spray is awesome!

If you’re like me, you love the effects of Febreze, but you dislike the smell (really, I sorta hate it).  And if you’re like me, you have a serious problem with allowing dogs on the furniture (I try to stop myself, really I do, but they’re just so darn cuddly…).  We-ell… Linen spray is a great solution.  I find myself using it weekly on the couch, the rug, and our bedding.  If we burn bacon or something and there’s a particularly strong smell in the apartment (because you know these NYC apartments don’t have exhaust fans or good ventilation), we follow up with a few sprays of the stuff.

So… when I was thinking of Christmas gift ideas this year, I wanted to sort of pay it forward with this great gift.  (I know, I know… the phrase “pay it forward” is usually reserved for loftier causes like charitable contributions, but I couldn’t think of a better way of describing it… and linen spray really is pretty awesome.)

When I looked up prices for linen sprays, specifically the amazing one that was given to me, I found they were a little more expensive than I expected/could afford.  So, I did the Google thing and found a few recipes, combined my favorite parts of each one, and I think I ended up with a pretty good mix (and it was made from things I already had at home so it was FREE!).

Here’s the finished product:

homemade linen spray

And here’s how you make it…

You’ll need:

• Water
• Isopropyl alcohol or vodka
• essential oils
• a spray bottle

1. Combine 1 part isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol or vodka to 5 parts water to a spray bottle.  I used an empty Bath and Body Works spray bottle, then removed the label (this took a little time and effort — about one episode of Pan Am – plus acetone, windex, and a lot of scraping).

Before:

Somewhere in between….

(I actually got all of the label off, but then I was so excited, I immediately slapped on the new label without taking another picture.)

2.  Add 20-40 drops of any essential oil (or more, depending on how strong you want it to be).  Essential oils are HIGHLY concentrated, so it really only takes a little, but the actual amount should be at your discretion based on the size of your spray bottle.  Here’s an eBay seller with really great pricing.  (It’s totally affordable when you consider how long one bottle could last.)  For my particular mix, I did about 20 drops of jasmine oil and 20 drops of eucalyptus oil (this is for an 8 oz.-bottle).

3.  Screw the lid back onto the spray bottle, and shake the contents.  This is to emulsify the oil and water, since they naturally separate.

4.  Make a label for the bottle, including pertinent info like “Shake before use.”  Print it off on adhesive paper and attach.

Here’s what my label looked like:

linen spray label

I love damask.

Here’s the document, in case you want to do something similar:  GPP linen spray label

Note:  When attaching the label, you may smudge the ink a bit. To get rid of these smudges, carefully erase them with a pencil eraser.

And here’s the finished product (again):

homemade linen spray

And a little bit closer…

Something that I didn’t note on my label, that may have been smart in retrospect:  The spray will initially give off an alcohol smell when you first spray it.  However, after a few seconds — once it evaporates — this smell is gone and the essential oil fragrance remains.

Now… because I had all of these things lying around my house, I was able to make this project for free.  However, if you don’t have any of these things, it would still be super affordable.  I searched each item and found at found at least one affordable source (listed below):

Spray bottle, Dollar Tree.  Here’s an 8 oz bottle and a 28 oz bottle.   $1

(I also remembered that Dollar Tree sells linen spray for $1 on their website.  However, I have actually used their stuff before and I found it to be very weak.)

Water, your faucet, free

Isopropyl alcohol, any drug store, $0.50-$2.00

Vodka (an alternative to the rubbing alcohol), can be found a variety of places.  Here’s a link to some pricing.  $1-$20

Essential oils, available a variety of places, including eBay, $3.00

Approximate Total: $6… more likely less.

Consider the oils an investment, as they will last a long time and could potentially create dozens of bottles of linen spray.

(And if  ”dozens of bottles of linen spray” seems a bit daunting, but you still want to be able use the oil beyond this project, here are some other great uses: here, here,  and here.)

I think this linen spray would be great as a teacher/neighbor gift.  Hope you found this tutorial helpful!

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Other handmade gift ideas:

Vinyl record bowls

Tile Coasters

DIY dry erase boards