Practical and Creative Ideas for the Holiday Season

Featured Photo:

Kristin Phillips' Home made Christmas Card. 

Here are the creator's own words describing how she made this card: 

"I stamped the reindeer image (Stampin' Up) on plain white cardstock with Nearly Navy Ink. I cut out the image and mounted it onto silver cardstock (Bazzil Basics). I stamped the upper corner o fhte same image again with Versamark Ink, making sure to get the little flower motif. I then embossed the image with silver embossing powder. I cut out the little flower motif using a 3/4" square punch and placed it over the original blue images with dimensional adhesive. I put the whole thing on a folded piece of dark blue cardstock (Bazzill Basics).  The glittery snowflakes are buttons (Dress it up) with the shanks removed."

Do you have a home made Christmas card you'd like to share?  Email it to me with your name, details about how it was made, and what inspired you to make it.

I promised that in this post I would start a list of creative, family-oriented, and/or green Christmas gifts and ideas, so here it is.  Send me your ideas on how you plan to spend the holidays and I'll add them to my list!

1.  Make home made ornaments and bring the kids into the fun for a double benefit: family time + checking off some names on the Christmas list. Some specific ideas: applesauce/cinnamon ornaments (see previous post).  Use to decorate your tree, as gifts, or to tie to gifts as tags.
2. Make personalized stationery.  If you're really crafty, make your own folded note cards and stamp or otherwise embellish them.  You can also go simpler and add a pretty monogram or personalization with your computer.  Tie with leftover grosgrain or giftwrap ribbon and you have a great gift.  
3. Bake cookies and consider having a cookie exchange in the neighborhood or with family and friends. I like the neighborhood idea because it brings neighbors together during a festive season when people decorate their homes but it might be too cold to run into each other on the street regularly.  I'll have a separate post explaining the tradition. 
4. Bake cookies as gifts.  Home made cookies are a great treat at the holidays.  Have the kids help decorate them.  To gussy them up, be sure to make up pretty recipe cards.  You can also buy simple cardboard boxes at your craft store for a couple of dollars, paint them with craft paints, and put the cookies in them and tie them up with a bow.  You can even trace cookie cutter outlines on the box to hint at what's inside! Then you have a beautiful gift box that can be reused for another purpose.
5. Here's a great idea shared by Karen of Karen's Kitsch: buy cute shopping bags at stores (she saw some great ones at Ikea; a girlfriend of mine had the same idea and got some great ones at Trader Joe's) and use them as gift bags.  These bags are all the rage now at grocery stores, even at my local Hallmark!  So not only are you wrapping up a gift in an attractive fashion, you're giving the recipient a shopping bag for future use. How cool is that?  You can even find fabric bags in a variety of sizes at Oriental Trading in bulk.
6. Use newspaper as gift wrap.  The comics are a colorful and fun way to reuse, and then recycle, your newspaper.  It's practical, it's funky, and it's eco-friendly.
7. Have a clothing swap: find other Momz who are about your size and who have kidz who are either your kidz' size or one up/down.  Pull out the clothes that don't fit your kidz any more or those pieces that, let's face it, you bought and they just never wore.  Find things of your own that you bought without trying on and just didn't work; the shoes that turned out not to be as comfy on you as you thought; or things you might not have use for any more (such as business attire when you're working from home or in a less formal environment).  Have everyone over, make hot cocoa and offer some of your home made Christmas cookies, and go "shopping!"
8. Make things from scratch. Yes, I know, you want to smack me. Who has time, especially during the holidays?  But if you can set aside a Sunday afternoon you can probably knock out several entrees in large batches and freeze them in portions sized for your family.  You can also save money this way--processed, prepackaged food is more expensive than buying whole ingredients.  We pay for convenience with our wallets and our health.  Make your own cocoa instead of buying the boxes with the mystery ingredients: Hershey's has the recipe right on the can and it's nothing more than milk, cocoa, sugar and vanilla.  My kidz love it! 
9. If money's tight, make an agreement with the family that this year will truly be about the kids.  Skip the ties and the itchy sweaters for the adults and just do presents for the kids.  You'll save tons and have less "stuff" to clutter up your house.  Or, just do home made gifts that the kids had a hand in making.
10. Make shadow box picture frames.  You can make them yourself or buy them at a craft store.  One year I bought smallish shadow box frames on sale (my craft stores are perpetually offering 40% off a single item coupons).  I used scrapbooking paper for a mat, mounted a photo of my children at the beach and a seashell or two they had collected, and personalized by writing or printing out a related quote on vellum.  Voila! A grandparent gift.  This is an especially good idea if you have pictures from a special time your kids spent with their grandparents.

I'll be writing more ideas in the coming days.  Do you have great holiday ideas?  Send them and I'll include them here!