I’m combining some days of the #12DaysofBlogmas. I’ll also be providing snippets of my book The Underachiever’s Guide to Perfect Holidays: over 300 pages of underachieving recipes and crafts priced at $2.99.
- Day 1: Holiday Bucket List — My Holiday Bucket List and for Bloggers
- Day 2: Printable — Printable Cards and Adult Coloring, chocolate bar wrappers, and more.
- Day 3: Gift Ideas — Ebook Gift Guide
- Day 4: Gift Ideas Part II — Crumpets General Gift Guide
- Day 5: Sweets and Treats — Chocolate Covered Coffee Beans
- Day 6: Christmas Kindness — I Suck and Look at the Love
- Day 7: Kid Friendly
- Day 8: DIY
- Day 9: Healthy Holidays — Disinfecting for the Underachiever
- Day 10: Christmas Fav’s
- Day 11: Christmas Traditions and/or Memories
- Day 12: Invite for the Ultimate Link-Up
- Giveaway
DIY Butter
(kid friendly, memories)
What I wanted to put in my book but didn’t was homemade butter. When I was a child, my mother would put some Heavy Whipping Cream and a dash of salt into a small Jelly Jar, seal it tight, and hand it to us kids. My sister and I took turns shaking it all day before a major Holiday dinner. As I got older, I got more creative with my butter adding things like honey.
Now that I’m a mother, I let my kids do this one year, except they were too young and unfocused to shake a jar all day, so I put the whipping cream and salt into a toy blender, and then I let it blend for a few hours.
The important thing is to keep the Whipping Cream in motion until it resembles butter.
Minnie Mouse Blender available at Toys R Us (and they aren’t paying me to say this).
Photo Candle
(DIY, Christmas Fav’s)
The photo candle craft was one of my favorites from my book, The Underachiever’s Guide to Perfect Holidays.
It’s really simple. Find a photo you want to transfer on your computer. Measure the width and height on the candle for the dimensions you want, and size your image accordingly. Take a piece of white tissue paper, and tape it to a sheet of paper. I wrapped mine around and taped to the back of the paper. Insert paper to printer making sure you have it facing the right direction (up or down depending on the printer). Print photo. Cut around the photo. Place on candle, and blow dry until it disappears into the candle. It helps to push a little and smear during this process, but be careful not to burn yourself.
Photo Tips: The best photos have no background so it’s not a block square. You can either remove the background in your graphic software or cut around. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just close enough.
You can find candles at Dollar Stores for bulk giving.
Painted Wine Glasses and Etched Glassware
(DIY, Christmas Fav’s)
The items in this image are all DIY projects from my book, The Underachiever’s Guide to Perfect Holidays. Today, I’m telling you how I did the wine glasses.
Just purchase some cheap glassware from The Dollar Tree or any store, and then get artsy with it.
Etching Pens can be found at most craft stores, and even my Dollar General carries one (though a little pricier than the craft store). Pat Catans is selling them for about $5. You push a button as you draw on glass, and it etches. I do store mine taken apart so nobody accidentally gets hurt. You can also buy etching chemicals to smear over a stencil, though those are pricier.
Gloss Enamels can be found in most craft stores, including Walmart, at about $2 to $3 a color. You want to make sure it’s designed for glassware, and it will have instructions on it about baking on the glass. You want this kind because the baking on the glass keeps it in tact during washings.
Permanent Markers are perfect for a thicker coat than Gloss Enamels; however, they don’t hold up as well when washing. This includes the ones that are advertised for glassware… Unless you bake it, it’s going to come off easy. The vinyl shapes also come off easy in washings. So these are perfect tools for things you won’t be washing frequently like Candles Holders and Vases.
You can freehand some designs. The Gloss Enamels go on clear, and with multiple coats will stand out better, but it’s still “see through.” That kind of gives you more freedom to not be perfect with designs. Plop dots and lines anywhere. You can use painters tape to help make a straighter edge for stripes. You can also use stencils or make stencils with your computer.
For darker colors with the gloss enamels, apply a first coat (be generous with the paint). Allow to dry for at least 5 minutes though most places tell you to wait an hour, but the important thing is that it’s mostly dry because if it’s still damp at all, you’ll get the dry erase effect (where you draw with a dry erase marker, and then if you draw over that, it erases, and kills the flow of the strokes). Then apply a second coat. Repeat.
Don’t forget to check out my book.
This has been part of the 12 Days of Blogmas.
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Crumpets and Bollocks 