A Gift a Day Gift Thirteen: Nativity Scene Christmas Ornaments

Making new Christmas decorations every year, and a lot of them, has become a tradition with my son in the house.  He is a mass of destruction toward our Christmas tree and ornaments every year, so it's been a constant search to find ornaments that will hold up to his abuse.  I have gotten to a point where I don't even mind it, really, as he loves Christmas ornaments and especially the tree so much.

One of the things that I've found survive the holidays around here is home made stuffed Christmas ornaments.  My son might steal them off the tree and play with them all over the house, and as a result I might be finding them in July in his toy box, but they do survive.  So, I keep my eye out for things I can make stuffed ornaments out of.

So, I figured that overstuffed Christmas ornaments for the tree was a great gift for my son this year.

I ran into a panel project at the used store early in the year that I thought, at the time, was Christmas ornaments (it was stapled together, so it was kind of hard to tell).  For 1.50 for the panel, I figured it was worth getting.

I went to cut out the ornaments, or what I assumed was ornaments, only to realize that the panel wasn't for ornaments but a 3D overstuffed nativity scene.  They had instructions for putting bases on the nativity pieces and using cardboard as stiffeners in the pieces, etc.

Well, with my son, who likes to slap things down, that would have ended in tears early, so I instead figured out a way to take the pieces, cut them and sew them carefully and now we have some nice, but very big in some cases (the Three Kings are really big) overstuffed ornaments for the tree.  I'll keep the tree up for a few extra days past Christmas this year to allow my son to enjoy the ornaments, but I know he'll like this gift a lot. 

These ornaments will also do double duty as I'm planning on doing some Godly play with my daughter to tell the story of the first Christmas and the ornaments will make good puppets and visual reinforcement.  It'll be a fun Christmas Day activity.

To make Christmas ornaments cheap?  Use felt, double stacked and draw some Christmas like  designs on it (you can also use cotton fabric,  I've made a lot of ornaments from a package of fat quarters when they go on sale cheap at Jo Ann Fabrics over the years).  With yellow I make star and bell shapes.  Green is great because you can just make at tall triangle put a rectangle on the bottom of it and voila you have a rustic Christmas tree. No worries if they don't come out straight.  That's the charm of rustic looking ornaments.  Just make sure you add a second line so you have your seam allowance around the ornament.  I usually cut out both parts of the ornaments at once (right sides together folks).  You can hand sew the ornaments or machine sew them, leave a little opening to turn them and then stuff them (don't have fiber fill?  Get creative.  I mean these are Christmas ornaments.  Fabric scraps down to confetti size can work as filling.  Laundry lint is a trick a friend told me about a while back.  Really even paper towels or scrap paper could work as it's not like these have to hold up to wear and tear!).

Another really fun thing that I make from time to time that is suitable for gift giving?  I will take cinnamon sticks that are kind of old for baking applications and cut them in half with a serrated knife (or a small saw would work better, but I hate to use my husband's tools for fear of breaking something, so I use a cheap serrated knife and flinch and hope I don't wreck it *ahem*.  Note to self:  Buy a saw for my household tools one of these days) and than stack them like you would a bundle of logs.  Than take some ribbon and wrap around your "log bundle" and loop the ribbon at the very top to make a tree hanger before gluing everything in place.  If you have it, little bits of moss or colorful dried flowers added to where you put the loop on the cinnamon logs makes a wonderful bit of garnish for the ornament.

And voila you have a really beautiful Christmas ornament that will also smell pretty.  And it doesn't take much to make.  Really there's no reason you couldn't make this with sticks from your yard, even, if you could find ones that were nice and straight.  And it really does make a cute ornament for someone's tree. 

Total Cost to Make Gift:  1.50 for the original panel.  The batting came from the crafting supplies I found in storage earlier in the year, so I had it on hand.

Total Time to Make Gift:  About three hours between having to CAREFULLY cut the ornaments out, line up the lines (since the ornaments have fronts and backs to them) and sew them just right so that they looked right.

A Gift a Day Gift Twelve: Fire Starters

I wanted to share at least ONE gift with you that no matter your skill set or economic conditions that you could make for free, or as close to free as possible.  This is a great idea for anybody who has someone to shop for or make gifts for that loves camping.  These are going to be added to my gift boxes for my nephews with their pine cone fire starters as these will work better to start a fire while the pine cone fire starters work great to extend your kindling. 

And all it takes, literally, is a bit of effort to collect laundry lint and you're pretty much good to go!

So long as you do laundry and have access to lint and use toilet paper or paper towels (or know someone who does) so you can get your paper tubes and some scrap paper (which who doesn't have that lying around) you can make these!

Fire Starters

You Will Need:

• Laundry Lint (you will need more than you think, so collect it in a shopping bag to make these)
• Toilet paper tubes (or paper towel tubes cut down into 1/3's)
• Paper to wrap the tubes in
• Cotton thread, or other thread that will burn easy

Construction can't be easier!

1.  Take your empty tubes and pack with laundry lint. 

2.  Wrap your tubes with paper (I used brown mailing paper as I have a huge roll that I've had for years and don't use very often).  Twist the paper at each end of the tube to hold it in place.

3.  Tie the paper at the ends of the tubes with thread.  And voila!  You're done!

To give the fire starters a bit more "oomph" I used some wax paper on some of mine to fancy up the fire starters a bit and give them a bit more burning power.

To use:

Light one end of the fire starters where the twisted paper is.  Place under your sticks and kindling once the actual paper tube catches. 

I remember making these in girl scouts and they worked really well when I was a kid, so here's hoping they work as well as I remember :).

Total Cost to Make Gift:  Nothing as I had scraps of wax paper left over from making candy earlier in the year that I was keeping around, the brown mailing paper has been around for about 10 years now and been moved from place to place and the rest was just things that would normally be thrown away.

Total Time to Make Gift:  Well, since I kept forgetting to collect my laundry lint and my son (who loves to eat paper) kept stealing and chewing on toilet paper tubes, to make this many it took me about three weeks collecting lint and tubes to make these.  Construction time took about 45 minutes to pack the tubes and then wrapping them with the wax paper got a bit tricky as the wax paper was, of course, slippery.

Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap

First, I just want to say that my thoughts and prayers are with Paris and France tonight.  Please, if you have a moment pray for those poor people who are currently victims of terrorism.  I remember how I felt on 9/11.  I can imagine how the populace of France feels right now.

This week might have been titled, "A Tale of Two Pairs of Boots" as this week revolved around foot gear for my son.

I had, a while back, been gifted a pair of boots from my sister-in-law for my son in the next size up from where he was at the time.  I didn't look close at the boots at all (as I'm sure my sister-in-law didn't either) and just put them aside relieved that I had a pair of boots that would fit him.  And then I pulled them out this week for my son to replace his boots that were getting pretty tight on him.  And I was taken by surprise and not in a good way.

The boots were completely shot.  The seam that adhered the rubber to the nylon was gone completely on the front of one boot which would have left the top of the foot just open to the snow and weather.  There were other seams that were not in great shape and the nylon on one boot had been worn almost all the way through to the top of the foot.

Desperate to have something for my son to wear I hit the used stores first, then the regular stores looking for boots in his size only to come up empty handed.

So, I set about rebuilding one pair of boots.  I took the heaviest thread I had, which happened to advertise on it's old spool that it could be used for shoe repair and sewed the boots back up.  And then I took about four layers of Shoe Goo (a shoe repair and show coating adhesive...it's kind of the consistency of rubber cement, but made for shoes) and coated the seams that I'd sewed up and built up the material all the way around.

Three layers of tent waterproofing and a lot of test runs in a sink full of water to test water resistance later and I was ready to let my son wear them, hoping that they'd hold up to wear and tear.

And then I was at therapy the other day and while waiting for a therapist to get done with her previous client I pulled out my yarn bag and started crocheting some more pot holders for Christmas gifts for therapists and teachers as my son played in his usual pile of bean bags.  The mom of the child that was being seen before my son was there complaining on her phone to someone that she'd been stood up by someone who was supposed to buy a bunch of old children's clothes and outerwear off of her and was trying to figure out her next move.

I decided to take the plunge and just out and out asked her what she had in the way of outwear and found, to my surprise, that she had a pair of boots, a NICE pair of boots, in the exact size I was looking for for my son.  She showed them to me and I prayed there was some way I'd be able to get them for my son.  I asked her how much she wanted for the boots and flinched when I heard 30.00, which was more than I could afford this week after my husband's doctor's visit and stuff last week.  I was trying to figure out a way to maybe do a payment plan with her or something when she looked at the pot holder I was making and mentioned how pretty it was and asked me if I would consider selling it to her when I was done as she was looking for something a lot like it for her mom for Christmas.

I reached into my yarn bag and pulled out the four pot holders I already had done and just been keeping in the bag for the sake of simplicity and asked her which one she'd like.  She asked to purchase them all and I offered to trade her the pot holders for the boots.  She accepted the deal.  She was thrilled and so was I.

Yes, I will have to make new gifts for teachers and therapists.  But I got a really nice pair of boots (probably about 200.00 new) for my son that were barely worn for four pot holders.  That, to me, is a good deal!

And now I also have a back up pair of boots for my son (the ones I rebuilt) in case his other ones get too wet.

Some other ways I saved money this week were:

1.  I shopped sales at Carrs this week to get my Thanksgiving turkey as cheap as possible.  If you spent 50.00 in a shopping trip you could get a Honeysuckle turkey, from 10 to 20 pounds, for .79 per lb.  This is within my target price for turkey and I knew from experience that 10 to 20 pound birds would get sold out quickly with this deal because if you spent 150.00 in a shopping trip you could get the same turkey for free.

I planned carefully and figured out what my price would be for the groceries I'd need for Thanksgiving and for the week once discounts and coupons would be taken (as the 50.00 would have to be after those things).

All said and done I got the groceries I would need for Thanksgiving, including the turkey and all of the groceries I would need for the coming week for 50.00 under my normal grocery budget.

2.  I fixed a hole in my daughter's winter jacket this week.

3.  I wanted to make my daughter a certain gift for Christmas, but didn't want to spend much at all in the way of supplies because we don't have it.  My husband and I hit the thrift store while the kids were in school this week armed with pocket  change and I was able to get the few things I needed for within that pocket change.

4.  I stayed home a lot this week and just tried to get house work caught up and other things around the house done, so that saved me money.

5.  I got my electric bill in the mail this week, which I had been dreading as usually our electric bill, due to our partially electric heat, goes nuts, but since I've been turning off heat during the day where I can and due to the LED light bulbs and me turning off lights as much as possible, our electric went down by 10 kilowatt hours per day (and that's with five extra days on our billing cycle for this month compared to last year).  I feel pretty good about that and pray I can keep it up as the winter gets colder and darker.

6.  I worked hard to make our meals per my meal plan this week to really give my winter meal plan a good trial run in the next month. If the monthly plan works and I can rotate it through the winter this will save me a lot of money in the long run as I'll know exactly what ingredients I'll need for winter food preparation.

7.  I've been enjoying watching "This is America Charlie Brown" from our DVD collection with the kids this week as we start gearing up toward Thanksgiving at the end of the month.  Watching the DVD's has given me a good opportunity to talk to my daughter about various periods in American history, including the Mayflower voyage and the first Thanksgiving.  We'll also be reading stories and doing coloring pages and things on the first Thanksgiving as the month progresses.  It's so far been a lot of fun I'm glad it's giving me an opportunity to talk to my daughter a bit about history.

8.  I sat down with my daughter and started her list of things she wants to make her father and grandparents for Christmas.  I've found my daughter, over the last few years, likes to make gifts too, and this also allows us not only to save money, but also allows her to get behind the idea that Christmas is about giving, not getting.  She's still finalizing her list, but no matter what she chooses to make we'll make it with materials we have around here (she finds it more challenging and she is pretty greedy when it comes to saving her money *laugh*), so that will save us money as well.

9.  I continued to make Christmas gifts this week, which definitely saves us money.

And there you go folks.  A few ways I saved money this week.  How did you do?

A Gift a Day Gift Eleven: An Embroidered Pillow Sham

After my son got a bedroom redo for his birthday, my daughter got really jealous of his embroidered pillow sham and really wanted me to make one for her.

So, I figured Christmas would be a good time to do that for her.

I made the pillow case out of bleached white muslin (like I said, work horse fabric).  By the way, when I get like 10 yards of muslin, since it's not pre-washed and thus is going to shrink, I wash the entire 10 yards at once, dry it and then untangle it and then iron the entire thing at once.  This saves me a lot of time when it comes to working with the fabric.

To make a pillow case I just take an existing pillow case, turn it inside out and just trace around it with a pencil and then add double the folded over open end onto the fabric so that when I fold the fabric over it'll be the right size.  I then sew it up and then take pinking shears to the seams to help stop it from fraying (because I'm lazy and didn't want to do a double folded seam).

I embroidered the first letter of my daughter's name onto the pillow and then made a border-like design on either side to make the pillow case look fancier than just having the A on it.  I eyeballed the design and drew it onto the finished pillow case in pencil.  I outlined the A, the flowers and the vines in stem stitch.  I filled in the A with varying lengths of satin stitch and then added french knots for the little flowers.  I also did french knots for the middle of the border flowers as well.

By the way I got the design for the A from here and got the idea for the border design from here.


Total Time to Make Gift:  Three Hours between the embroidery and the making of the pillow case.

Total Cost to Make Gift:  I had all the materials to make this, so it was free for me to make. 

A Gift a Day Gift Ten: Colored Dress Scarf

Today's gift is another dress scarf that I made for my oldest niece.  I wanted to make a scarf that had a bit of adventure to it, so I tried to pick out a fabric that would be a nice piece to "change up" her outfits.  So I made this one out of a patterned fabric that has a swirly design with blue, lilac, green, etc.  I thought it was actually a pretty nice mixture of colors without being noxious, so here's hoping I was right *laugh*.

I made this out of another .50 remnant from the used store...well 1/2 of a remnant anyway as it was about the same size as the other cloth piece I made a scarf out of.  It's about 24" wide and 50" long.  Short, but doable as a scarf, so I am hoping she'll like it.

I used a double folded 1/4 seam for this, just like the other one I did and I think it turned out pretty well.

Total Time to Make scarf:  About an hour including cutting time as I was being careful to line up the fabric design as much as possible when I was pinning it..

Total Cost of Scarf:  .25 for the fabric.  The thread was given to me by my step mom even so I don't have any minute costs there (thanks Rox!).

A Gift a Day Gift Nine: Camp Soap

This is another gift to go in with my older nephew's gifts.  I decided one thing you always would like to have during camping is soap and a scrubbing type of cloth to do dishes or to wash up (at least I appreciated it when I had it), so I decided to make, what my mom always referred to as "camp soap".

These are actually really easy to make and if you make them with an envelope closure you can take the soap out, use the wash cloth outer layer to scrub dishes or whatever and then place it at a warm place by the fire to dry really fast.

I used one of the yet unused washcloths I bought from Target in a package of five each on clearance a while back. I  think I paid like 1.75 per pack.  For two camp soaps I used one wash cloth cut in half.  This would also be a good way to use a towel with say a hole in it but that still has nice looking parts to it.

For the soap I used soap I had around the house.  I can get 3 bars of soap at our local store for about 1.69 per three pack, so keep an eye out for cheap soap!

Camp Soap Materials

• Wash Cloth
• 2 Bars of soap
• Sewing machine or you could hand sew these as well.
• Thread

Take 1/2 of the wash cloth and wrap the bar of soap up in it.  If you want to make an envelope closure for the soap, wrap one part of the wash cloth up about 1/2 the way up the soap and then fold the other part of the wash cloth over so that the washcloth overlaps, but not too far or it will be too hard to fit your bar of soap into the pouch later (I go for about a 1" overlap).  I would try to explain how to sew the envelope closure up for you, but I think it would get confusing as about 1/2 the time I get confused and have to rethink the sewing portion a couple of times before I figure it out (not a natural sewing type what can I say).  So, if you don't know how to do an envelope closure, mark all the way around the soap plus 1/2 an inch for seam allowance and be sure to leave one end of the soap pouch open (to insert your soap of course).

Remove soap from the equation and sew up the three sides of the soap pouch.  Turn soap pouch right side out and put soap into the pouch.  Fold the last open side of the soap pouch inward to complete a closed seam and then whip stitch the opening closed by hand (or you could use a basting stitch/really long straight stitch, to make it easier to remove and replace the soap later if the owner wishes).  My mom used to make these and then make a draw string end on one side and put a string on the soap pouch so you could hang it up or place it around your neck, but I didn't do that with these.

Total Cost to Make Gift:  I'd wager about .80 per camp soap since I only use 1/2 a wash cloth per soap.

Total Time to Make Gift:  About 1 hour between the two soaps as I had to figure out the envelope closures.

A Gift a Day Gift Eight: Sensory Bottles

Making gifts for my son is hard because he's only at the stage in his life right now that he SOMETIMES likes toys due to his delays, so I like to make sure to add some things in with his Christmas gifts that I know he'll enjoy.

He still really enjoys sensory bottles (for those who don't know what those are, they are basically like snow globes with glitter or other things floating around in them), so I decided to make him one for Christmas and make one for one of my young nephews at the same time.

These are really easy to make and are actually really cheap to make if you have nice plastic bottles to use (don't use the collapsible water bottle types of bottles as I'm sure that would end in spills and tears very quickly).  I used an empty container of apple juice (Martinelli individual serving size container) and an empty iced tea bottle for this.  I washed them out really well, let them dry completely and just set them aside until I was ready to make these.

To make these you'll need a few things:

• Empty bottles (see above for suggestions)
• Food coloring (optional, but fun)
• Glitter
• Distilled Water
• Corn Syrup
• Super glue 

Procedure:

Take empty bottles, remove caps and set aside.

Fill bottles about 1/2 the way full with corn syrup and then pour the corn syrup back into a measuring cup (this way you don't waste corn syrup unnecessarily).  Add enough food coloring to make a nice vibrant colored syrup.  Add the now colored corn syrup back to bottles and then fill the bottles the other 1/2 the way with distilled water, leaving about 1/2" of headspace or so at the top.  Put cap on bottle and shake to combine the water and corn syrup together.  Take off cap and add glitter (probably about 1 tbs per bottle at first), put cap back on and shake to combine the glitter with the mixture.  Keep adding glitter until you like the effect.

Once you are happy with the way the glitter moves around in the solution super glue the cap onto the bottle and voila!  You're done!

When it came to these I had everything around here except for the glitter.  I was going to try and make a sensory bottle with hydration beads, but it failed miserably, so this weekend we took a quick trip to Jo Ann Fabrics and I was able to use some coupons to get glitter for about .80. 

Overall I really do like the effect these have as the corn syrup helps to hold the glitter in suspension really well, almost like a lava lamp type of effect.  I think my son and nephew will enjoy them!

Total Cost to Make Gift:  If I count the 1 cup of corn syrup I used I'd probably estimate about 1.50 in materials between the two bottles.

Total Time to Make Gift:  If I include the hours I spent trying to make the hydration beads work that failed miserably these probably took me about 4 hours.  Now actual time to make them once I had the right materials to use was probably about 1/2 an hour or so.