celebrating with homemade goodies

love the offset design

Apparently, I am going to go all willy-nilly with the order of my topics from the other day. Today is homemade gift day. My girlfriends from home, whom I absolutely cherish, decided to do a homemade gift exchange for our Annual Secret Santa. I was excited about it, but nervous, as I wanted to create something meaningful, but nice (aka something that didn’t scream “I’m homemade”). I think I succeeded. I put together a smattering of gifts because I couldn’t decide on just one:

1.   The first was a set of wooden spoons. I saw the idea on a food blog I read every day. I purchased a basic set from the grocery store and color blocked the bottoms with paint we used in our new home. Click here to get the directions. I used green (dining room), yellow (kitchen), light gray (downstairs hallway), and dark gray (den).

2.   The second gift I made was infused vodka. I went with a Martha classic – celery and bay leaf. She suggested to mix it with either sherry & seltzer, or bloody mary mix. Click here for the instructions.

3.   The third gift I made was a peanut butter & jelly ornament out of felt. I copied the idea from a craft store in Providence, Rhode Island, but don’t want to say much more, because I think it deserves its own post.

4.   The fourth and final gift I made was a bleach penned long sleeved shirt. I unfortunately, did not take a photo of the finished project, but I was inspired by the photo above. I decided to use the silhouette of a goddess figure. My Secret Santa recipient is very much in touch with her feminine strength and beauty, so I thought it was a perfect fit. I painted on one large goddess on the front, bottom, right-side of the shirt, and two mini goddesses on the back, bottom, left-side of the shirt. The front goddess was for my dear friend and the mini goddesses were for her two daughters. Click here for the directions. The parts the bleach touched came out a bit more orange than the one in the photo, but I used a black shirt, not blue.