#40: Make at least 5 hand-made gifts for Christmas

Since we're only 8 days away from Christmas, I thought it was a good time to make sure I have all my hand-made gifts made (or scramble over the next few days to get them done). I'm counting my homemade & semi-homemade gifts, so here they are.

1. Picture Calendar: I do this every year for my side of the family. Make the pages in my Digital Scrapbooking software, then upload & order at VistaPrint when they're having a sale (which is pretty much all the time). Huge hit!

2. Reindeer Pops: Made these for Little Man's preschool buddies. He was really excited about the "Flying Deer"! You can find out more about this project here.

3. Car Playmat: Little Man is getting an awesome playmat that I made from felt. This is a picture from the beginning stages, but unfortunately I forgot to take a finished picture & it's all wrapped up. I'll take a final picture later. You can read about this project here.

4. Christmas Pickles: These are pickles made from cucumbers out of our garden. I've done this the past two years and it's always a hit! I think the Christmas Pickle ornament & story behind it is a nice extra touch. Here's my post from last year describing it.

5. Jam: I canned a lot of jam this summer. I'm not sure what came over me, but it was definitely "year of the jam"! Although last year we gave everyone at Josh's work pickles, I opted for jam this year. Wishing them a "sweet" Christmas! Best of all, all the jam I made (except the Damson Jam) was low-sugar and even one batch of sugar-free for his diabetic co-worker.

6. Glass Ornaments with Vinyl: I made several of these glass ornaments with vinyl, which turned out oh so cute!

7. Candle with Vinyl: I also fancied these plain jar candles up with some red vinyl.

8. Etched Beer Stein: My Dollar Store mug looks great now that's it's etched with personalization.

I exceeded my 5 gift goal - yay! Also, these were all so frugal, yet not "cheap". Definitely something everyone can use or enjoy. And I had fun making them!

#41: Complete a Glass Etching Project

Well I did it! My first Glass Etching Project. However, I know it will not be my last. I loved how it turned out and I'm looking forward to doing more. Maybe it's just a Southern thing, but monogramming is so addictive!

There's more about this project on my regular blog, check it out here.

#26: Read 15 Books (7/15)

I finished The Glass Castle tonight and I'm pretty sure my mouth hung open and my eyes opened wide in astonishment for almost the entire book. You see, this book is a memoir so all I could think about was "THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED!!" My words cannot describe this book, but I'd encourage anyone to read it. I almost gave up part of the way through because it was so hard to think about people, especially children, living in such conditions. However, I'd encourage you to read through to the end - it is just so good.

The author has a short video about the book - Check out the video here.

#26: Read 15 Books (6/15)

I read this book last week. So cute & timely for the holiday season. Loved it and would recommend it to anyone, especially at this time of the year.

#42: Complete a Vinyl Project

Using my Silhouette, I completed a few vinyl projects as part of my handmade holiday goal (#40).

You can see more about these projects at my regular blog, Domestic Dabblings.

#36: Create & Complete our "Family Book - 2007"

I finished up our Family Scrapbook for 2007. I plan to combine 2005-2007 into one book using Blurb, but after that each year is going to need it's own year since how many pictures we took went up exponentionally upon the birth of our Little Man.

This was one of the more "interesting" events that year - I had definitely never been to a "chain-race" before. Have you??

Most of my scrapbook pages are extremely simple. Just a background, lots of pictures, title with a little paragraph about the event. Pictures are the most important part to me anyway, so I'm not even wasting my time on all the "frilly" scrapbooking.

#26: Read 15 Books (5/15)

I finished The Help by Kathryn Stockett tonight - so good! I really liked this book because I could (sort of) relate. The entire time I read this book I thought about my grandmother, how she grew up and when she started her family. It was very much like this book, although I'd like to think the happier side of the book. She and one of her "help" were some of the best of friends and even sat with the family at my grandmother's funeral. Takes my mind to another place and time...one I'm glad is in the past.

Source

#80: Visit Tanglewood (1/15)

Little Man & I enjoyed a beautiful day at the local park back in November. We started off on the big playground and were the only ones. I knew it was too good to be true. Not two minutes after we got there three school buses pulled up and unloaded a mob of school age children. We decided to leave and play on the smaller playground - he loved it! 

He learned to climb the climbing wall while we were there, which gave me a heart attack b/c it's almost 6 feet tall, but he was a pro!