Beautiful Last Minute DIY Holiday Ideas

I do not usually share posts that arrive to my email inbox, but I love the ideas in this offering from Pottery Barn Kids and I am sure that you'll love them too!

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Holiday treats are extra sweet when shared in homemade containers. Part party favor and part accessory, kids will love customizing these Personalized Take-Out Containers, Glass Cookie Jars and Cookie Boxes, then filling with delicious cookies and candies!

Check out these tips for planning a Christmas Cookie Exchange, including recipes, invitations and “how to” videos.

Last-minute wrapping to do? Give your presents that extra little flourish of hand-crafted care, and try one of our creative approaches to gift wrapping. Make your presents even more magical this season with Starry Wrap, Keepsake Footprint Paper and Rudolph’s Nose Wrap.

Share the joy of Hanukkah! This crafty Menorah is easy to assemble – and best of all, kids can "light" the candles on their own to celebrate each night of Hanukkah. Bring a little sparkle to Hanukkah celebrations with these creative Glittery Dreidel Place Cards. They're simple for kids to make and add a fun element of festivity to the table – plus, they make great party favors!

Plan your own Hanukkah festivities with tips and recipes from Pottery Barn Kids.

  

Fun DIY Glue Snowman Ornament

Christmas is a ways away, but I'm already trying to find fun gift and craft ideas.  I know, I know - respect the turkey... Sorry!

I saw a melted snowman ornament on Pinterest, but it used several materials and well, it really wasn't my style, so I started thinking how I could adapt it to be easy to to make for kids, and with fewer materials.  I landed on this guy and I love him :)

What you'll need:

School Glue (the white stuff)

Ribbon or String (about 3-4 inches)

Colored Sharpies

Wax Paper

Imagination

This fun showman is easy to make, and a great craft for kids.  It uses hardly any glue, so a whole bottle should make plenty of snowmen to help decorate your tree!

Using string or ribbon, make a small loop to use as a hanger.  (If you don't want to see it in the glue once dried, you could skip this part and add it later by poking a hole in your snowman.)

Get out a piece of wax paper and your glue.  Lay down your hanger and then use the glue to create the snowman shape (or other fun shape of your choice!)  Be sure to fill your shape in fully with glue.  Let it dry overnight, or until the glue has turned clear.

If you'd like for your snowman to have arms, you could lay tiny sticks in the glue!

Once it's fully dried you can carefully peel it up off of the wax paper, it should come up easily.

The next step is to get out your markers and have fun.  Make eyes, a carrot nose and button mouth.  Add fun snowman type decorations like a scarf, vest or whatever your child thinks up.

Lose toxic Halloween face paints with this DIY tip!

I think that most people love Halloween.  We get to dress up and be silly or mysterious, what's not to love?!  Sadly, the products we use to have that fun aren't really all they should be.  A study conducted by The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics found that 10 out of 10 children's face paints tested contained levels of lead, and many others contained misleading claims such as “hypoallergenic.”

You can keep Halloween fun and safe by making your own all-natural face paint!  It's super easy and the color options are completely up to you (no icky pre-made colors that 'sort of' match what you're looking for).

 

All-Natural DIY Face Paints

What you'll need:

Dr. Sears Family Essentials Diaper Rash Cream

Natural Food Coloring

Cornstarch

Mix up 1-2 teaspoons of rash cream with a teaspoon of cornstarch.  If you want it colored, divide it up into portions (if you want three colors to make a design, divide it up into three - this makes a good bit).  Once you've got it all divided up (or not) add a drop of food coloring and mix it in.

Once you've got your paint colors finished, grab a paintbrush and get to the fun part - face painting!  Your children will love this project and you can rest easy knowing that it's completely safe for them.

*I read on another website that seasonings could be used for the coloring in this.  I tried it, but #1 it didn't color the paint well, if at all and #2 I was concerned about possible reactions to having seasonings on their skin.  The food coloring worked perfectly and took very little (I used one drop to get the pinky/purple color on her cheek.)

Big thanks to Dr. Sears Family Essentials for this tip and the samples to test it out!  I was able to see their line first hand at the ABC Kids Expo and I was honestly moved by their products and mission.  I look forward to great things from them.  Keep an eye out for their products!  They are not only amazing and safe, but affordable too!

DIY Dishwasher Detergent without Borax!

I've been playing around with a dishwasher detergent recipe for a while now, and finally worked out one that leaves my glasses clear and does not use borax.  I am happy to use borax in my laundry detergent, but I feel that using it on my dishes is probably not the best choice.

For some time now I've been stuck using uneco-freindly options, mostly.  I've been using Cascade packs with Lemi-Shine.  It was the only thing that cleaned my dished and left my glasses clear from film and yuck.  I have been using this DIY recipe with success.  It used Lemi-Shine, which is completely safe and eco-friendly.  The only thing I wish is that I could buy it in tubs.  I simply will not do a load of dishes without it.

1 1/2 Cups Lemi-Shine (They come in 12 oz containers, so this is a full one)
1 1/2 Cups Washing Soda
1/2 Cup Baking Soda
1/2 Cup Sea Salt (any will do I'm sure)

Use 2 Tablespoons per load and if you like, vinegar can be added as the rinse agent.

You can find everything you need to make this at Alice.com  I am an Amazon fan, but they charge way too much for the Lemi-Shine!  Alice.com offers free shipping on all orders and once you spend your first $50, you'll get a $10 credit.  They also have great prices and coupons!

If you're new to Lemi-Shine, right now you can head to their site for a sample.  I swear, this stuff is amazing if you have residue issues, hard water issues, etc!

This has been working wonderfully for me.  I hope you try it out and I would love to hear how it works for you!

Good-bye Weeds & Grass

Yikes!  Yes, I'm killing weeds and grass... well in certain areas.  We have a fairly long gravel driveway and each summer grass and other pesky weeds like to make the center of it their home.  It's not so pretty.  We don't like using harsh chemicals, and in the past, I found that they weren't even always that effective, so why bother?!

The solution (as it seems to be with many simple & thrifty ways of doing things) is vinegar!  Plain old white vinegar.  I pulled out our garden sprayer and stocked up with 4 gallons of cheap store brand vinegar (about $2 a jug).  If you don't have a sprayer you can pick up a 1 gallon or 2 gallon fairly cheap on Amazon.com.  Mine happens to be the 2 gallon size.

Get out your sprayer, pour a gallon of vinegar in, pump and get to spraying.  I chose to do this on two dry, hot days.  The grass was sure to be thirsty, so it seemed to make sense and would hopefully work fast (it did!)

Be sure to spray only where you want to kill the grass, the vinegar will kill everything you spray.  At the edges of your driveway be sure to spray in a straight line, unless you like zig-zagged edges.  You can see in the photo below where I sprayed just earlier today.  The grass is already dying off and the edge is pretty clean.

The photo below is of the spraying I did yesterday and you can see clearly where I stopped.  The vinegar worked great and quite quickly.  I'm happy to be cleaning up our driveway naturally with a simply product.  It cost me about $8 in vinegar (we already had a sprayer).  If you buy a sprayer, it can be used again and again.  We've used ours for all sorts of projects around the house!

Eco-Friendly Kitchen Makeover

We love our little home but it has a few things that we'd like to change.  One was our kitchen.

My husband is a general contractor and we love watching DIY, HGTV, Planet Green (there are some great green building shows!) and like things.  One thing that I cringe at is how much waste goes along with most renovations.  Thankfully my husband is amazing (okay, so I'm biased!) and he recycles and keeps and reuses as much as he can from his job.

When it came to our own kitchen, we didn't want to go crazy with cost and we certainly wanted to keep it as eco-friendly as possible.  We decided that a coat of paint would do the job, kind of!


Here you see our kitchen BEFORE.  The cabinets are dark and while you can't tell it from this picture, they were the only thing in our home with that wood tone.  They really stood out, and not in a good way.

We decided to go with white cabinets to brighten up the room.  Here's our supplies list!

1 can of white no voc primer

1 can of white low voc semi-gloss (easy to clean) paint

trim (he added this to the ends of the cabinets to give them a little more detail)

moulding (for detail up top)

hinges (old ones were brass & matched nothing - they will go to the Habitat ReStore)

We also bought an over the range microwave to give us some more counter space (and appeal to future buyers).  It was always a shuffle to fill plates an prepare dinner with no room by the stove.  Our old microwave will also be getting a new home :)

We only had about $100 in materials, excluding the microwave.

We washed the cabinets down with some gentle soap and water.  My husband took of the doors, hinges, knows and pulls.  He gave everything a couple coats of primer and a few coats of paint (what we bought was plenty).

It took a few days to get all of the coats done and to allow time to dry.  We also needed time to install the microwave and paint and put up all of the new trim/moulding.

The moulding required a saw, but he had it all measured up and cut out in no time.

Here's the result!  We love it :)

I know that remodeling in general isn't the most eco-friendly thing but sometimes you need a change.  We were able to get a completely new look for very little investment and environmental impact.

If we had gone the typical route (which was totally out of the question!) there would have been new cabinets (more materials), disposal of our old cabinets (what a waste!) and getting everything from there to here, then here to there and who knows how many chemicals in the new products and process.

All in all I think it was a great success.  We love our 'new' updated kitchen.  It's much brighter and welcoming.  The finish is easy to clean and we couldn't be happier with it.  I hope that this is helpful to anyone who might be considering a kitchen renovation.  With a little help, old and unloved can turn into new and adored :)