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DIY mini hand ornaments
before it’s too late, i wanted to share an easy christmas ornament project that you can do this weekend! i love making ornaments for xmas because you can keep one and give the rest to your relatives or friends so you all have matching ones, which is super sweet when you really think about it.
i loooove ceramic hands and sadly only have three in my house, so i decided the tree needed some too. these are super easy to make, because once you’ve made one, you can make a bunch more using the first as a template.
01. condition your clay to get it nice and soft. form a ball and then use your rolling pin to roll it out flat.
02. cut your shape, like pictured above. once you’ve cut out the hand, use your blade to basically just score the finger creases.
03. once you’re happy with the first one, do the same for the rest of the ornaments by just placing it on top of more clay and tracing the shape with your blade.
04. poke a hole through the hand with a toothpick and make sure it’s large enough that it’ll fit a piece of string.
05. bake according to package directions. let cool.
06. once dry, you can paint if you’d like — i debated how to paint them for quite some time so i decided to leave them simple. apply a layer of gloss glaze.
07. tie string, hang on your tree!
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holiday gift guide : for the worker bee
we’re getting waaay close to christmas now, stop procrastinating and get your shopping done! do you have someone in your life who is basically glued to their desk chair? i do. so here are some simple, practical and beautiful gifts for the work obsessed friends or relative.01. i’d be stoked to receive this handsome leather backpack
02. if you’re going to extend your cords, extend them pretty with this
03. the prettiest space heater i ever did see
04. planners and notebooks are the easiest gifts since you can never have too many
05. hourglass timers are stylish, useful and timeless (pun intended)
06. and in the same vein, a cute little wood desktop clock
07. another gift i personally can’t have too many of, portable speakers (i want one for every room)
08. an inspiring book, and here’s another option
09. the fanciest measuring tape ever, another easy gift
10. a cute little desk caddy to keep them organized
11. fancy brass scissors would also make dope stocking stuffers -
happy weekend
hope you guys have lots of fun holiday parties and/or holiday chilling planned. we have a bunch of parties this weekend, and every weekend until christmas. jeez — it’s so hard to be anti social when you have to be social. the studio is coming along as you can see – can’t wait to share the updates soon. this weekend we’re also going to try to start getting some plants to plant in our [currently just dirt covered] front yard and i’m co-hosting an event at lou & grey this sunday if you want to come by! have a great one.
⋅ want this top real bad
⋅ cute personalized ornament DIY
⋅ simple + lovely xmas wall decoration
⋅ is this your husband? it’s my husband. ugh sorry husband.
⋅ i hate daylight savings
⋅ don’t be a jerk.
⋅ cute printable xmas wrap
⋅ confused travolta
⋅ i wanna make one of these -
DIY 30 second holiday garland
i debated naming this post “30 second holiday garland LOL” but decided against it. but you guys, this garland takes 30 seconds. i’m all about minimal decorating for the holidays, so the simpler, the better — and this one takes the cake. a perfect way to dress up a bare wall before your holiday party. Read More
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holiday gift guide : for the jetsetter
we all have that person in our life who travels way too often and you resent them for it greatly. but if you still like that said traveler, here are some travel themed gifts they’ll probably love and most importantly, use.
01. i’ve always loved this clare v passport case, and it’s on sale!
02. for the photographer, an instax printer is the perfect way to document their trip on the go
03. a usb humidifier they can use in any dingy hotel room
04. for the jetsetting foodie, this mobile salt kit makes the perfect gift
05. this leather weekender is basically gender neutral and very gorgeous
06. almost everyone uses shampoo and conditioner
07. and almost everyone uses cords for things too!
08. for the drinker, the cocktail kit i put on every years gift guide
09. pretty inexpensive headphones, i will never enjoy airplane ear buds
10. a travel neck pillow for the traveler who can actually fall asleep on planes
11. inspire them to take their next trip with where chefs eat 2nd edition -
four DIY gift wrap ideas
i love simple gift wrap, and i love a simple kraft paper gift wrap — but i wanted to give you four simple DIY ideas to spruce up your plain wrapping paper. these are all so incredibly easy and will make your presents so special, so i personally think it’s worth the extra 2 minutes during wrapping crunch time. (especially if you turn on scrooged or love actually or home alone or die hard while you do it) i did all of these on individually wrapped gifts, but you can save yourself time by doing the whole roll at once.
DIY BRUSHSTROKE GIFT WRAP
using a square edge paint brush, simply paint varying strokes and let dry!
DIY LABEL MAKER GIFT WRAP
because my label maker is like my favorite thing in the world, i love it for labeling gifts. simply wrap and tie some string around your gift, and type out your “to” and “from”. a beautiful little minimal gift.
DIY PAINT SPLATTER GIFT
make yourself a paint mixture that’s half acrylic paint/half water, mix it together until it looks like melted ice cream (add more paint or more water depending on how its mixing). take your gift wrap outside and lay it on a safe surface to get dirty. saturate your brush with the paint and simply flick your brush onto the paper! let dry outside.
DIY DRY BRUSH GIFT WRAP
using a thicker old paint brush, get just a little bit of paint onto it but let it be mostly dry. simply do a long stroke in one direction and it creates a really cool texture on the paper that sort of looks like faux bois.
and there you have it! 4 fun easy ideas to get your gifts looking super gorgeous and unique.
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happy weekend
i feel like december always flies right by — with holiday parties every weekend, it’ll be like 2 seconds until christmas! that makes me both happy and sad. we’re still doing lots of stuff house, we finally got rid of the cardboard in the window and replaced with a blind – and the studio is being worked on as we speak! it’s been hard to blog without a space to work in and without my supplies — so i am soooo anxious to have it ready. we’re getting our tree this weekend so i’m in a real good mood. have a great weekend!
⋅ i’m pretty into going to this
⋅ cute flowerless arrangements
⋅ i want to eat this right now
⋅ it’s important to look smart and not dumb
⋅ this ring is freaking GORGEOUS
⋅ concrete xmas trees
⋅ a plywood house!
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DIY eye slippers
now that it’s december, i wanted to create some simple DIYs that would make perfect holiday gifts! man or woman, everyone wears slippers… i think. so making your loved one a custom pair of slippers is like, a perfect xmas present!
i am still loving eyes, even though i know they’re soooo trendy, so i created a design you can use, or you can do any design you want.
materials
01. print the eye design i’ve provided above or whatever design you want to fit your slippers. i measured mine for about 3″ max per design. i put 3 sets on the sheet so you can make multiple pairs. if you’re doing your own design, just make sure you flip it before printing.
02. cut out the design and keep the edges a little rounded, the terry cloth texture is a bit hard to peel the adhesive off of, so you want to keep enough of a border to not mess with the transfer when peeling.
03. turn your iron on and let it heat up for five minutes prior to ironing. make sure it’s on the cotton setting without any water or steam. place the transfer down on the slipper and iron slowly for a good five minutes. let it cool for two minutes and see if you can peel off the backing paper yet, if not — do a few more minutes of ironing. if you have trouble peeling off the paper, use tweezers to grab a corner and gently peel off the rest from there.
so cute right?! hope this helped in case you’re scrambling for an easy inexpensive gift idea. and i’ll try to give you some more ideas stat.
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holiday gift guide : for the cook
i have many cooking enthusiasts and foodies in my life, so i’m always buying cooking tools and gadgets for holiday gifts. here are some pretty reasonably priced gift ideas that they probably don’t have!
01. a 12 pack of dish towels that can double up as stylish napkins or kitchen rags.
02. a cute little dansk butter warmer that they’ll want to keep displayed on their stove.
03. for the griller, a beautiful soapstone grill press for burgers.
04. i’m swooning over this gorgeous set of six spoons for tasting.
05. my go-to is always an inspiring cookbook like sunday suppers.
06. who wouldn’t want to press garlic with a copper press? i want to.
07. you don’t have to worry about them not using fancy olive oil.
08. a straight maple or walnut rolling pin for the baker.
09. a stylish potholder, because again — they’ll use it.
10. i really want this sleek black chefs knife for myself, so they might too.
11. as a sucker for pretty packaging, these pastas make the perfect pantry addition. -
10 last minute thanksgiving ideas
thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday, because i love stuffing, a pretty table and people i love in one place. i’m gonna take the rest of the week off to enjoy the week with my dad but i wanted to leave you with some projects and DIYs you can create for a simple, modern thanksgiving.
quickly create your own custom napkins for your table, using my quick stamp diy method.
send your guests home with a piece of pie in these very cute little printables.
create plexiglass calligraphy place cards that your guests can keep or you can reuse next year.
bake some rustic garlic bread even if you’re just a guest at dinner.
my favorite holiday floral arrangements are loose and organic in a neutral autumn color palette. i’ve used this arrangement for inspiration regularly.
add some laughs and fun to your party with thanksgiving bingo.
even if you’re serving wine only, get some edible flowers to fancy up your thanksgiving drinks.
the easiest and most delicious pie means you’ll have plenty of time to stress about the rest of the menu.
i shared these printable modern thanksgiving menus last year, and i wanted to remind you.
for your black friday lunch break, make your thanksgiving sandwich extra dope with the monica gellar moist maker.
happy thanksgiving!
