Last minute quick Christmas gifts

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AHHH! It's officially December and you have a few more gifts you need.  Want to save some money, give some awesome gifts and not have to spend lot of time on them? Well, you came to the right blog post! I have 3 awesome gifts that almost anyone would enjoy and they take hardly any time and money to make as well!  Plus, they are gifts that can be used so great for those teachers or co-workers who may get lost of stuff that they need to find a place for.  Instead these are gifts that can be used up after a period of time. 

First: Bath salt mix 

What a great relaxing gift to give to someone.  This is my favorite way to unwind at the end of the week, taking a salt bath.  What better than to give someone a way to help them make time for their own self-care. 

1/2 Cup of Epson salt 

1/4 Cup of Baking soda 

1/4 Cup of Sea salt or course salt 

This will make about 1 jelly sized jar.   I usually make 4 batches and get 4 jelly jars.  Super easy to make and doesn't take much time either! Plus, if you put it in a jelly jar the jar is decorative enough in itself!  So, double points! 

Second: Hot coco-mix: 

Who doesn't like hot-coco?  Okay, I know some people don't...BUT, most do.  And what a fun gift to get at Christmas! Plus it's a gift that can be used up!  This is great for teachers, co-workers, family, really anyone who enjoys hot-coco! 

I've been using this recipe from Eating on a Dime.  We have liked it and it's really easy to make.  Now the only thing I do different is I don't add the salt, but that's just a preference thing.  But this recipe is super easy and all you need is a mason jar to add it to!

We like to use mason jars for our gifts, but if you are wanting to send this to school as teacher gift they make plastic jars now too!  These are a perfect option for sending your little to school with a gift for teacher.  

Or we recently made these gifts for our mail carriers. Just use a party bag; add some marshmallows, a cute wooden spoon and a fun tag!  This would also be a great way to give this git to your student's teacher!  

Third: Lotion bars 

Lotion bars are a fun gift that can be used for almost anyone.  You can use a mini muffin tin for the molds.  We also bought these for crayon melting and they can work for lotion bars too!  I liked these ones because the pack came with different shaped molds so you can use them for different events.  But, back to lotion bars.  They are easy and quick to make.  

Equal parts beeswax pellets & Organic coconut oil

double boiler or a smaller pot and larger pot

essential ils (optional) 

Melt both in a double boiler, or if you don't have a double boiler you can use a smaller pot inside a larger pot of water. If you want you can add essential oils as well.  Once the coconut oil and beeswax has melted remove from heat and add the essential oils you'd like.  Pour the mixture into the molds.  Put in the fridge to Harden.  After about 20-30 min you can pop them out and they re ready to gift! 

Pair both the lotion bars and the salt mix for an extra special gift!! 

Homemade ornaments

 

Homemade Ornaments 

We give our girls ornaments each year to represent something they did from that year.  In the past we've just bought them.  I've wanted to make them, but always ran out of time.  This year, I was talking about them with some friends and we joked about the different things I could tie in from our crazy 2020 year.  Two big things that I wanted to incorporate was toilet paper and perler beads.  Toilet paper for obvious reasons, and perler beads because we did A LOT or perler beads during quarantine and afterwards. 

If you are interested in the how-to on making toilet paper roll flowers.  You can follow the steps on an earlier post of mine here.  

I made mine into a flower shape this time. 

Then, I made my perler bead designs.  I made each perler bead design individual to each girl.  Arya played soccer for the first time this summer, plus she really enjoys her sports. Jensen, started Kindergarten, and Sadie can't get enough ice cream...one time she even ended up with an adult cone by accident.  Plus, we did a lot of DQ drive-thru and had ice cream in the van during quarantine.  

Sadie with her adult sized ice cream

Once they were melted, I just hot glued the perler bead design to the toilet paper flower.  

Finally I punched a hole through the top of the flower and thread some yarn through.  

That's it! It was really easy and a great way to tie in what we did this year. 

This post includes affliate links, which means if you click on the link I get a portion of any sales at NO COST to you.  See my disclosure page for more details. 

10 ways to reuse that egg carton

There are SO many ways out there to re-use that egg carton.  Maybe you're familiar with all the ways you can re-use it, or maybe it's totally a new thing for you.  Well I wanted to share with you 10 of our favorite ways to re-use our egg cartons. 

1. Jewelry holder

    It's perfect to hold all those small rings.  Plus, putting bracelets in them is pretty easy for little girls and it helps keep them from getting tangled. 

2. Christmas bulb holder

    We use this every year for our Christmas bulbs.  We've had these egg cartons for our Christmas bulbs for years and they hold up so well.  Plus, if they do break apart you can easily get another one.  

3. Card holder for little hands

    Ok have you seen this before?  I was so amazed when this one was told to me.  Have kids who have trouble holding all those cards during a game?  Take an egg carton turn it upside down and there you go an easy way for them to place their cards in.  

4. Paint holder

 https://www.momdot.com/mess-free-painting-egg-carton/

How cool is this, it even has a way to hold the paint brushes! I think this is one of my favorite ways to re-use the egg carton.  We just recently tried this and it works great!  

5. Easter gift: 

Add some eggs and use as an Easter gift.  We were given some egg cartons with fake eggs in them for Easter one year.  This is something you can easily reciprocate by just cutting up your egg carton in half.  

6.  Seed starters

    What a great way to start seeds. Egg cartons (cardboard ones) are compostable. They are a great way to start a seed and transfer it to a garden or bigger garden. 

7. Color sorting 

    Use your paints or some color circles to place in the bottom of each space. Then using some beads or small pom poms, have your preschooler sort the colors into each space. 

8. Counting 

    Write a 1-12 in the spaces. Then practice counting with your preschooler.  Also, if can use your beads or small pom poms again and count how many for each number.  I.e. 7 beads in the 7 space. 

9. Make a craft with it! 

There are so many crafts you can make out of egg cartons.  Here is just one site that has some fun egg carton crafts! 

 The Spruce Crafts, has over 20 different crafts for littles to make with egg cartons.  

10. Finally, re-use it for eggs

A while back I did an IG post on buying our eggs in bulk.  You can check out the post here. Our local Walmart carries them in huge box of about 6 dozen.  I save our egg cartons and use them to redistribute all those eggs from the box and it helps save room in my fridge.  Not to mention, the money it saves on eggs too.   Or, if you are lucky and have someone you know who has fresh eggs, you can always use those cartons then too. 

10 ways to re-purpose that tin can

 

 Recycling is huge!  I'm all about recycling anything we can; however, if I can re-purpose something instead I will.  First of all, not only is that one less thing being broken down to recycle, but it's also one less thing I'm purchasing.  Here are 10 ways that I've re-purposed tin cans in our household, of all sizes. 

Cat food cans: 

1.  Office/Junk drawer organization:

    Tuna cans are great for organizing those small things in your office or junk drawer.  We have 4 that we use to hold paper clips, rubber bands, our menu cards and other little odds and ends. 

2. Bathroom storage: 

      Cat food cans do a great job holding those small things in the bathroom; your lip gloss, chapstick, tweezers.  I have one tuna can in my cabinet that holds all those in one.  It's great to hold those small items together so they don't get lost amongst all the other bathroom items.  

Tuna cans: 

3. Earring holder: 

    Tuna cans are the perfect size to hold a few pairs of earrings.  Plus then they don't get tangled together if you have any of those dangly ones.  They also aren't very tall so they fit in a drawer really easily. 

General tin cans: 

4.  Organizing craft supplies:   

    We use these for holding markers, colored pencils, crayons and more. They are a great size for kids to be able to grab easily.  Or you can put them in a little bin and have your bin more organized as well. 

5.  Make a craft with them:

    Tin can style is in.  Wrap some yarn or twine around them a few times or a lot.  Add some decor inside and it can make a great centerpiece.  

6.  Organizing bathroom essentials:   

    Another great way to organize the bathroom.  Works well for holding q-tips, cotton balls, hair ties etc.  They are also small and can fit together in a small space, but keep order to your bathroom cabinet. 

Large cans (baked beans) 

7. Garden tool storage: 

    The large tin cans are a great way to store those gardening tools.  The girls and I all have our own little tin can.  It has our own gloves, a little rake and 2 shovels.  Eventually, I plan to put labels on them so we each have one with our name on it. 

8. Kitchen utensils: 

    A great way to keep those utensils from falling all over in their storage container.  Take a large tin can and place it inside your utensil holder.  It's perfect to keep the utensils more together.  If you have an oval or larger container, you can divide your utensils up into a few different large tin cans.  

9. Pet organization: 

    Organizing all that pet stuff.  We keep our cats' collars, tags, brushes and their treats in a large tin can.  It's perfect to just grab when we need something.  

All can sizes

10. Planters: 

    Have you seen the fun ways people are using their tin cans as planters?  It can be for herbs, or small plants.  You can use any of the different sizes.  While I haven't tried this yet, it is on my list of things to try.  Check out a simple how to on the blog, Handmade Charlotte .  She does a great job of showing step by step photos.  Plus, if you want to hang them, she shows you how to do that too!