Archive for the ‘kids do’ Category

During the Holidays, I love gifts that either make my life easier or are a fun activity for my family.  Today’s Make it Do gift idea does both.

Several months ago the fabulously talented Bakerella had a post about cookies in a jar- Cowgirl Cookies.  And my first thought was what a perfect gift for the Holidays.  Most kids love to leave a plate of cookies for Santa.  But having time to bake on Christmas Eve can be a challenge.  This gift makes it easy to throw together a batch of cookies in a hurry.

“Cookies for Santa” makes a great gift for friends or teachers as well.

Of course I had to make a batch to “test” the recipe.  And I can vouch that Santa will love these cookies.

To make this wonderful cookie mix click here to go to Bakerella for the recipe.

And here’s a few additional tips:  I found it best to make the cookie mix in a Wide Mouth Quart jar.  I didn’t buy the special craft jars that Bakerella used, because they are more expensive and I don’t mind the embossing.  I used my wide mouth canning funnel to pour the ingredients in the jar, which really reduced the mess.  One batch made about 2 1/2 dozen cookies.  I used regular Christmas M & M’s, but I was tempted to try the Mint Christmas M & M’s, I think that would be really yummy.

For the recipe instructions I created a document with both the front and back labels.  I printed it out on scrapbook paper and cut them out using a 2 inch circle punch.  I adhered the labels to the bottle using double stick tape, just like Bakerella.  If you’d like to make your labels using the document I created click here.

This project was so fun to make.  I loved them when I saw them on Bakerella back in August, and I love it more now that I’ve made them.  It’s a great feeling to make my gifts now and know I’m saving major stress in December.  Thank you Bakerella for the wonderful idea!

I’ve done it again.  I’ve somehow managed to leave costume-making to the last minute, despite best intentions.  I’ve finished my girls Hogwarts school uniforms- a little Ginny and Hermione. But my son’s Quidditch costume, which I have had to completely design is still in the early phases.  If I am up until 2:00 am tonight sewing, I am going to be really put out.

Here’s a little about the girl’s Hogwarts uniforms.  I wanted to make them nice enough to be worn as regular clothing.  I started with the skirts and went looking for a pattern.  I loved the pleated skirt pattern from Oliver + S, but could not bring myself to spend $15.95 for a pattern.  In the end, I found a very nice pattern- McCall’s M5459 on sale for .99 and the skirts turned out just how I hoped.  They have an elastic in the back, which I prefer over zippers, buttons or hooks.  And I was able to easily alter the pattern to fit my very skinny little girls.

The cloaks were a different matter, they will never be worn to school (unless that owl arrives) but, they will be worn for dress ups often in the coming year, so I made them out of an inexpensive polyester gabardine which I found for 50% off. I intended to use the cloak pattern I used last year to make cloaks, but after looking at it carefully, concluded it would not look like a Hogwarts cloak.  So I made up the pattern.  This wasn’t as easy as I thought it might be, and I ended up using my seam ripper more than a few times.  But, they are finished and I am happy with the results.  I used Transfer Magic- Inkjet Transfer to Dark transfer paper to make the crest chest patch.  I will also be using the the transfer paper to apply the number and crest on my son’s Quidditch uniform. It worked really well, I just had to be really careful about transferring to the polyester fabric, which is not recommended.  Test it on small scrap of fabric first.  I recommend keeping the iron moving slightly or you may have an iron mark on your fabric.

We already had white oxford button down shirts, black tights, and shoes.  I purchased the sweaters, which are cute enough to wear all winter and plain red children’s neckties to complete the look.  I considered painting gold stripes with fabric paint, but decided not to.  I would rather have the ties usable for the future, than ruin them for one night’s use.

Next came the wands, I came across the most amazing tutorial on how to make wands out of paper from dadcando.com (a very cool site, by the way.)  We made three practice wands, but had not painted them yet when a surprise showed up on the doorstep.  My husband had purchased Alivan’s Wands, which he has been eyeing for years.  Would you believe they had wands on sale for $7.99?  The kids were surprised and absolutely thrilled.  They are real wood and wonderful… and about the same price as a cheap plastic wand.

Wish me luck with the Quidditch costume.  With any luck, I will end up with something remotely resembling these::