Budget Wreath

Earlier this month, K and I stopped at a Christmas "tree farm" - by tree farm, I mean the one set up in the parking lot of the local shopping center - to get a wreath. We do a fake tree every year, but we both love the smell of the fresh tree so we thought maybe a wreath might be enough to give us that fresh tree smell.

When I saw that the wreaths were $16 for a small one - that wasn't even decorated of fancy, mind you - I was reluctant to get it. $16 for a smell that will probably be gone in a week and then we're just going to throw it away? $16 may not seem like much, and it isn't, but for a couple on a budget, I just couldnt wrap my head around spending $16 on something that we were going to throw out. We might as well just put the money in a trash can and skip the wreath all together.

I convinced K that we should go to Michaels and see if there's one there that I can make. Sure enough, they had plain fake wreaths with nothing but a bow on it. So we kept browsing and they had an entire section for wreath making... Ornaments specially designed for wreaths. Who knew?! I certainly didn't. We loaded up our basket with goods that totaled close to $16, but it was a wreath that I made so it had sentiment, and we can use it year after year after year.

Nothing fancy, but cute enough!

Bad lighting, but you get the idea~

The wreath wasn't even the best part. When we were at Michaels, we found nifty things that TOTALLY smelled like a fresh tree. (I am positive we didn't pay $6.99 for them though.) We just put two on each tree and vwalla! It smelled like a fresh cut tree in our house. Granted, I don't think they smell anymore, but they worked for a few days anyway. It might have worked better to just use one and keep replacing it. Now we know for ext year. :o)

Dry Erase Board

Earlier this year, my sister Denise sent me this blog showing me how to make a personalized dry erase board.

At the time, I decided that was what everyone was going to get for Christmas this year. That didn't happen, but I had made two of them earlier this year as trials and kept them around the house waiting for the perfect person to give them to.

Then on Pinterest I kept seeing cute sentimental dry erase boards made to put daily messages for the ones you love. Like these:

I really liked the concept of these, so I thought I would do something like that for the ones I had already made. K and I have two sweet nieces that love home made gifts and are absolutely adored by their parents (and Aunties) so I thought, what better way to tell them every day how much they are loved than with these:

Our hope is that their parents will put a message up for them at least once a week. And every once in a while, we can send a text to their Mom or Dad and ask them to put a message up for them from their Aunties.

These really are great gifts. I am not sure why I didn't make them for everyone as Christmas gifts since they can really be personalized and fine tuned for the people you're giving them to... maybe next year. Or as Birthday gifts!

Disclaimer: I am well aware the picture quality of these photos suck and do them no justice. I am working on improving my product staging. :o)

Total Count:

16 of these bad boys!!! 

That's the most I've done so far!

 I called to tell my mom today how many I did and told her I was out of material so if she wanted them again next year, it meant she was going to have to head to the fabric store and go through the grueling process of cutting the strips. She said she thought this was the last year. My initial reaction was to jump for joy... but then I think I was a little sad. I have made these for the last three years and as much as I hate them and they literally make me angry sometimes when I am doing them, they have become somewhat of a tradition. Perhaps I will take Teenah's advise and sell them on Etsy. LOL

Scrubbies

Scrubbies - Oh how I hate thou.

Every year, I crochet beloved Scrubbies for my mom's Christmas Craft Sale at her church. She says they sell like hot cakes to all the little old ladies. (Ssshhh, we wont tell her that she qualifies as one of those little old ladies she so fondly refers to.) Supposedly, they sell so fast she can barely get them out on the table before they're all sold. They're a hot ticket item.

The first year she asked me to make them, K and I had just started dating. Imagine my embarrassment when I told her I was "crocheting scrubbies". I am certain her first thought was, "How old is this chick?" and her second thought, which is what her response was, "What the hell is a scrubbie?"

This seems to be the general response from those in my generation. The only way I know how to explain it is they are like homemade SOS pads. I guess. I dont really understand them either, I just make them.

They are kind of a pain to make. The material you make them with is netting bought at the fabric store - by the yard. In order to crochet these little boogers, they have to be cut into 1-2 inch strips. WAY too much work for me, so that's where my one stipulation comes in - "I will make them for you, Mom, but you have to cut the netting." aaaand, it's a deal.

Last year my mom sent me 4 neatly cut and rolled balls of netting. I couldn't have possibly done all four balls in one year, so I promised her that I would hold on to what I didn't use and use it for my supply the following year.

Now... it's the following year. I have a little purple left, a whole roll of red left, and a whole roll of green left. I have been putting off doing them for over a month. Every day telling myself, I'll start them tomorrow. Tomorrow never came... but then, Episode 17 of Lost happened and instead of finding a dull knife, I got out the scrubbie material and started crocheting.

Here's how I make mine:

Chain (CH) 4, connect to make a circle with Single Stitch (SS) in first Ch
Ch 3 (counting as your first Double Crochet), Double Crochet (DC) 15 into circle (16 total - it's a tight fit) connect the first and last DC with a SS.
Ch 3, DC twice in each DC space in the ring below (32 DC total), connect first and last DC with SS
 Tie off.

Repeat the above directions.

Connect the two messy, netty circles with a Single Crochet around the edges.

I typically make them all one color

I despise making these little boogers. The material is difficult to work with. When I crochet with yarn, there becomes a flow... a rhythm that you get into. The needle flows smoothly in and out of the loops. Not with these little boogers.It's constantly getting tangled and you cant be too rough with it because if you do, you'll tear it and it will break.

The material is also rough so after making a few of them, my fingers begin look red and swollen and feel raw. This adds to my anger and frustration as the needle refuses to smoothly flow through the difficult material.

They're timely. I timed myself last night and one scrubbie takes me almost 45 minutes to complete from beginning to end. And that doesn't count all the times I throw a small tantrum and have to put it down while I allow myself a moment to breathe and count to ten. 

Lastly, I especially don't care for doing these little boogers, because after all that pain and suffering I go through to make them, I don't take a step back and think, "Oh, but they're so cute." Because they're not. And even if they were, I would always think in the back of my mind, "They're so cute... and someone is going to ruin the cuteness by cleaning their dirty dishes with it." So I guess when looking at it like that, it might be better that they're not cute.

BUT, for as much disdain I feel towards these little boogers, I have 100 times that amount of love for my mom and I know that making these makes her happy and that's all that really matters. So, I will continue to make these every season until my generation becomes little old ladies and no one knows what the hell they are.

If I make two a day from now until the 28th, I will have made about 30. That's totally doable and twice the amount I have made in years past. Stay tuned for a final count update!

1st Christmas Craft of the Year

I saw this pin on Pinterest and thought in the day and age of the Words with Friends craze, this could be cute, but it would definitely need some dressing up.

Here's my version of dressing up.

All I did to dress them up was to put color to the ribbon, and as you can see, I tied little bows on Barbara's.

Simply hot glue the letters together. The glue will ooze out on the front and back of the tiles when you put them together, but don't fret. When it dries, it's super easy to just pick off and it cleans right up.

They're kind of fragile. I dropped a few while assembling them and they just snapped right apart, so I thought a little reinforcement might help.

Here's what I did to add reinforcement.

I just added a little ribbon on the back. It gives more support to the tiles and dresses up the ornament even more.

I am planning on using these as the gift tags for their actual presents. Hopefully, actually people will keep them and hang them on their tree!

Obviously there's a lot more you can do with these to dress them up. I may do that as I do the rest of them. I only have about 40 more to make!

The biggest challenge is going to be finding enough Scrabble games to complete all of them. Watch out thrift stores and garage sales, I'll be coming for your Scrabble games!