Santa Sleigh Gift/Favor
This last handmade Santa Sleigh craft is one that you can give in many different ways. You can personalize the sleigh and use it as a place card. Fill the sleigh with small gifts and your guests can take it home at the end of the evening as a favor. Or you can add a bottle of wine to the sleigh and give it as a hostess gift. Just wrap it with clear cellophane and add a bow and personalized gift tag made with BIC Mark-It™ Permanent Markers of course! Either way you give it, the person receiving the gift will love that you took the time to create a handmade present just for them!
I hope these 12 days of handmade holiday gifts and decoration ideas will inspire you to make your own personalized gifts for the special people on your list. With BIC Mark-It™ Permanent Markers and some inexpensive craft supplies, you can create handmade gifts from the heart that will be truly appreciated and cherished year after year! If you have any handmade craft ideas that you are making for the holidays I will love for your share them on the BIC Mark-It™ Facebook page, or at www.bicmarkit.com. Have a wonderful handmade holiday season!
Snow Globe Ornament
My youngest daughter collects snow globes so I wanted to make one for her small Christmas tree that she puts up in her room every year. This snow globe is made out of those clear fill able plastic ornaments and a wooden napkin ring holder! These plastic ornaments come in different sizes and can be decorated in hundreds of different ways! All you need is some imagination, faux snow, your BIC Mark-It™ Permanent Markers and some glitter and paint. These not only look great as ornaments, but so cute on top of gifts!
Gingerbread Light Up House
Every year it is tradition in our family to make a gingerbread house together then display it on our kitchen counter. Half way into the season, the gingerbread house always seems to either fall apart or gets half eaten by my children or the dog! We will still continue to make these edible houses year after year, but this year I wanted to make one that I can display without being eaten up and that lights up too! Styrofoam board, a craft knife, BIC Mark-It™ Permanent Markers, Christmas lights and glitter are all you need to make this light-up gingerbread house that can be displayed year after year!
Peace On Earth Candle Decoration
My greatest wish for everyone this time of year is “peace on earth”. What a beautiful way to show this wish by creating this next candle craft idea. A glass bowl decorated to the look like the earth with BIC Markers holds a candle inside and sits upon a pedestal made from a flowerpot base. The base is decorated with holiday greenery and white doves holding the message “Peace On Earth”. This decoration looks beautiful on top of a fireplace mantle or as a table centerpiece.
Bell Bird Ornament
Beautiful red cardinals outside my window at our bird feeder inspired this next handmade ornament. For the bird lover on your list, they will love adding this ornament to their tree! Add their name or the year for that special personalized touch. All you need is a small clay flower pot, a miniature cardinal and some simple craft supplies to make this adorable bell ornament.
In childhood, from the moment we couple a few carefully planted steps into a run across the floor to outstretched hands, we somehow know that life is made up of a series of points that are connected and that the dash between dots is going to decorate the world in which we live in. It is no wonder then, like a ball of yarn in the paws of a kitten, young children just adore the process of getting tangled and untangled in the string of discovery they call everyday life. Perhaps this is the reason this time of year is so magic to children.
The holidays are full of strands, series of connections that string people together. We have strings of twinkling lights, strings of popcorn and cranberries strung around trees, strings on packages begging to be untied, strings of melodies hummed while cutting vegetables in the kitchen and strings of thought balanced between sips of mulling spiced cider on a Silent Night. These incredible garlands decorate the season and drape themselves over the memories we carry with us.
Once upon a time my daughter carried around a clipboard with a checklist of to-dos the minute the Thanksgiving turkey was cool enough to put in the refrigerator. To her December could not arrive until every possible surface had had the opportunity to be covered in twinkling lights and garland swags encircled every downtown lamppost. The progression of things, the string of events, that must occur in order for the Holiday Spirit to arrive safely was of paramount importance and could not be taken lightly. What seemed like a line of tedious “have to do” tasks in a queue, to this child were absolute “need to get dones.” Rudolph needed to safely navigate the airspace between stops. She was keenly aware that the dots between the dashes leading up to the one night every kid dreads screwing up needed to be in line and that the fate of Santa’s arrival was squarely upon her shoulders.
She is now 7. Santa has moved on to be the twinkle in another child’s eye, yet the string of events still remain. The tradition of setting up the tree the day after Thanksgiving, the careful exhuming of friends that haven’t been seen in a whole year from the ornament box, the discussion about their placement around the house and the creation of the “Days left until Christmas” paper chain are all things that not only decorate for a season, but are hooks from which a garland is strung year to year, generation to generation.
Prompt: Garlands come in many forms, some are chains, some are swags and some are strings of thought written in diary. This year use your BIC Mark-It™ Permanent Markers to create a garland for someone special in your life. Show them that they matter and are connected to you in a special way.
Christmas Tree Wine Bottle Topper
Another great idea to give as a hostess gift is a personalized wine bottle topper. These also make great holiday cocktail party favors and they are so simple to make! All you need is colored clay from the craft store that hardens as it air dries, cookie cutters, glitter glue and BIC Mark-It™ Permanent Markers! These simple materials can turn a boring plain wine topper into something personalized and fabulous! Wrap in clear cellophane with a ribbon or attach to a bottle of wine for a wonderful handmade gift!
Personalized Family Snowball Fight Team Decoration
I love decorating my home for the holidays especially with personalized items that either have the year or our family name on it. But personalized items are so expensive and sometimes take several weeks to get. Instead of ordering something personalized this year to reflect our growing family, I decided to create something fun! Instead of the typical ornament with all of our names on it, I thought of creating something to remember the fun snowball fight we had after the snowstorm in October! The snowball fight team decoration was created using a metal bucket, plastic stryofoam balls, paper, glitter and BIC Mark-It™ Permanent Markers. I added our family name, and each member’s name on a snowball. Now when I take out this decoration every November, we will remember the pre-Halloween snowstorm and snowball fight of 2011!
Winter Wonderland Candle Tart Burner
Everyone loves candles, especially the ones that smell like the holidays! These make great inexpensive gifts and can be personalized with simple craft materials and BIC Mark-It™ Permanent Markers! You can decorate glass votive holders, candle sticks and even floating candle bowls! For my neighbor this year I decorated a glass candle tart burner using white paint, glitter and my BIC Mark™ Permanent Markers. I included several different scented tarts along with tea lights and a BIC candle lighter. I know she will love the gift and use it year after year!
Penguin Light Bulb Ornament
Another great hostess gift or even teacher gift for the holidays are handmade ornaments! They can be personalized with the person’s name or the year they were made. This gift is extra special because every year they decorate their tree, they will think of you! One fun ornament that I like to make for my kids is the one made out of ordinary white light bulbs! They can be made into all sorts of things; snowmen, elves, Santa and even animals! This year I made sparkly penguins dressed in winter hats and scarves. They turned out so cute and made great teachers gifts!
