What is better than candy, sweets, nail polish and lip gloss for a little girl’s birthday party? My vision was to create a spa that looked and smelled like candy. The idea sounded easy, but took months of planning and a lot of creativity! I had a small budget to work with so I created most of the decorations myself from items around my house like empty wrapping paper tubes, flower pots and cardboard that were made into giant lollipops. Rolls of cotton left over from Christmas decorating were spray painted with food coloring to create faux cotton candy and ice cream cones! Inexpensive craft and party supplies like paper lanterns, cellophane, ribbon, paper and BIC Mark-It™ Permanent Markers were used to create gumball and cupcake lined walkways around the house that led guests to different areas of the spa party.

The spa party was broken into six different areas throughout the house, including the candy lounge, the chocolate facial station, the cotton candy hair tinsel area, ice cream scented manicures, make your own candy flavored lip gloss area, and the party room. The candy lounge was where the girls drank cotton candy drinks and ate from the candy buffet while they waited for their spa treatments. Real chocolate facials made from a free recipe found online were hard to resist being licked off as they were being applied to the girl’s faces at the chocolate facial station. The room was filled with the scent of cotton candy perfume as this was sprayed into the girl’s hair after sparkly hair tinsel was woven into their locks! Ice cream scented nail polish (found at a drug store) was applied in an area that looked like an ice cream shop, decorated with a huge ice cream cone made from paper, BIC Mark-It™ Permanent Markers and rolls of cotton.

After the spa treatments were done, the girls got to create their own candy flavored lip glass that also severed as one of the party favors to take home. The recipe was found free online and was really easy to make. Flavored and sweetened powdered drink mix, petroleum jelly and some edible sparkles were the only ingredients needed! I purchased small metal tins to hold the lip gloss that the girls labeled and decorated with BIC Mark-It™ Permanent Markers and jeweled stickers. It was so much fun to make and tasted great on their lips!

At the end of party the, pizza, cake and ice cream were served in the party room that was decorated with bright colors and lollipop/gumball filled centerpieces. Candy necklaces and button candy were used to decorate the chandelier, chairs and table. Inexpensive paper streamers covered the walls to look like candy canes and name tags created with BIC Mark-It™ Permanent Markers were added to lollipops as place cards. No sweet detail was overlooked! The birthday girl Amanda and her friends had a wonderful time at the Sugar and Spice Spa party. Everyone left smiling, relaxed, and a with a goody bag full of sweets!

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!

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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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!