It is merry, isn't it?

Check out the ornament that I spent 4 hours making on Christmas Eve Santa brought for the kids.  I can't wait to give you a full report on our whole day.  Until then, I leave you with this verse.

Luke 2:11

Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; 

He is the Messiah, the Lord.

My favorite Christmas verse is Luke 2:12: This will be a sign to you.  You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.  However, since you can't see the baby in this ornament, Luke 2:11 will have to suffice.  

Merry Christmas!!!!

Halloween Part 1 and Vanilla Extract

We made it through Halloween.  Someone was going to be Taylor Swift... but at the last minute opted for Shufflebot instead.  Why does she always do this to me?  Can't we just go out and buy a costume like the rest of the world???  The Shufflebot is the mascot of a hot teen pop group right now.  It is a person who dances in a robot costume.  She informed me that she needed a "rock star" shirt with the words "Excuse me for Party Rocking" (in a certain font) on it, and she also needed the robot head.

Luckily, I read more than my share of craft blogs.  I decided to use the "freezer paper stencil" technique to stencil the correct text and font onto the shirt.  There are tons of freezer paper stencil tutorials online.  Basically, freezer paper is paper on one side and plastic on the other side.  You draw your stencil onto the freezer paper and cut out the center as necessary.  Then, iron the freezer paper stencil to your shirt.  Color in the letters (or picture) and then peel the paper off.  It works like magic! 

So, here we are with the freezer paper stencil on a black shirt and Lulu is spraying silver glitter paint onto it.

While we waited for the stencil to dry, I dove into the Madagascar vanilla beans I ordered on the Internet.  Yes, this is Dear Husband and I splitting vanilla beans while the Halloween shirt dries on the ironing board.  I made him take a picture of my hands covered in vanilla. I was really touching the insides of the beans from Madagascar for crying out loud.  It was uber-cool! 

So, back to the vanilla beans...  I am making my own vanilla extract. Why?  Because I can.  Ok - well, it is a fraction of the cost of store-bought vanilla extract and I am also going to give it away as gifts this Christmas.  It is important to start now because it takes two months for it to finish.  After that, the vanilla extract supposedly just gets better and better with age and makes your home-baked goodies taste extremely yummy! 

Next time, I am going to make the extract from rum, not vodka. 

Stay tuned as we show off our Halloween creations tomorrow.

Scarf

I made an infinity scarf as a gift for someone.  I slipped out of my jammies and into a black shirt so I could try on the scarf and take a picture.  Maybe that was a bad idea... as this is not the most flattering picture.  Hey - at least I took the time to close the shower curtain. 

Moving on.

It is really cute in person, trust me.  I test drove the scarf at work today to make sure that it sat right and didn't do anything crazy.... don't know what I might be expecting to happen... maybe I just wanted to wear it.  Yes... again... it is a gift.  She won't mind that I wore it, trust me!

You can make infinity scarves at any length.  Usually they wrap around two or more times but I wanted this to sit at just this position and not be too much of a hassle.  Again, I think that the recipient will appreciate these features!

If I get a better picture, I'll share it with you.  I'm really into making my own gifts this year - can you tell?

Do you ever give homemade gifts?