Back with some Christmas crafts

Back with some Christmas crafts

I know I've been away. Life has a way of getting in the way of blogging. LOL! I've been seriously plugging away at my Christmas to-do list and the end is near! It should be since Christmas is less than a week away! LOL! I've still 2 people (MIL and BIL) I've no gifts for but at least everyone else is done.
Today is the last day of school for DS so presents to his teachers and classmates are done. Tomorrow is DD's class Christmas party. Teacher gifts are done, 5 more packs needed for her classmates'.
I've really been busy and I've got pics to show for it! Hahaha - evidence that will hopefully excuse my absence from this blog. LOL!

First off are these cake ball trees I made. I gave these away to some tito's and tita's. I had originally planned on making 8 of these but quickly realized that I was running out of time. I was doing this the night before the Christmas party. I had baked 2 pans of brownies to use and thought that it was going to be enough. But no... I had to bake another pan of cake then only got to make 5 instead of 8.
Of the 5 trees I made, 3 were mini trees pictured here. I had to cut the styro cone in half so I would need less cake balls. This was a fun gift to make if I had carefully planned and timed everything, instead of doing it at the last minute!













(See my gallery for the credits)


My next project were these candles. I gave these away to some friends. I experimented a couple of times with my own candles before taking the plunge and making them as presents. I initially just used a regular blow dryer to heat and melt the wax but discovered it was too unpredictable. I caved and bought a heat gun, the ones used for embossing and stuff. Good thing I had a 40% off coupon from Michael's. I foresee making these often because they are really soooo easy to do! I followed the tutorial here. Some tips: Go real easy on the spray adhesive. I sprayed liberally the first try and I tore some of the paper trying to get it out of the cardstock. I printed using the draft setting of my printer. Use light-colored candles. I made the mistake of using a dark red candle and the design could hardly be seen. If I did not melt the design into the candle, it would not have been a problem.




These next crafts were the teacher and classmate gifts. I was inspired and followed the tutorial of Emily Giovanni found on her blog. I am so excited about how the beaded pen came out! It's super cute, if I may say so myself! The little Hershey's nuggets are so cute too, don't you think? My own kids were all begging to have some and when I told DD2 to eat one of the undecorated ones, she insisted she wanted one of the decorated ones. I suppose it's yummier when it's cutely wrapped, huh?

This last one is another teacher gift. I found this carousel at Target. I just designed 4 4x6 prints to go in them and voila! a personalized gift! I've also put in beaded pens to go in there. I figured, teachers always need pens and something to put them in, right? I went with an ocean theme because that is how she decorated her room this year.

That ends my craft showcase for today. LOL! That's what's kept me busy this past week and a half. Oh, there is another present I made for my kids' godparents but I'm not posting them yet since I know that at least one of them checks in here sometimes. ;)

BTW, please excuse the varying quality of photos I've posted. These are all SOOC(straight out of camera) with no editing and I'm still experimenting with my manual settings in getting the right exposures on my own. As you see, some have the right exposure, others are underexposed. I find that I seem to underexpose my photos more times that over expose them.