Materials:

• Styrofoam balls

• Straight pins (small heads)

• Fabric scraps - recycle whatever you already have

• Ribbon, buttons - get creative!

Time: 20-30 min each.

**Because of the pins, I would only recommend doing this with kids 8 yrs old and older**

This is a great craft that you can make with any fabric scraps you already have. You’ll only need a styrofoam ball and a handfull of straight pins (the smaller the head the better). Just cut up your scraps into small pieces - if you don’t use small enough pieces it will be hard to follow the curve of the ball shape. The idea is to get a patchwork theme going, but get creative and do what you like. Just overlap pieces as you go so that the ball doesn’t show through. I just push the pins straight in. Once the entire ball is covered, take a piece of ribbon fold it over and push in 2 pins at a diagonal to give it extra strength. Also, if you don’t want to make ornaments, these also look great just sitting together in a bowl and make a great home decor gift!

Sojourner’s continues to promote Make Something Day. They have put up a short video and PDF template showing you how to cut up your credit card and make it into a tasteful Christmas ornament: http://www.sojo.net/blog/godspolitics/?p=4047.

They have several other pieces of Make Something Day/Buy Nothing Day coverage on our God’s Politics blog, including Make Something Money Can’t Buy (Glue Gun Optional) by Julie Polter.

There’s also a spiritual commentary about Buy Nothing Day, Advent, and the financial crisis in the December issue of Sojourners magazine: Re-Rooting Ourselves in God.

Last week I put up a recipe for making Lavender Lotion on my blog because I wanted to contribute something that was a little different from my usual home made gifts.  I have not tried this yet so I am sorry but there are no photos of the process and I have had to do a little hunting around to find the beeswax but I am really looking forward to having a go the day after Thanksgiving.

Lavender in bloom

1/2 cup dried lavendar flowers

10 drops lavender essential oil

4 tablespoons beeswax

1 cup olive oil

Pour 1 cup olive oil into the top of a double boiler

Add 1/2 cup dried lavendar flowers.  Gently heat olive oil and lavendar over simmering water for about 15 minutes.  While you are waiting cover the measuring cup with a piece of cheese cloth and secure it with a rubber band.

Remove olive oil and lavender mixture for the heat.  Carefully strain through cheese cloth into the measuring cup.

When most of the oil is filtered through the cheese cloth, remove the rubber band, pick up the cheesecloth keeping the lavender enclosed and squeeze out as much olive oil as possible.

Place measuring cup into a double boiler, add 10 drops of lavender essential oil and 4 tablespoons of grated beeswax or beeswax beads.  Stir over simmering water until melted.

Test consistency by adding a drop to the top of an ice cube.  It should be the constituency of a heavy syrup.  If too hard add more olive oil.  If too soft add more beeswax.  Pour into clean containers and allow to harden for two hours before topping with an airtight cover.

Several other suggestions came out of this post that you might like to consider.  Sonja Andrews gave a link to a simple pattern for making home made teabags - no not the second hand kind that overseas friends sometimes get in their care packets but the real thing.  She gave me another great link to Sew Mama Sew that has some really creative ideas for those that like to knit.

Instead of shopping the day after Thanksgiving, why not make something instead? If the family’s still around it could become a yearly tradition. Here’s an idea that I’ve tried recently. If you’re looking for more ideas check out the Make Something Day link above.

Wasted material drives me crazy. But I’m having to be creative to figure out what to do with it all. I understand sending good quality items to Goodwill where they can be reused, but what do you do with the kids jeans that have holes in the knees? Or the zipper is completely kaput? How about my husband’s plaid shirts that are frayed around the edges but have plenty of usable material in the middle? I’ve been looking around for lots of different ideas to use up this fabric and here is one that I’ve finally been able to bring to fruition.

For some reason our sheets wear out unevenly leaving one half only ussuable for the kids’ forts and the other half with tons of good material to use for something else. For my birthday a friend gave me a gift certificate for the bookstore and I decided to buy the book: Simple Sewing, by Lotta Jansdotter. The following “Cloth Napkin” process is taken from her instructions with a few variations of my own.
STEP 1. Cut out all pieces from the fabric.

Measure and mark the dimensions using a yardstick and fabric marker. (Since I couldn’t figure out which was the right or wrong side I didn’t worry about it, but if your fabric has a wrong side mark on that.) Cut out each piece, following markings. Dimensions: 21in. wide x 21in. long. Out of a queen sized sheet I was able to get 12 napkins this size and 4 smaller ones that I plan to use for the kids.

STEP 2. Make the napkins

With the wrong side facing up fold each edge over 1/4″ (I used 1/2″ and it looks OK) toward the center of the piece then press. Fold over another 1/4″ (1/2″) and press. Machine stitch a 3/16″ seam around all four sides, backstiching at each end. I pressed two parallel sides, sewed those then pressed the other two parallel sides and sewed those. You can use a basic stitch, but I used a zigzag and it looks nice. I was even thinking I could have used a bright color like red to jazz it up a bit since mine are plain blue, but I’ll have to do that next time. This was a lot of fun and very easy. I’ve been wanting cloth napkins for a long time but couldn’t stand paying $4 each for them. This was a great project that fits really well with my “green” ideals.

The Ecclesia Collective and Citizen Video are sponsoring three workshops in San Diego to help you get the creative juices flowing for making gifts. Stop by Citizen Video for details and to sign up. Space is limited.

To download a workshop flyer click here.

I was looking to buy some salt or sugar scrubs the other day, and thought it would be a quick and simple gift to make. I did a google search for sugar scrub recipes and dozens came up. I ended up using bits and pieces of recipes that I found to come up with one of my own, using many ingredients that I already had on hand.

Recipe: 1 cup of brown sugar, 1 cup of turbinado sugar, 3/4 cup of grapeseed oil, 1/2 cup of almond oil, 2 tsp vanilla extract, and about 8 drops of tangerine essential oil (until you are happy with the smell).

Other Supplies: jar(s) to hold your scrub. This recipe makes approx. 1 1/2 pints. And labels to decorate your jars.

Mix sugars together, add oil and essential oils as needed. Pour into jars.

Cost: varies with flavors and oils, but about $2.00/jar including the jar.

Time: 10 minutes

Notes: I decided to use grapeseed oil because it’s a fairly light oil and it doesn’t have a strong smell or flavor, and we had it in our house. You could use more almond oil, but it’s more expensive. I bought the almond oil and essential oil at a local healthfood store (Henry’s). You can also buy oils online at a number of places including here. I used the wide mouth 1/2 pint canning jars, mostly because I had them, but also because you can reach your hand in and scoop a handful out without a spoon. It filled up 3, 1/2 pint jars perfectly. You can also substitute salt for the sugar.

I used this to scrub my arms and face today and it felt great, and smelled good enough to eat. You may want to remind your recipients that when used in the shower it can make the floor quite slippery.

The use of prayer beads is common in all major religions, though each tradition dictates it’s own configurations and practices. In the Christian tradition, the desert fathers of the first few centuries were known to recite the 150 Psalms daily and use knotted ropes as a means of keeping track. Others wanting to emulate this practice began stringing small stones together instead. Today, Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican Christians all have their own versions. 

Since I’m not Catholic, Orthodox, or Anglican, I have created my own configuration - though they are very close to Anglican prayer beads and Muslim Misbaha - without any obvious religious symbols and wear it double-looped on my wrist (which would be frowned upon in those traditions). Mine are made up of three sets of 10 identical beads separated by 3 distinctive beads - the numbers and colors are symbolically significant for me and the 3 groupings of 10 are a convenient tactile aid for working through set prayers. 

Experiment with your own design and configurations! When given as a gift, you might consider including a list of different prayer practices that could be used with the beads.  

Materials:

• A length of cotton, hemp, or leather cord approximately 15 inches
• A set of fasteners
• 30 matching beads of your choice
• 3 matching beads of different shape (and possibly color) than the previous 30

Tools:

• Scissors or nail clippers

Instructions:

• Cut the cord to desired length based on the number of beads you’ll be using. Be sure to leave lots of extra length for tying knots.
• Tie one end to one piece of the fastener.
• String your beads in the order and configuration you’ve chosen.
• Tie the other end to the second pice of the fastener. I like to leave about 1/2 inch of slack for sliding the beads one at a time during prayer.
• Trim the excess cord.

Cost:

Cord: $2-3

Beads: $.05-$.50 each, depending on your choices

Fasteners: $2-3 

Time:

Once you have decided on a design and have all the materials, it only takes a few minutes to actually string the beads!

Materials:

• Metal Can

• Scissors

• Glue (the white elmer’s is fine)

• Craft Felt (only about 25¢ each sheet at a craft store)

• Paper art; Magazine art, book art, cards - recycle whatever you already have

• Ribbon, buttons - get creative!

Cost:

25¢ each sheet of craft felt - if don’t already have some

Time: 30-45 min. each.

These are so fun to make and the best part you can use just about anything you already have laying around.  The kids have these great loteria cards, I love the vintage look to them and they are so coool & educational too!  I just took piece of felt, measured the can from bottom to top and added 1 inch for folding over the top edge of the can. Measure around the can and add 1/2″ for overlapping. If you want the inside to be painted, spray paint works great - make sure to do this before you start gluing the felt on. Then if you want to insert a piece of a page from a children’s book, or a magazine, or in my case the loteria card, just trace the shape you want for the cutout on your felt, just use a marker to trace. You can flip the felt over and nobody will see the marker. Make sure to cut 1/8″ smaller opening than your art, so that’s it’s framed to the edges. Just position the art in the cutout opening, you can even use tape to keep it in place until you glue it to the can. First coat the metal can with glue, place the felt around it and press down. Make sure to try and keep the bottom edge aligned with the bottom edge. The top won’t matter as much because you are just going to tuck the extra fabric inside the can. I added a circle of felt to the bottom of the can so that it won’t scratch up any tables. Just trace the bottom closely and glue on.

Now for the fun part! To embelish the outside, take whatever ribbons, flowers or any little toys or trinkets you already have and glue to the front of your cut-out and then you’re all set give a special handmade, recycled, one of a kind piece of art. Enjoy the crafting time with your family and friends!

Materials:

• Scissors

• Buttons

• Stretchy Sting

Cost:

$2.50 for the stretchy string at any craft store

$3.00 for a bag of assorted buttons at any craft store if you don’t have any handy.

Time: 10-20 min. each.

This is a super quick & easy craft for any age, depending on how good your eyes are. The kids are actually much quicker at this than I am - maybe I should give in and get some eye glasses. So first, just gather up any buttons you already have, plan out your pattern - or not - I usually just wing it. Start with 10 inches of stretchy string and about 22-30 buttons. Come in through the back of each button, and if you use buttons with 4 holes just make sure to come in and out of the holes that are diagonal from each other. Most bracelets end up being 8″ unstretched for adults and 7 ” for kids. Make sure to keep at least 1 inch free on each end to make tying easy. Also, make 5 knots, one after another with the ends when you are finished, then trim the ends and there you have it … a colorful, one-a-kind gift.