Excellent Christmas Gift

I love this time of the year, because everything is on clearance after Christmas and I can get started on next Christmas's gifts!  Plus, when it's getting closer to the date, I can relax knowing I already have some of my Christmas shopping done, and it's a huge stress off of my shoulders.

My mom made these years ago, after she saw them featured on Martha Stewart.  They're really quite simple to make, and I feel like they are the perfect gift to give one of those people who already have everything.

To start off with, you need one of these paper mache reindeer - I got these guys at Michaels for 80%, which brought them down to around $1.50 each.  You'll also need gold bead garland. (or another color of your choice, I prefer the gold - my mom has made silver before and it just doesn't strike me as much)  It took me forever to find garland this year.  Normally, you can buy it at the dollar store, but everywhere I checked didn't have any.  I found some at CVS, but they only had 2 containers worth, which wouldn't even have done 1/4 of the deer.

Then, while shopping in Michael's clearance, I found what I was looking for - only problem is they are double stranded.  I examined it for awhile and figured out that it was just a thread holding the two strands together and it could easily be taken apart.  These garlands were normally $3.99 each, but I got them for $0.79 a strand - which is an extra bonus, because you're actually getting 2 strands.  For each deer, I used 4 1/2 of these packets, or 9 strands.  The only downfall is that these beads are rough and have a design on them - I've only used smooth beads in the past, but they still worked!  Oh yea, you'll also need a glue gun and glue.  Lots and lots of glue.  I think I went through maybe 20 sticks per deer?  Maybe that's not a lot.  It just seems like a lot to me.

Anyways!  You start off (I like to start at the neck) and you just put down a couple drops of glue, and attach the beads to it.  At first, you need to hold on the beads until the glue is dry and hard, but once you get going you don't really need to worry about it anymore.  By the way, you'll probably need a HOT glue gun - I've used the Low Temp guns before, and the beads just fall away from the deer at the slightest tug, but High Temp guns work great.  Except I actually melted some beads this time... just don't hold your gun directly against the beads for a long period of time and you won't have to worry about that... lol.. don't ask what I was trying to achieve by doing that.

So you keep putting on more and more rows of beads - lining up the beads to fit into the space in between the row before it, like shown.  Keep wrapping and wrapping and wrapping until ...

Your entire deer is covered!  It takes quite awhile - I like to do this while watching a movie or something to make the time go by faster.  Once you get to the more detailed areas (horns, etc..) you're going to have to cut small sections of beads instead of having a continuous strand.

Then, I go back over my deer and pick off all of those little threads of glue and any glue chunks (you can see a glue chunk in the up-close photo above) that I can get off without hurting the deer.  I've also taken a hair dryer to the deer before, to melt any excess glue back into place.  I'm sure you could use a heat gun, as well, just be sure not to hold it in any place for too long, or you'll melt the glue entirely and the beads will slide right off.

I like to finish off my putting some festive ribbon around the neck of the deer.  (The picture above is of the smooth beads.  By the way - in that picture, there's a nasty looking open patch on the deer's back where the beads don't quite go together - it honestly doesn't look like that in person, it must have been the flash that exaggerated it.)  I just tie the ribbon in a simple knot, I'm not too creative with things like that.  My mom makes extravagant bows out of the ribbon and then adds a sprig of red berries.  I'll just stick with my knot ;)

So, I've you're interested in this at all, get to Michaels fast!  They might already be sold out, but I went a few days ago and wiped out all of the Michaels stores around me and got enough to make 5 deer.  When buying on clearance, each deer comes out to under $10 worth of supplies, which I think is a great deal!

My Printies - Amazing Gift Idea

I was looking for the perfect gift for Jase for Christmas - there's tons of stuff that he says he wants, but he already has a few hundred giraffes, so I wanted to get him something else.  Then, Make & Takes hosted a giveaway for My Printies.  I didn't even wait for the giveaway to be over, I went out and instantly ordered it for Jase.  My Printies is this amazing kit that makes your kid able to create their own stuffed animals, with very little adult help.

The software on the program was pretty buggy for us, so I had to do the computer part of it, and make sure the paper was inserted the correct way in the printer - but this paper is so cool!  It's actually the fabric part of the stuffed animal, all pre-sewn, so there is absolutely no sewing involved in making these stuffed animals!  Once you design your pet on the computer, you print it out and let it dry (by the way - it says for 5 minutes, but our handles turned completely blue from the hippo after it had been sitting there for about 10 minutes, so you might want to wait a half an hour or so - but who can wait that long when they're so excited to stuff their own stuffed animal?!)

After it's dry, it's time to stuff!  The kit comes with pre-measured stuffing for each animal, along with a stuffing tool to make sure you can get it into the tips of the ears, arms, etc...

(That would be the hippo that turned us all blue.)

Once you're finished, you just snap on the feet and that seals it up!  Now, we had quite a bit of problems with the feet - they say to make sure there's enough stuffing in them so that they don't slide off, but no matter how much stuffing we put near the bottom, the feet kept coming off, so we decided they would just have to be glued on.

For $19.99, Jase got to design and create 6 different stuffed animals.  (He even made a little safari guy with his own face on it!)  In my opinion, that's not a bad price at all.  He absolutely loved it and kept asking to make more.  You can get a refill kit that makes 3 more pets for $12.99, but honestly, it's a better deal to just keep buying the starter kits, in my opinion.

Here he is, stuffing his baby lion.  I could have sworn I took a picture of all his completed stuffed animals, but I can't find it right now!