Whether it's decorating for the holidays, coming up with a creative gift idea or throwing a fabulous party, I am all about DIY.
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A gift that is a party and present all in one! Great for graduations! It’s one way to put a fun spin on a monetary gift! To find out how to put one together, check my earlier post – Party in a Box Gift
College Graduate Gift
Graduation Gift
What do you give to a new college graduate? Here is a fun idea – My nephew recently graduated and I wished to give his gift of money a creative, fun twist. I purchased a dress shirt and on a card I wrote: “Now that you are a professional – the girls are going to expect a higher level of elegance on your dates. Here is a ‘Date’ shirt and $ for you! Congratulations!”
Gift Ideas for High School Graduates
Above is a gift I prepared for a recent high school graduate. He is heading off to college in the fall and I wanted to help him prepare by providing a few necessary items for his dorm room! Really – I just wanted to make giving a monetary gift fun, as you can tell from my “gift tags” and my choice of items…..I do whatever it takes to make it entertaining! To come up with a possible list of items to include in a future college student’s gift, I probed the mind of my daughter (former freshman, now junior college student). Here is her list of dorm gift ideas!
Extension Cord
Command Hooks
Febreze
Hangers…lots of hangers!
Plastic Silverware…her quote “because you know you won’t do dishes”
Set of tools…she used these many times!
Desk Lamp Desk Organizer
Highlighters/Pens/Pencils
Sticky notes
Shower shoes
Shower Caddy
Alarm Clock
Framed Family Picture….picture of mom (that was my addition, not her’s)
Money!
If you are ever a visitor at my home in the evening, you will be greeted with white lights shining brightly from a dwarf spruce tree planted in my front landscaping. Whether it is December or July, the lights will be there.
For the Christmas season, I hang lots of lights. They cover the entire front landscaping, outlining the front door and brightly shining in the garland that hangs from the porch railing. But for the rest of the year, this one tree will be lit with led lights connected to a timer set to come on at dusk and stay on for 4 hours.
Why – you ask. For my friends and visitors, the lights feel welcoming. To anyone with dishonest intentions, I hope it makes the home feel occupied, like there is a presence, even if there isn’t.
Grapevine ball with lights
At my back patio door, I also have lights. Just a few. In the winter, there are pine boughs in a pot. In the spring, its a grapevine ball (in a future post – I’ll show you how to make these! So check back! ) In the summer, a lighted trellis is tucked into potted plants. I will always leave them there because I know it comforts my neighbor, who is sometimes alone. She has commented, more than once, how she appreciates them.
It turns out, I’m not the only one who finds comfort in lights!
This time of year is a great time to divide your perennial plants while they are just popping up after a long hard winter. I have many hostas in my yard and this year I want to plant a few in pots to help decorate my front porch. Last year, a friend of mine adorned her front steps with potted hostas and it was lovely.
The best part is – if you already have the hostas, it costs next to nothing!
Creeping Jenny
The biggest challenge to this project is getting over the fear of hurting your plant – it will be fine. You will only be stealing a small part to use elsewhere.
The Creeping Jenny, shown above, does just as it’s name implies – it creeps everywhere! The vine branches spread out and will re-root creating another plant.
Creeping Jenny
Creeping Jenny
Creeping Jenny
Find one of these, dig straight in with your trowel and gently remove the plant, disconnecting it from the connecting branch.
Creeping Jenny
Creeping Jenny
Plant the vine in your pot keeping the level of the plant the same depth as it was when you removed it from the ground. Water it well. I like to fertilize with a root stimulator to give the plant a good start.
Hosta
Hosta
Planted Hosta
To split a hosta, dig in with your trowel and remove a section of the plant. In the picture I have 5 eyes from the hosta, but you can take as much as you want. Sometimes hostas get so large that you may want to divide them into multiple plants. In that case, you can dig up the entire plant, divide it and replant a smaller section back in it’s spot.
Last fall, I purchased a bag of white tulips on clearance with the plan of forcing them in a pot. I tossed the bag in my garage, so they could experience 12+ weeks of cold!
Tulips need to experience winter weather in order for them to bloom and this year that was not a problem – many, many, many weeks of cold winter weather!
Patiently, I waited until March when small signs of springs were emerging to plant my bulbs in a pot.
Planting the bulbs
Following the directions on the package, I knew my particular tulips needed to be planted 6 inches deep. I half filled my clay pot with potting soil and tucked all 14-tulip bulbs into the soil – bud end up, rounded end down – it matters! I then buried the bulbs, watered my pot well and placed it back in the garage.
Spring has arrived!
Waiting for tulips!
Waiting for tulips!
Two weeks later I checked my pot and voila – tulips were popping out.
I moved the pot outside on my porch and continued to wait…
This recipe is fabulous and produces a deep rich chocolate cake filled with a creamy ganache and piled high with light as air, velvety, meringue frosting.
Wish they were bigger – no worries – just have two, three….
Filling cupcakes with ganache.
Because the cupcake’s frosting was white, I wanted to embellish it with a chocolate garnish. I struggled over what to create until my daughter suggested making bow ties and dresses. Brilliant! I immediately set out to do just that!
Chocolate Garnish
I began by drawing an outline of ties and a dress in the sizes I wanted the garnish to be. I then placed a piece of translucent wax paper over the drawings and the pencil lines were clearly visible. After filling my pastry bag with melted chocolate, I piped the chocolate onto the sheet of wax paper using a small round decorator tip. I simply needed to follow the lines and voila – a super easy and very fun garnish.
Chocolate Garnish for Cupcakes
Once the chocolate hardened, I eased them from the wax paper and gently pressed them into the frosting. So fun!
Special Occasion Chocolate Garnish for Cupcakes
This easy garnish would work well for any formal occasion especially weddings, engagement parties, wedding showers, anniversaries, prom…..
Wonderful Breakfast & Great Snack
At least that’s the way it goes at my house and it never seems to last very long!
My family can’t seem to get enough of all the goodness granola has to offer and the expensive single pound bags at the grocery store, although delicious, were not cutting it. We needed larger quantities at a lower cost!
Making granola is very easy. Think about what ingredients you enjoy in granola, put it together with some oil and a sweetener (Not necessary, but oh so good!). Lightly toast at a low temperature and voila – Granola!
Here is my recipe!
Granola Ingredients
Coconut Chips for Granola Recipe
Nuts & Seeds for Great Granola
Granola Recipe
5 cups oatmeal
1 ½ cups coconut (I use unsweetened coconut chips when I can!)
¾ cups chopped pecans
¾ cups chopped almonds
½ cup sunflower seeds
½ cup oat bran
½ cup honey or maple syrup
1/3 cup coconut oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup raisins or dried cranberries
Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
Granola Ingredients
Mix the oatmeal, coconut, pecans, almonds, sunflower seeds and oat bran in a large bowl.
Add vanilla to the oil/sweetener mixture!
To a small saucepan add the coconut oil and sweetener (honey or maple syrup). Let the mixture come to a simmer, remove from heat and add the vanilla.
Pour the liquid over the dry ingredients and mix well. Distribute the oatmeal mixture evenly in two jelly roll pans.
Granola mixture is ready for toasting!
Place in the oven and stir well after 10 minutes and every 5 minutes after that until it starts to get to a nice golden brown. It usually takes about 20 minutes. Remove from the oven, let cool and add the raisins or dried cranberries or both! Store in an airtight container. Ours usually lasts for about a week, but it should be good for several. Enjoy!
I love to eat granola, but honestly it has a lot of calories. My favorite way to eat the granola is to mix unsweetened greek yogurt with blueberries. If you like, sweeten it a bit with honey or maple syrup – I like it! I will then top that mixture with 1/3 cup of granola! Delicious and not so many calories!
Need a quick decoration for your Easter cupcakes or carrot cake? Look no further – this is a super quick and super easy garnish. Melt white chocolate chips in a double boiler. Once melted, separate into two bowls and stir in food coloring. I used liquid food coloring and it worked fine, but Wilton’s icing color is better because it is concentrated. The potential problem with adding the liquid to the chocolate is that the chocolate can begin to seize. Mine worked with the green, but the orange began to seize because of the extra drops required. Adding a solid shortening helps the chocolate to remain smooth. I chose to use coconut oil because it is healthier! It is awesome stuff!
White Chocolate CarrotsCarrot Cake Cupcake
Once your colors are ready, load up your pastry bags and have some fun. I used a small round tip for the orange and a small leaf tip for the green! Let them harden and add them to your fabulous dessert!
One day while brainstorming gifts for college students, my daughter and her friend suggested an egg hunt as an idea. This year, that’s exactly what I did – sent an Easter Egg Hunt to college students! No- they are not too old!
Because there are 4 girls in the apartment, I had to decide how to accomplish this task. Who hides the eggs? Who finds them? It needed to be quick and easy, so as to not take too much time from studying!
Bags of Eggs
My solution was to place 10 filled eggs in 4 paper bags. Each bag contained eggs of just one color. The girls could then select a bag of eggs and hide them from the others. The hunt begins with the four of them hunting for eggs of all colors, but their own!
Because I can never do anything the easy way – that’s just who I am! I needed to come up with creative fillings for my eggs! Candy alone was not going to cut it. Since they are college students, I thought something inspirational would be great. Something to inspire them to work hard.
Easter eggs, bags & quotes
While searching for fun quotes I came across some great ones from television shows. I finally decided to use Phil’s-osophy from Modern Family! For those of you who don’t watch the show – Phil, a father of a college student on the show, makes a book of his philosophys. The quotes are hilarious with just enough stupid and a little bit of inspiration all wrapped in one funny quote!
Egg Hunt Directions
Easter Eggs
Suggestions for fun egg fillings: Favorite Candies…Gum… Money – always a favorite…Post it Note study accessories – there are tons of study accessories, small post it notes, tags for flagging pages. Check out the Post it Note site. They have fun stuff that encourages studying!…Nail Polish…Short socks – find fun, crazy colors!…Fun messages of encouragement from YOU!…Inspirational Quotes – from television shows, Dr. Seuss, check the web and you will find an endless supply!
Some of these items are a bit large and may require a larger egg!
After packing my bags of eggs in the shipping box, I enclosed a Happy Easter Card with a poem of Happy Egg Hunting directions – check out the picture!
Final update: The girls had a great time with the egg hunt. It was quick and easy and didn’t take too much time from their studies! They especially enjoyed the words of wisdom from Phil’s-osophy! One thing they changed, was that each roommate picked only one color egg to find. It sounds like that was the way to go. It provided them an opportunity to laugh at each other as they struggled to find their final egg!
I love chalkboards. Why? I don’t know? I just do! Maybe it’s because they can be easily erased. I am not a great artist, but I love creating things. Chalk is a great way to expand your horizons and quickly wipe away anything you find to be less than beautiful!
When we moved into our new home, I wanted to create a fun space for my children and their friends to hang out. My kids were new in their school and it was one thing I could do for them so they would be comfortable having friends over. Well, it paid off. Prom parties, sleepovers, PS3 parties, game night, we have had them all and lots of them. This was one time when my plotting worked! If only all my plans worked out so well!
To create a fun basement space for the kids meant I needed to decorate! With all the homes I have moved to, I have learned that the cheapest decoration is paint. Paint is wonderful because it is inexpensive and easy to get rid of. When the kids out grow the flowers stenciled on their walls from when they were 5 – paint over it.
Another thing I learned with all the moves – always keep extra base wall paint and label it. In a paint can, all yellows look alike!
Chalkboards were an easy and kid interactive decoration that was painless to accomplish. Since my wall was so large and one chalkboard seemed too boring, I decided to create 3 of them, each with a distinctive border. To accomplish this I first drew on paper what I wanted the chalkboard combination to look like. Then I measured out my wall and planned out the sizes. Using a yard stick and a large level, I drew out everything. As you can see in the picture, some of the boarders were done free hand, but it’s easy enough. Just make sure you have a big eraser and keep drawing until you get it just right!
Next, I taped off all the chalkboards and rolled the paint on. As you can see from the pictures, I used a small foam roller. They are quick and easy and perfect for a small job like this. You will need to put on multiple layers of paint so follow the directions on your paint can.
Chalk Board Border
Once the boards are painted you will want to let the paint dry completely. I would wait at least a day before covering the chalk paint with painters tape for the borders. The last thing you want is for the paint to lift off when you remove the tape.
The most difficult boarder was the checkerboard. I taped off the chalkboard, then using a wide painters paint I taped off every other square. With the checkerboard you want to make sure you have a full square on each corner. Mark it off ahead of time and if you need to, make your squares in between the ends a little smaller or a little larger. As long as the discrepancy between sizes is not too great, no one will notice. Again, once all the blocks of one color was painted, I waited for the paint to completely dry before taping the other squares. If you are very proficient you can do the squares free hand. I am not that proficient. Tape is my friend!
Foam Roller
Painter’s tape on the boarder
The other boarders were easy enough. I taped off what I could and free handed the rest. Ok – I’m a little proficient!
After everything was painted, I did some shading on the boarders and edged everything with black paint pens. Shading gave the boarders dimension and I highly recommend it. Don’t be intimidated by this. Imagine the sun is shining on your project and lighten the areas the sun would light up or darken the areas that would be shaded. Try it! You will be glad you did!
The last thing to do with chalkboards is to condition them. To do this, rub chalk over the entire chalkboard and erase it. You are now ready to create chalkboard art!
Chalk Boards
Oops!
Dropped Paintbrush
I linked up to iheartnaptime!
OOPS! – Don’t forget to use a drop cloth and painter’s tape!
Years ago a niece was graduating from high school and I felt bad that we were unable to attend her celebration. Wanting to do something special for her; to send her more than just a gift; I came up with the party in a box. Inside the party box was a mini celebration that began as soon as the package was unwrapped. It was so well received that I replicated the same idea for a group of my daughters close friends when they graduated from high school.
What you need for a Mini-Party Box
Balloons and Streamers- This made the filling for my package. After lining my box with tissue paper, I used curling ribbon for streamers. The curling ribbon works well since it will remain in excellent twirled form even after bouncing around the mail truck!
I also added small blown up balloons. Because I didn’t fill the balloons with too much air they were unlikely to pop and made for a festive package filling!
Gifts- Wrap your gifts or cards and include them in the box. I usually send cards with money for graduations and the party box makes getting a card all the more special!
A banner- Every congratulatory party needs a banner and the party box is no exception. I taped together long narrow strips of colored paper. After writing out Congratulations, I used my favorite scrap-booking accessory and punched out colored circles for each girl’s name. I than rolled it, tied it up with curling ribbon and placed it in the box along with the gifts.
Cake- Since sending a cake was not an option, I sent this wonderful box of chocolate Lindt Petits Desserts. It was perfect! They looked like petit fours and are quite delicious! You can locate them by checking the Lindt website.
There are lots of wonderful options available!
Guests Lastly, every party has to have guests. So I created a tri-fold, stand on it’s own, guest card made with cardstock and filled with pictures of my family. I even included a picture of the dog! I folded it up, labeled the outside and tied it with ribbon.
Party in a box gift
The party box idea can be used for any celebrations. Send me ideas on how you have used the Party in a Box idea for your out-of-reach celebrations!
