[Holiday Gift Basket Idea Round Up] For the Coffee Lover.

Hello everyone! Goodness, I didn't mean to take a week off blogging (and pretty much everything) -- it kind of just... happened. This past weekend was a work event weekend and the week leading up to it is always a bit chaotic, then there's the working 8am-5pm on Saturday and 3:30am-2:30pm on Sunday, and then of course the fog that you're in after not sleeping and then falling asleep at 8:01pm right after you put your kid to bed on Sunday night. I think I've finally recovered and after missing entirely too much, I'm back today to share a little DIY gift basket round up with you all. I promise to fill you in a bit more tomorrow on everything I was supposed to post earlier this week as well as some recent happenings including more details on the picture I posted on Instagram yesterday!

But anyways, enough of that for now. On to gift baskets!

I've partnered with a few other blog friends to bring you a round up of some gift baskets that would be perfect for gift giving this holiday season. No idea what to get the teachers/hostesses/friends/mother-in-laws in your life? Well look no further, we've got you covered.

Hostess Gift Basket - I Love You More Than Carrots

Craft Beer Gift Basket - Ellie & Addie

Coffee Lovers Gift Basket - Chasin' Mason

DIY Money Tree - Seeing All Sides

Homemade Hot Chocolate Gift Basket - Running From The Law

Champagne Gift Basket - East Coast Chic

Spa Day Gift Basket - Secrets of a Stay At Home Mom

Kid Craft Gift Basket - The Adventure Starts Here

I'd like to share with you my coffee gift basket. If you've been reading my blog for any period of time or follow me on Instagram, you know that I am a coffee lover or, Starbucks lover, to be exact.

What I just realized about this gift basket is that I used two competing products - Dunkin' Donuts coffee and a Starbucks cup/gift card. What can I say, I'm not picky. Funny enough, I like going to Starbucks more than going to DD but I like DD coffee at home over Starbucks coffee. I know, it makes no sense.

But what's especially great about this coffee lover's gift basket is that it can be TOTALLY customizable! You could totally substitute the DD coffee for Pete's or Starbucks or something completely different. You could totally substitute the Starbucks cup for a mug or a tumbler or a thermos. You could totally substitute the Starbucks gift card for a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf one or even DD or Pete's. And for the candy? The possibilities are endless! You could even add a pack of marshmallows to go with the hot cocoa packets.... or even a small bottle of peppermint schnapps to add a little extra kick :) Or completely switch it up and add your own twist!

Or, if you don't want such a big gift, I made these for Mason's teachers a couple years ago for Teacher Appreciation and they were a huge hit! You could totally send these "gift baskets" in the mail even!

What's your favorite gift basket to make and give for the holidays?

[DIY] Beer Advent Calendar.

Last year, on December 1st, I shared how I made my own DIY beer advent calendar for Seth for Christmas. A BUNCH of people shared that they wished that I had shared it earlier so they could do the same for their husbands so I thought I would re-share it again and earlier this year! I would have shared earlier last year, but it was a surprise for Seth and I didn't want him to know about it before he got to open his first beer on December 1st! But now that his advent calendar has come and gone, I can re-share it now without worrying that I'm ruining a surprise!

A little back story on how the beer advent calendar came about... a few weeks before I even had the idea in my head last year, Seth and I were at Costco and we came across a pre-made beer advent calendar. I had never seen or even thought of one of those and I thought it was genius... and perfect for my beer loving husband! I had asked Seth if he would like it but he took a look at the beers in it and decided that he didn't think he would like enough to make it worthwhile. Plus it was pretty expensive, so if he didn't think he would like the beers, I didn't want to try it. BUT when I shared about seeing it in a blog post a few days later,  Desiree casually commented that I should make my own. And an idea was born! I absolutely LOVED her idea and couldn't believe I didn't think of it earlier, so I immediately got to searching Pinterest (because duh) for how to make one. To my surprise, I could barely find anything! How had this not been done before? I was shocked. So, without Pinterest's help (*audible gasp*), I made Seth a beer advent calendar for Christmas!

Going in, I had NO clue how I wanted to make it work, so I did what anyone would do... I headed to Hobby Lobby and hoped for inspiration to pop out at me. And luckily for me, it did! I literally walked around the whole store twice before I landed on this idea. I found this Merry Christmas trunk, googled how tall beer bottles are, and guesstimated that I could fit 24 beer bottles in the trunk. So at 50% off, I picked up the trunk, some crinkle paper for packing purposes, and some Christmas paper. If I were to estimate, I'd say the total came to maybe $15-$18 for these three things.

Then came the actual wrapping of the beer bottles so he couldn't tell what they were. I knew I needed to wrap the main label but then some had additional labels as well as a cap so I had to get creative. 

For the top label on the neck of the bottle, I cut a strip of paper and had planned to wrap it around and call it a day. But I ended up not liking how that looked, so I cut a little off and wrapped it a little tighter and liked that look better.

To cover the top, I made numbers. These numbers let Seth know which beer to open on which day.

And at this point, I was pretty much done! It was pretty easy but was very timely. If I had to guess, I'd say the whole thing probably took 2-3 hours.

I put the bottles in the trunk and added some crinkly paper for packing purposes.

See full, detailed directions on how to make your own Beer Advent Calendar here or pin for later here!

And there you have it! A DIY beer advent calendar! I'm very happy with how it turned out and Seth was SO excited to find out that this was his gift. 

Each day, I let him "open" the beer in the morning so he could see what it was and then put it in the fridge to cool so he could have it with dinner. I didn't really know what I was doing and am definitely no beer expert, but he ended up really liking the beers I chose! I actually had him do a little recap on the beers, so if you need some inspiration, check out this post and see which his favorites were!

Basically, I just went to Total Wine and More (they have a giant single beer selection!), looked in the section for the kinds he likes, and picked top rated, cheap-ish beers. And by cheap-ish, I meant they all cost between $1.99-$3.99 per beer, so if you're trying to plan, total I probably spent about $65 on this gift. 

And overall? It was a HUGE hit!

Beth at Our Pretty Little Girls | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram 

Liz at Chasin' Mason | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram

Jessica at Sweet Little Ones | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram
Crystal at Hall Around Texas | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram

Stephanie at Wife Mommy Me | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram

Justine at Full Hands, Full Heart
Sarah at Abiding In Grace | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram

Becky at BYBMG | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram

Laura at Life Is Beautiful | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram

Christina at Waltzing In Beauty | Pinterest | Instagram
Meghan at The Adventure Starts Here | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram

Tina at Go Big or Go Home | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram

Whitney at Polka Dotty Place | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram

An InLinkz Link-up

[Countdown to Halloween] Decorating Pumpkins with Melted Crayons.

A couple weekends ago, I found some pumpkins at Trader Joe's that I just had to have. You know, because they're cute and small and colorful. HAD to have ;) Anyway, I knew I wanted to try to do some sort of art project with some of the mini white ones, so I got to searching Pinterest. I remembered a pin that I had pinned last year (or maybe the year before? or the year before that? ha!) that I had wanted to try -- melting crayons on top of pumpkins so they drip down and make a pretty pattern. Seemed simple enough, I thought we could try it. I should have known better, but I thought it seemed easy and surely it would be a Pinterest win, right? Wrong.

Melted Crayon Pumpkin Decorating

Adapted from Crafty Morning

Materials Needed

- white pumpkin, any size

- crayons

- glue

- hair dryer

Directions

- unwrap the crayons

- break the crayons apart

- using the glue, glue as many pieces of crayons on to the pumpkin as will fit (she suggested 16, but my pumpkins were smaller and couldn't fit as many)

- after the glue has dried, use the hair dryer to melt the crayons

A couple bits of advice... DO NOT USE CHEAP CRAYONS. You see the two pumpkins in the front? I used those cheap Paw Patrol crayons that we had. The melting was terrible and splattered all over and looked watery to me. So I re-did it and used Crayola crayons and it worked MUCH better. The melt was a bit thicker and covered the pumpkin better. So don't skimp on the crayons! Splurge that extra dollar or two to get the real thing.

Oh and DO make sure to glue the crayons down before you start. Silly me was like "why do we need to glue them down? that's a waste of time!" but turns out... if you don't glue them down, they just blow away when you turn the hair dryer on. Duh. Should have thought of that.

I had high hopes that my pumpkins would look like the one in the picture but they... don't. BUT regardless, Mason and I had a good time breaking the crayons, glueing them on to the pumpkins, and using the hair dryer. And to me, that's all that matters.

Have you been doing anything fun and Fall or Halloween related? 
Link up with us below so we can check it out!

An InLinkz Link-up

[Valentine's Day Blogger Exchange] Penguin Valentine's with M&M treats.

This year, Mason and I got to participate again in a fun blogger valentine exchange! Last year I made these super fun, easy Starburst puzzles and sent them to our friends, but this year I could not think of anything for the life of me. I wanted it to be cute yet fun and pretty easy. After all, I needed to make 18 of them! So, I racked my brain and I searched Pinterest and I still couldn't find anything. And then one day I was scrolling Instagram and I happen to follow Parents Magazine and lo and behold, they saved the day again (last year's Starburst puzzles came from them too) with these super cute penguin valentine's! Now, you notice how I only referred to them as super cute? There's a reason for that and I'll get to that later.

I used this template from the Parents website. I printed it once on a regular sheet of paper and then traced the body with the wings on black card stock and the smaller body on to white card stock.

And then I cut out 18 of each.

I glued the white part of the body to the black part of the body with the wings.

I picked out two googley eyes per penguin and glued them on. You can see some of the residual glue, but it dried clear and you couldn't even tell.

 Once all the penguins have eyes, then cut small triangles out of yellow paper to make noses.

The feet are also made out of yellow paper. Cut small hearts out for the feet and glue them to the bottom of the body.

You're done with the penguin!

Now to stuff bags with the treats. I used valentines pink, red, and white M&Ms (but you could really use any candy). I bought some cute heart bags at the store and filled them with a shot glass full of M&Ms (yes a shot glass, I know this is a kid's craft but it was the easiest way to measure evenly). The bags were a little too tall so I cut them to be the right size and then tied them with pink string.

Before I attached the treats, I wrote a little valentine's message to our friends " Happy Valentine's Day! Love, Mason"

I then placed a bag of candies in the body portion of the penguin and closed the arms like the penguin was hugging the candy and sealed it with a sticker. Since I was shipping mine, I also secured them better with some extra tape on the inside but that probably wouldn't be necessary if you were just handing them out to friends in person.

I bought some plain white envelopes to send our valentine's in and sealed them with some festive washi tape. And they were off! Hopefully all of our friends liked their valentine's!

A little PSA though... these valentine's are NOT cheap to ship. So, if making them for friends, I highly suggest handing them out personally. Or, if that is not an option, use less than a shot glass full of M&Ms :)

***

Tawnya, Scarlett, & Bodhi at All of Life's Little Adventures

Jen & Hattie at And Hattie Makes Three

Ashley, Waverly, & Avalon at Being Brickner

Jess & Abbie at Being Mrs. Beer

Elizabeth & Mason at Chasin' Mason

Liz & Jude at Ellie and Addie

Crystal & Mason at Hall Around Texas

Desiree, Marcus, & Julia at Macke Monologues

Natalie & Blair at Nat Your Average Girl

Sara, Mac, & Mim at Running From the Law

Jess, Cameron, & Louise at Scott Family of Maine

Jessica, Cameron, & Emerson at Secrets of a Stay at Home Mom

Sarah, Brantley, & Holden at Seeing All Sides

Karli, Kaye, & Sawyer at September Farm

Chrissy & Elin at Simple Joys Blog

Courtney & Aria at Sweet Turtle Soup

Meghan & Noah at The Adventure Starts Here

Stephanie & Connor at Wife Mommy Me

Whitney, Kinsey, & Brielana at Work It Mommy

The photo above is all the different kinds of valentine's that we received from our friends.  We LOVED getting happy mail in the mail box (instead of just bills) over the course of the past few weeks and are so excited that we could celebrate Valentine's Day with our friends near and far.

If you're interested in making any of the valentine's shown above, click the links and it will take you to all the fun valentine's that we received and teach you how you and your child can make them for your child's friends and/or classmates.