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2013 EJD Last Minute Gift Guide-Women
Gift Guide for Woman- $50 or less
1. This Aromatherapy Gift Box is the perfect present for any woman. What gal couldn’t use a little stress relief?
2. With this Stripe Waffle Cowl Scarf the chick in your life will look great and keep warm during the cold winter months.
3. Slammed by Colleen Hoover is a page turner any book lover would enjoy. She will laugh. She will cry. But most importantly she will love you for giving her this book.
4. Can’t find a gift for the female who has everything? Look no further with these Whisk Icons Towels from Williams Sonoma. This simple design is cute and will go with almost any kitchen decor.
5. World Market has found a way to customize a present to the specific needs of the recipient and also work within your budget. There is such a variety to choose from with these Build Your Own Gift Baskets. *Depending on your choices, this could cost more than $50.*
6. Give the gift of organization with this Jewelry Tree.
7. WHOOO wouldn’t love this Owl Lamp? Haha. Sometimes I really crack myself up.
8. This beautiful Capri Blue Mercury Glass Candle from Anthropologie is great choice for women of all ages.
9. With the Isotoner smarTouch Fleece Texting Gloves, your lovely lady can have smart gloves for her smart phone. What could be smarter than this?
Hopefully, these ideas will help cut down on a little of that last minute shopping stress. Check out our Gift Guide For Men and stay tuned for more ideas coming soon!
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2013 EJD Last Minute Gift Guide – Men
Hey, Everyone! In the past couple of weeks we have shared some fun holiday focused DIY projects and wanted to continue the holiday cheer with a week of last minute gift guides for all of the guys, gals, and kiddos in your lives. Everything in our guide is budget friendly (under $50) and there are a variety of options to hopefully satisfy even the pickiest person on your list. Enjoy!
Gift Guide for Men – $50 or less
1. This classic Lightweight Twill Tri-Color Plaid Shirt is the perfect item to dress up or down. Model not included.
2. With the Chillsner, there is no longer a need for those creepy koozies to keep your beer cool.
3. Can you ever really go wrong with bacon? Umm, no, so check out I Love Bacon, the book for the pork lover in your life.
4. Let this Shaving Brush work up a great lather and give your guy a mini facial massage at the same time.
5. The tunes will flow naturally with this cool Bamboo Sound System.
6. Keep him cool and hydrated by gifting him the Under Armour Beyond Vacuum 18 oz. Insulated Hydration Bottle.
7. The Leatherman Side Kick Multi Tool is great for the outdoorsman or anyone who might ever need pliers, a screwdriver and a bottle opener.
8. Who doesn’t love a good magic trick? Find out some of the best kept card trick secrets with the Reflection DVD by Bill Goodwin.
9. You wouldn’t want his little tootsies to get cold this winter. Show him you care with these cozy Men’s Handsewn, Fleece-Lined Slippers
Hopefully, these ideas will help cut down on a little of that last minute shopping stress. Stay tuned for more ideas coming soon!
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Salt Dough Starfish Ornament
That’s right. The title says it all. I’m veering away from traditional ball ornaments this year (don’t worry, we do have several) and trying something new to remind us of the years we lived by the ocean. So, we made salt dough starfish for our Christmas tree and they are looking quite lovely, if I do say so myself.
Warning: this post is pic heavy. If you don’t like photos, then do not proceed. Just kidding. Who doesn’t like photos?
Overall, we enjoy our main tree being pretty neutrally decorated and have chosen a lot of natural-esque kinds ornaments such as white feathers, spray painted pine cones, silver snow flakes and metal rain drops. (Those occur in nature, right?) It seemed only natural to add starfish to this grouping. And we made them from items we already had in our home. Major bonus!
I started out with 2 cups of flour, 1 cup of salt, and 1 cup of water and threw that into a bowl to make my salt dough.
Next, I mixed it all up.
Grabbing a chunk of the dough, I rolled it into a ball and squished it down on a floured surface.
Then, I used a White Finger Starfish that I already owned to measure where the legs would go and marked it with the pointy end of a skewer. (Skewers are the perfect tool for this project, but a toothpick, a pencil, or a fork could totally achieve the same results.) If you don’t have a starfish to use as a template, you could totally eyeball it or download a starfish template from the inter-webs. Where there is a will, there is a way…
Using the skewer again, I cut out the triangular pieces between each leg piece.
The legs were then smoothed out and received a little extra piece at the end to make them longer.
Don’t worry. This next photo is not some weird starfish mating ritual. I was just checking the dimensions to see if they were similar. Not perfect, but good enough! Sidenote: No echinoderms were harmed in the making of these ornaments.
After the salt dough starfish was whole, I again used the pointy end of the skewer to poke tiny holes all over the legs and body…
And the blunt end to make a hole at the end of one leg for some string to go through.
When all of the starfish are finished, bake them in the oven at 200 degrees for a couple of hours until dry. Or leave them out on the counter to dry overnight while you get your sleep on.
I noticed, once mine were dry, that they looked a bit more like the color of first morning urine than the original white I was trying to emulate.
So, I grabbed some white acrylic paint and water and brushed them on the fronts and backs of each sea star. Looks better, no?
Finally, the paint dried and the starfish were ready to hang on the tree.
I know it isn’t perfect, but doesn’t it look pretty realistic? You can’t even tell that it is salt dough if you are standing more than a foot away from the tree. And the fact that it cost me a whole lotta nothing was the best part. That is always the best part.
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Whitewashed Brick Fireplace
Smack dab in the middle of the largest wall of our great room is a fireplace. The brick was a reddish-orangey-brown color. (That’s right. It’s a real color.) Our house is mostly decorated in black, white and gray so this color was just not meshing very well. I love the warmth the brick provided and I thought whitewashing the whole area would still give us that, but mute the color a bit. Check out our Whitewashed Brick Fireplace!
This post contains affiliate links for convenience. Click here to view my full disclosure. I was a bit hesitant to make this commitment because once you paint brick, it’s hard to reverse the process.
But one night when my husband was out of town and the kids were tucked cozily into their beds, I finally got up the courage to do it. You know what they say, “When the cat is away, the mouse will paint.” Or something like that.
First, I prepped the area by removing all things I didn’t want to get paint on and covered the floor with a drop cloth. We have cathedral ceilings so I also pulled out our ladder to make sure I could reach the top.
Next, I combined my concoction of 1 part white paint to 1 part water in a five gallon bucket. Once mixed up, I transferred some to a handheld paint pail and up the ladder I went.
Starting at the top and working my way down, I brushed the paint onto the bricks and the grout. (This brush is awesome!) I worked in small sections. After I let the paint soak in a bit, I wiped off the excess with an old rag and moved onto the next section. I repeated these steps until the fireplace was complete. This was a very messy process, but maybe my clumsiness is partly to blame. I did drop the paint pail once, as you can see in this picture.
What do you think? I absolutely love the way the texture of the brick shows through the paint. One day, I am hoping to stain our mantel an ebony color to match the decor in the rest of the room. More on that later.