DIY Gift Projects | Smart Shopping Ladies

DIY Gift Projects: Dollar Store Hat Refashion

Oh Wow!! This is such a great idea and cheap!!!

Hello! My name is Sundi from the blog “Life Of A Cheap Chickadee“. I’m all about “cheap” stuff! On my blog you won’t find overwhelming projects or lavish birthday parties. What you will find is helpful tips, zany thoughts, and best of all, adorable creative projects and tutorials that ANYONE can do! With that in mind…. I’m thrilled to be sharing my terrific homemade holiday gift idea with all you “smart shopping ladies”! Here’s what I did… I turned this Dollar store hat {insert picture of hat with scissors} into THIS!! {insert other two photos wherever you like}. I simply cut off the hat, zig zagged as I stretched around the edges, and then embellished it with fabric flowers and lace! Not only is it the perfect low budget gift, but wouldn’t this hat look great on a Christmas card! Visit my blog today for more pictures and a full tutorial!

Life Of A Cheap Chickadee

DIY Gift: Free Printable Christmas Card and Elements

SheryK Designs directed us to a wonderful and free printable she created. I have been a fan of SheryK Designs for a while now on facebook and when she directed us to her freebie I was excited. I promised myself this year that I would send out more Christmas cards to our friends and many more.

Get your free printable card and make wonderful Christmas cards for your family and friends this year.

DIY Gifts: Reed Diffuser Total Cost $.35

Little House on the Prairie Living has shared with us how to make your own Reed Diffuser for around $.35 . This would be a great gift for the holidays!

What you need:

Empty small glass bottle
Baby Oil
Skewers, dowels, or reed diffuser rods
Essential Oils

Here is a picture of what you need. I used plain wood skewers for mine that I found at Target, however if you want to get fancy you can buy decorative you can get actual reed diffuser rods, but they will be more expensive. I found the ones in the picture on clearance at Shopko for .49.

Pour some baby oil in the little bottle. The amount you use will depend on the size of the jar you use. I probably used about 1/4 c. and it filled up my little jar about halfway.

Then drop in essential oil in the scent of your choice. For my size jar I used about 15 drops.

If you use skewers you might have to cut them to the right size.

The stick the skewers or reeds into the bottle and thats it! If you want to keep reusing a reed diffuser all you need to do is replace the liquid about every 2 months or so.

Cost for project:

Bottle: Nothing if you can reuse one
Essential Oil: Pennies(I order mine from Azure Standard and they cost about $2 a bottle depending on what kind you get)
Skewers: About .05(1.49 for 100 at Target)
Baby Oil .25($1 a bottle at the Dollar Store)

Total cost: About .35!

DIY Gifts: Smores Cake In A Jar

Can you simply resist this Smores Cake In A Jar project? As long as the gift ends up with the receiver and not half way gone by the giver eating it all up!

This project comes from How Sweet It Is.

Here is the recipe and How Sweet It Is Notes:

makes 4 16-ounce mason jar cakes

for crust:

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/2 stick butter
pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Melt butter and mix in graham crumbs and salt. Mix until moistened. Spray 4 mason jars with non-stick spray and press graham crust into jars. I began by adding a tablespoon to each, and repeating until graham crumbs were gone. They don’t need to look perfect. I pressed the crumbs down firmly with the flat bottom of a clean screwdriver.

for cake: (from peanut butter hot fudge cupcakes)

1 1/8 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup dark cocoa powder
1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon heavy cream
1/2 cup butter, melted
2 tablespoons sour cream

for topping:

1 bag of large marshmallows

In a bowl, whisk egg and sugar until smooth and no lumps remain. Add milk, cream, butter and vanilla, and mix until combined. Stir in sour cream. Sift dry ingredients together and add to wet mixture. Mix until batter is smooth. Using a 1/4 cup measure, add batter to mason jars one scoop at a time. You only want to fill them up about half way, and the batter should work evenly for 4 jars. Again – don’t worry if it is perfect. Place mason jars in a baking dish and add about 1 1/2 cups of water to the bottom. Bake for 30 minutes, or until cake is set.

Remove cake from the oven and press large marshmallows down on top, being careful not to burn yourself. There is no set number of marshmallows to use, I pressed down as many as I could, about 4-5 each. Heat the broiler on your oven and watching carefully, brown marshmallows for about 1-2 minutes, or until golden brown. Do not take your eyes off them! Serve immediately.

Notes

*The recipe looks really long, but it is actually really easy! *When you put the marshmallows on top and broil, they may sink down below the edges of the chocolate cake. This is normal. The cake it still more than halfway to the top. *These are pretty rich and sweet, and make a really great dessert for two people to share with two spoons… but can still be eaten by one. *You can use other sizes of jars, just use your eye to decided how much batter to use, never going over half way. If you have too much batter, just make a few cupcakes.

Thanks How Sweet It Is for Sharing with Smart Shopping Ladies.

DIY Project: Great Jar Gift – Cowgirl Cookies Mix in a Jar

I am so excited for our new DIY Gift Projects. Thanks for all the entries. We have a few more spaces left if you are interested. Thanks to Bakerella for this wonderful recipe with Cowgirl Cookies. I am totally making this for a few girly girls this Christmas. I’m guessing I will get a few smiles!!!

This will be our first DIY Project for Christmas gifts 2011. I am already thinking of other wonderful themes I can use this for such as, baby showers, friends get well gifts and so much more. Change this up a little and you could include this as a great Christmas gift this year.

I was introduced to these great Cowgirl Cookies through a site called Bakerella , www.bakerella.com.

Here is Bakerella sharing her idea with Smart Shopping Ladies,

“I took the traditional oats, chocolate chips and pecans this cookie is known for and added some pink m&m’s to make them, well, more girly. You could change the the m&m’s to different colors for any theme but I just love this name for several reasons!!!

Here is the wonderful recipe donated by Bakerella,

Cowgirl Cookies:

1 1/3 cup all purpose flour, spooned into measuring cup & leveled
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup cooking oats
3/4 cup m&ms
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup white sugar
1/3 – 1/2 cup chopped
pecans

Stir all the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Add,

1 slightly beaten egg
1/2 cup butter (melted slightly in the microwave)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Use the back of a large spoon to work it all together. You may even need to use your hands to get everything incorporated.

Then roll the cookie dough into 1 1/2 inch balls, place on a parchment covered baking sheet and bake for about 10 minutes in a preheated 350 degree oven. I got about 26-28 cookies out of these.

Here’s how they came out.

Want to make some cute cookie mix gifts, too? Here’s how.

Start with a 1 quart smooth Ball jar. I found these at Hobby Lobby craft store.

Layer the ingredients in like this:

First: flour, baking powder, baking
soda and salt
Second: oats
Third: m&ms
Fourth: chocolate chips
Fifth: brown sugar
Sixth: white sugar
Seventh: chopped pecans

Pack each level down really tightly. I mean it. Pack it in. Or else it won’t all fit. Also, I added the chopped pecans last, because if the ingredients were too much or not enough, then I could add more or less pecans to adjust. I’d rather sacrifice nuts than chocolate, you know. The ingredients should be flush to the top of the lid when you seal it up.

To decorate the top of the jars, get a spool of suede cord and some fabric. I really wanted to find some pink western bandana fabric, but this will
do. Anyway, cut the fabric into 6 inch squares and the suede into 25 inch pieces. Place the fabric on top and tie ribbons around the lid to hold it in place.