kattitudes

Starting today, you will find a very handy page over there on the right hand side of the blog (it is listed under the pages). I have created a page that lists pretty quick and dirty some of my favorite shopping places online.

It is a first draft, so not all my bookmarks are up there by any means. However, some of the multitudinous places I wander online are up there so that you too can wander in and find some of the remarkable bargains I’m finding.

If you have places that you love, please – by all that is holy – let me know. I am always looking for a new place to shop. Send me a note, leave a comment, and I would love to check it out. I live to comparison shop (must. comparison. shop. It is in my blood).

Keep in mind, these are not places to purchase finished products. These are stores for you to purchase supplies for you to make your own gifts and wonders. This is for you to get your own crafty on.

Oh how easy is this little number? And talk about multi functional. You don’t even need to run out and by anything special. Use an old drinking glass or wash the empty jar you used last night. Remember, reduce reuse recycle, folks.

Slap a different shape up there to cast a decent shadow and you could create a zillion different decorations for every event under the sun. Christmas, Easter or use a patriotic American flag for an American Fourth of July celebration.

This is such a cute decoration and an inexpensive way to decorate. It would make a fantastic quick and easy hostess gift also with a wonderful candle ready for use.

We are so making these this year for our annual Halloween Crazy Dinner! We have to tell you about our Crazy Dinner, but we will do that in another post, as it is just too fun.

Anyway, we just love these. And oh my gosh, how incredibly simple. Come on, it is just a bunch of crepe paper and construction paper! And dig out all those stickers that you have left over from past projects from your crafts closet or your crafts armoire and you are in business.

We always try to make sure that all the Halloween candy is out of the house asap if you know what we mean (and come on, you do). For us, it is a joke at this point because (yes, yes, it is a sad story, but a true one.) We are part of the unlucky people that have migraine attacks, and we know that chocolate is a migraine trigger. So we literally cannot eat chocolate without suffering from a massive brain pain. So out of the house it goes asap. We just hate to have it around.

So, come this Halloween, back to early childhood we go, and we are going to pull out our construction paper, our crepe paper, our blunt scissors and all the silly Halloween stickers we will have in our stock and we are going to make these wonderful Halloween hats and fill them with Halloween treats and use them as placeholders at our annual Halloween dinner. We cannot wait!

The beauty of this design is that it lends itself to absolutely everything. You have a birthday coming up? Fill it with treats and change the colors to match the birthday cake. It would make a great little craft for the kids in the house to keep busy doing while you are trying to get the house ready. Easter, it would be a wonderful basket replacement if you don’t want to fill an entire basket. Christmas – fill with a silly paper hat, a joke and a small gift to make your own Americanized Christmas pseudo cracker and put around the Christmas dinner table. Fourth of July – fill with water balloons and take everyone out to the pool later. You name it – this is a great little project and something that you don’t have to worry if it gets absolutely destroyed, because you can make about a kazillion more and they will all still look great!

We made ornaments like this using labels decoupaged on blank porcelain gift tags found at the local fabric/craft store. Then I put the name of the recipient directly on the with a metallic Sharpie marker.

There is a lot of focus on “going green” and understandably so, considering how much waste is generated each year by the phenomenal amount of paper that is used when we wrap all those Christmas presents and put a tag on each one. Hey, look right here for the first in line to say how much we love wrapping up and making all the presents look so wonderful. We adore that part of Christmas – love it so much! But what an incredible waste. We actually have a running joke around our house … at the end of the present opening frenzy, we call what is left over the Mountain of Greed. The wrappings, the boxes and bags and ribbons and whatnot that is piled up waiting for the garbage bag…that is the Mountain of Greed.

These permanent gift tags are one way that we are trying to reduce the amount of waste that we generate each year. One idea we used for tags was taking the baby pictures of the recipient in place of the name. One side of the porcelain gift tag was decoupaged with their baby picture, the other side was my baby picture. It made it a LOT of fun to figure out who got what present and who it was really from. And because the gift tags are porcelain, we can use the tags through the year for a number of other purposes also.

Consider doing something like this in place of all the wasteful paper wrap and tags we throw away throughout the course of the year.

What a simple and quick gift to put together. The hot pad leaf motif could be put together oh so quickly, sewn together from large scraps in just a few moments during a commercial break in your favorite movie. Paired with a baked loaf of pumpkin bread or cranberry bread – something that heralds the warmth of the autumn season, you have a wonderful greeting to the harvest season.

Take a few moments and find yourself your your fabric stash. Come on, we all have them. Just the other day, we dug out tupperware containers of fabric that had been collected and we have been dusting them off, dragging out all that fabric, revitalizing it and renewing our dedication to making gifts and small tokens of sentiment for those we love.

Dust off your sewing machine and practice practice practice. Your efforts don’t have to be perfect. In fact, it is the very imperfections that make people love your work. It is imperfections that make what you create so valuable in 100 years! If you do not quite believe what we are saying – go check on eBay for handmade goods. Not the current manufactured items, but what handmade goods from Grandmas are going for. Those could be YOUR items. Get going. Get sewing. Something like this little scenario is perfect to take over to a friend. Bake a loaf of quick bread, sew a little hot pad and go tell a friend “I love being your friend”.

It is the end of summer and fall is finally on the way. The heat of summer finally broke here in the southern United States and we are actually almost thirty degrees cooler today than we have been for the last week. Unbelievable, but wonderful for those of us that prefer it cooler. However, we still have a need and a desire to see the beauty of the summer season and all the hard work of our garden season. If you have any wonderful rose blooms still available, or if you have dried blooms available, this might make a wonderful gift from your garden.

Materials Needed:

* 1 shadow box (purchased)
* Dried rose buds or dried rose blossoms (amount depending on size of purchased shadow box)
* Glue gun and sticks

To make assembly easier, keep the shadowbox flat on your workspace until ready to hang.

Prepare roses by cutting off entire stem. Starting on one side of the shadowbox, glue roses to backing. Working in rows, slowly fill shadowbox, taking care to fill as tightly together as possible.

If desired, alternate rows with alternative color roses or even alternative dried flowers.

We have done fabric covered boxes in the recent past, but there is just something about velvet that really spices up a project. The nap on the fabric catches the light just so and makes everything so beautiful that you just want to touch it.

The ribbon and trim on these boxes are simple to add, but really make the project pop in the details. And because of the relative size, it would not be that expensive to purchase additional trim to finish off boxes like this. In fact, you could most likely just keep the end pieces and scraps of ribbon trimmings from other projects and mix and match to make a fun and festive hodge podge of season appropriate colors and celebration.

Boxes like these could be done for any holiday, any birthday, event, occasion or everyday use under the sun. Autumn colors for Thanksgiving. Red white and blue for a patriotic theme. Pastels for some beautiful Easter basket replacements. They could be used for storage, for your jewelry, for your sewing kits, for your office supplies or for bathroom beauty works. Pack one with new baby supplies. As with so many ideas on Kattitudes, you are limited only by your imagination.

Are not these just too cute? This is a great time to use up those fabric scraps that keep accumulating in our craft closets.

While these particular examples of fabric covered boxes are Easter specific, the concept can be used for so many different occasions.

Just do a little planning ahead, you can sit in front of the telly with some plain brown boxes and your bag of fabric scraps that you have gathered from old clothes you love, leftover fabric from other crafts you’ve sewn and embellishments that you are tired of tracking.

Then, in cool comfort (or warm snugginess, depending on specifically from which side of the world you are reading), you can use your favorite glue and cover boxes for your office, filing, clutter (but we want to eliminate clutter, not find new ways to store it), accessories, adornments and other whatnots.

You can prepare wrapping in advance of the upcoming holidays – maybe make a few Christmas themed and put them with your Christmas storage when you are done.

Finish a few with birthday greetings and you have a prepared handmade presentation, which is so hot right now!

People are going wild for handmade items. Pieces are selling at unprecedented numbers. Putting your special touch on the gifts you make really seals the deal as far as how great your gift looks.

People are buying boxes like this just for decoration, but I always like to try to make everything multi task.

Handmade gifts are appropriate in any given holiday season or for any occasion under the sun. You’ll find all types of gifts to make here, including jams and jellies and other kitchen presents, gifts made with flowers, handmade jewelry and even just assembly line gift ideas (larger gifts assembled with different bits and pieces).

• Potpourri (explanation and instructions)
• Epsom bath salts and variations
• Herbal Bath sachet
• Bath bomb balls
• Smells of Christmas potpourri
• Blackberry jam
• Pumpkin Apple Butter
• Good morning basket with cinnamon oat pancake mix
• Oriental vinegar
• Raspberry (or Strawberry) Vinegar
• Jalapeño jelly
• Rosebud candleholder
• Peanut Brittle – Ole Fashioned recipe
• Microwave Oven Peanut Brittle
• chocolate covered spoons (with variations including butterscotch, white chocolate, and cinnamon)
• almond biscotti
• gingered biscotti (with white chocolate)
• cappucino biscotti
• biscotti with chocolate chips
• Rosebud basket
• Instant Russian tea
• Ginger scented pecans
• Rose Covered Frame
• Romantic Picnic Blanket
• Homemade Caramels
• Rose Tree Topiary
• Rose Covered Pillow
• Rose Petal Votive Candle Holder
• Rose Cologne
• Rose Wreath
• Rose Shadow Box
• Ribbon Roses
• Rose Pomander
• Moroccan Dry Rub for Meats
• All Purpose Dry Rub for Meats

After putting all that effort into making your gifts, you want a package that compliments your efforts as much as the gift itself.

I love the simplicity of these boxes. A nice decorated box, your favorite silk bloom hot glued to the top, and you have a lovely decorated gift that looks as good as what is inside.