Christmas Gifts That Are Actually Relaxing To Make!

Are you feeling the rush of the season yet?  I was feeling it a little today as I was creating tags, wrapping gifts, and packaging them up to be taken to the post office this morning.

I also still had a couple of gifts that I wanted to make to give to my sister and brother-in-law.  They are not expensive gifts by any means, but I wanted to just send them a little something to open on Christmas.

I’m very excited about the gift that I made for my sister today!  I just had to share it with you.  She never reads blogs, so I’m not worried about her seeing this.  I just won’t share it on my Instagram page!

I wanted to color a nice floral image for her and frame it.  This is the rough version right after I finished the splatters. The pencil lines represent the size of the frame that I’m putting it in.

I’m not going to fib…this cost less than $6 in total to create.  (Not counting the Copic markers!)

I had created a couple of cute projects from some digital images given to me by Bugaboo Stamps for the Scrapping 4 Fun Challenge Design Team that I am on.  I had a lot of fun creating projects with them and decided to check out their store.

My sister doesn’t like “cartoony” little critters or people, so I decided to go for a floral. I realize that watercoloring this would have made it less “cartoony”, but I really just felt like pulling out my Copics.  I was actually browsing their sassy woman stamps before settling on a floral.  The image cost only $3 and I have it to create more projects in the future!

What a relaxing afternoon! This image is called the Flower Butterfly Vase and it is a digital stamp.  I printed it on 90lb Neenah white card stock using my ink jet printer. I let it dry for about 2 hours while I went for a walk and then put up the Christmas greenery, bows and lights on my porch railing.

I colored the image and then had dinner.  I always need to walk away from a project for a bit and then come back to it to get my real feelings about it.

When I came back, I added the warm gray below the vase to add a shadow and ground the image.  Then I added the BV000 to the background and the W1 drop shadow to the image.

Of course I added black and white splatter!  Once it was dry, I framed it.

The frame came from the dollar store and it was $2.50.  It’s not terrible, plus I have no doubt that my sister has a box full of frames in her basement she can change this one out with.  I slapped my mask on and ran in to that dollar store, grabbed a frame, paid and ran out.  I sanitized my hands 3 times.

I just wanted to add a frame so that it looked like something more than a picture colored on a piece of paper.  The frame makes it Home Décor!

You know that I’m right!  It can hand on a wall or sit on a desk decorating the space.  Home décor.

I hope she likes it.  I certainly enjoyed making it for her and she will have a gift that I made just for her to open on Christmas day.  (Unless she opens it before that.  I hope she reads that part!)

I decided to play along with The Crafter’s Cafe Challenge this week just for fun.  It’s an Anything Goes challenge, so this project works!

I hope you are finding time to relax and create during this hectic season.  I always enjoy getting handmade gifts and I certainly enjoy giving them.  My daughter often makes me handmade gifts and she makes them for her friends as well.  I feel like I taught her well.  Just because something cost less than $6 to make doesn’t take away from how special a handmade gift really is.

Be well and enjoy your holiday preparations!  Thank you for taking the time to stop by and visit!