The First Gift

The very first gift I gave this year was for a "dirty Santa"/white elephant gift exchange with my Phamily.

Phi Lamb Initiation

I think the best gift of the night was a mason jar that has some sort of current in it that you tap, and a fake butterfly inside flutters around. Whenever I go to the Cousins' apartment now, I always turn it on and start tapping away!

The price limit for gifts was $15. I'm in college, guys, so spending that much certainly wasn't an option. I also hadn't seen any cute things I could give recently. Soooo. . .

I made a gift! A small felt ornament with a couple packages of hot cocoa I had around.

First, draw your outline on some felt. I used a Sharpie and free-handed the Christmas tree. Fold felt in half with the design on the outside, and pin the front and back together so both sides get cut the same without moving around a whole lot.

Cut out the tree (or other festive shape-reindeer, star, snowflake-whatever suits your fancy) and pin on a small scrap at the bottom to be the trunk and a small star at the top.

Using embroidery thread, sew around the whole of the tree making sure to catch the star and the trunk. If you would like to, use a couple of different colors of thread to make ornaments on the tree. I just tied a knot at the end and decided that there would be a front and back of the ornament, so I didn't care how messy it was.

Pick some ribbon to use as the hanger, and hot glue it to the back. At this point I also glued the star to make sure it would stay, and glued the knot in the back so it wouldn't keep peeking out like in the above picture.

My roommate and I don't have a tree, so you'll have to settle for seeing the finished product hanging on a nail where I usually have a couple of necklaces. 

I wrapped the ornament and hot chocolate up in some tissue paper. . .

. . . added a note and a pipe cleaner ribbon and

Ready!

My roommate, who is also my Big, ended up getting my gift, so I got the hot chocolate back :] She doesn't drink it because it has too many calories. . . Oh what she is missing out on! I love me something toasty and chocolatey to drink on cold nights with a book to read or studying to do. Adding whipped cream and feeling the different temperatures at once is the best part-even more calories for miss Gina.

What's your favorite part about the holidays? Have you bought or made any gifts yet?

L