Christmas Gift Ideas 2015 (Siobhan)

~Christmas Gift Ideas~

Our family loves making homemade Christmas gifts! Now that the 2015 Christmas season is over, I wanted to share with you the Christmas gifts we made. These would make great gifts for Christmas 2016! 

 We used these adorable Snowman Gift Bags for our smaller Christmas gifts.

For the kids' Sunday School teachers, we put together bags with some packs of our favorite chai tea, dark hot chocolate, a lemon biscotti, an ornament, and a card from the kids.

I made these Christmas ornaments to hang on the front of the bag. They were very simple to make. I used different types of ribbon and Christmas fabric.

Another gift we gave was Lemoncello with some homemade biscotti. 

Mom made and bottled the Lemoncello, which is an Italian Liqueur.

 Click here to print out the Lemoncello labels.

Click here to see the Lemoncello bottles.

I made dark chocolate peppermint and lemon white chocolate biscotti.

Click here to see the Dark Chocolate Peppermint Biscotti recipe post.

Click here to print out the Biscotti labels.

 Our final gift ideas are these cake pops. I made dark chocolate and peppermint red velvet cake pops.

Click here to see my Christmas Cake Pop tutorial.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Click here to see last year's Christmas Gift Ideas post.

Christmas Gift Ideas By: Siobhan

Now that the holidays are over, I wanted to compile a post with the different gifts we have made this year. These would make great gift ideas for Christmas 2015! I am putting links throughout the post that you can click on if you'd like to see the blog post that corresponds with each craft.

  For this Snowman craft we put 1 cup of hot chocolate in a bag, then we put it in another bag with some marshmallows decorated with Wilton Edible Markers. We tied the bag with some ribbon and added a cute gift tag.

 Peppermint Brownies in a Jar (click here for the recipe)

 Rootbeer Reindeer (click here to see our Rootbeer Reindeer tutorial)

Tea Wreath (click here to see our Tea Wreath tutorial)

We made these Chai Spiced Almonds as gifts, but these are also a great snack for any time of the year! (click here to see our Chai Spiced Almonds recipe post)

Chai Spiced Almonds By: Siobhan

Merry Christmas Everyone! Today I have a new recipe for you. It makes a great last minute Christmas gift, and it uses very few ingredients. These Chai Spiced Almonds are absolutely delicious and easy to throw together. I got the recipe out of the Weelicious Lunches cookbook. Let's get started...

Ingredients:

1 12 oz. bag raw almonds

2 T honey

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 tsp. ground nutmeg

1 tsp. ground ginger

1/2 tsp. ground cardamom 

1/2 tsp. salt

Non-stick spray

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment and roast almonds for 10 minutes.

Step 2: Place almonds in a bowl and drizzle with honey. 

Step 3: Sprinkle the spices over the nuts.

Step 4: Toss the almonds until every nut is evenly coated.

Step 5: Spray baking pan with non-stick spray. Put almonds back in the pan and bake for 8 minutes.

Let the almonds cool completely. 

 

If I bake the almonds for our family to eat, I simply put them back in whatever container they came in. I made this batch for a gift, so I put these in some mini treat bags. You can put them in a little gift box like the one above if you are giving them to someone with a gift card or small gift.

 

 ~Chai Spiced Almonds~

Tea Wreath Craft By: Siobhan

Today I have another Christmas craft to share with you. We are giving these as gifts this year. They are relatively easy and very cute.

Supplies

(I have links for most of the supplies below)

Tea Bags

Craft Rings for Tea Wreaths (you could use cardboard, but these wooden rings that we got held up much better)

Colored Mini Clothespins

Designer Paper

Glue Gun and Hot Glue Sticks

Scissors

Exacto Knife

Step 1: Cut out the paper to fit your wreath frame. Leo cut out the paper with an exacto knife and then made little tabs that folded over to the back of the frame. 

Step 2: Hot glue your paper onto your frame.

  

Step 3: Hot glue your clothespins onto your frame 

Note: With all of the tea wreath tutorials I've seen, you've had to cover your clothespins with paper. We just got colored clothespins so that we could eliminate this step.

 

We used about 16-18 clothespins per 9 inch wreath.

  

 

 Step 4: Clip your tea bags onto your wreath.

~Tea Wreath~

These tea wreaths would make a great Christmas gift. Make sure to check out our Rootbeer Reindeer Craft Post as well.

Rootbeer Reindeer Craft By: Siobhan

Our family always gets very excited about Christmas right around the time Thanksgiving rolls around. Christmas music starts playing, our house is decked with Christmas lights, our Christmas tree goes up, and we start making homemade Christmas gifts. 

My friend Asia Grace and I made these adorable little 'Rootbeer Reindeer.'  I got the idea for them from this tutorial video on Youtube.

Supplies:

IBC Rootbeers (any brand of rootbeers will work, as long as they don't have any labels on them)

Brown Pipe Cleaners

Small Googly Eyes

Christmas Ribbon

Glue Gun

These Holiday Tags (click here)

 

 Step 1: Wrap a brown pipe cleaner around the neck of the bottle. Twist to secure.

Step 2: Make a little bend on one of the pipe cleaner ends. Twist the rest of the pipe cleaner around it to secure. Make a bend in the pipe cleaner a little further up and twist. Make a bend with the rest of the pipe cleaner. Repeat with the other pipe cleaner end.
  

 Step 3: Glue the googly eyes on the neck of the bottle.

 Step 4: Add a mini red pom-pom for the nose.

 Step 5: Tie some holiday ribbon around the bottle. Hole punch a holiday gift tag. Loop it through the ribbon. Make two knots to secure.

 (A twist on the regular rootbeer :) )

Happy Holidays!