Random Fun Gifts That I have Given to my Boyfriend

As a "just for fun" post, I thought I would share some of the random fun things that I have given to my boyfriend as gifts. Some were joke gifts since I love including a joke gift when giving any kind of presents!

We are starting off with Banada Duck because he's awesome! I gave him as a joke gift because I thought it was just too funny! He's yellow, which is my boyfriend's favourite colour, and he reminds me of the goose from Untitled Goose Game which my boyfriend and I played together. He is actually a garden statue but my boyfriend keeps him by the door of his apartment and I pat him on the head and greet him whenever I enter and exit.

While at an antiques market, I saw some moustache tea cups! These tea cups were created to protect the moustache of men from being ruined by tea. Since my boyfriend has facial hair, I just had to buy one for him!

This Fruity Pebbles candle smells just like cereal! It's from an amazing local business called Joyful Home which makes the most fantastic candles! When I smelled it, it reminded me of my boyfriend because he drinks a lot of milk. Since my thoughts instantly went to him, I just had to gift it to him. Plus it being yellow was just icing on the cake!

This dancing sunflower was a major joke gift. I thought it was too funny plus, again, it's yellow! It is very similar to the famous dancing cactus. It plays music, dances, and mimics voices.

Cheers,

Kaylie

Scrabble Tile Word Art DIY

My boyfriend and I are big fans of meaningful gifts. He has given me framed images that he created that are connected to our dating history, like a map showing the place where we first met and an image of the night sky of the day that we started dating, while I have written him a poem that I framed for him. Another gift that I gave him recently was a piece of Scrabble tile word art that I created in a frame. I glued old Scrabble tiles to watercolour paper, spelling out both of our first names and crossing them so they connected via the "i" like in a crossword puzzle. This can be done with any names as long as they have a letter in common. I then glued a heart gem to it as well to add a bit of colour and decor. More decorations could be added but I wanted to keep it simple. I then took the glass out of a frame, because it wouldn't fit the thickness of the tiles, and framed the piece. This is such a cute personalized decoration for couples, families, and friends! You can use names or even words that fit a specific theme and then decorate accordingly. 

Cheers,

Kaylie

Creating Personal Lego Minifigures

My boyfriend LOVES Lego and his love of Lego has rubbed off onto me. The first Christmas present that he gave me (before we started dating) was the Once Upon A Brick Lego set. We met when we were both working as branch assistants at a library so the fact that this Lego set is a book made it even more special! For our 4th dating anniversary, I decided to use the Lego website's Pick a Brick section to purchase specific Lego minifgure pieces to create the two of us in Lego minifigure form! I even added extra little accessories that correspond with things we like. Mine has a teapot because I love tea and a book because our my love of reading and libraries. My boyfriend’s minifigure has a Lego newspaper to signify his love for Lego as well as a laptop because he’s a computer guy. I also included a sword for each of us because why not?

On the left-hand side of the Pick a Brick page, you will find some options to help narrow down your search. Select Minifigure Parts to look at all of the minifigure body part options and select Minifigure Accessories to see all of the options for accessories.

Here are some search terms to narrow down your search:

• For head: Head
• For hair: Wig
• For torso: Upper part
• For legs: Lower part
• For the plate for the minifigure to stand on: Plate 3x4 with 4 knobs
• For accessories: Use simple search terms like book, laptop, sword, plant, shovel, etc.

Cheers,

Kaylie

Birth Decade Treat Basket DIY

Last year, my mom turned 60 years old. I wanted to give her a unique gift, especially since she just happened to be born in the 1960s. She loves candy so I decided to put together a basket of treats that first came out in her birth decade! For this project, I researched treats that came out in the 1960s because I didn't want to just restrict this project to candy. Did you know that Pop Tarts came out in the 1960s?! I chose treats based on what still existed and what I could get a hold of. After acquiring the treats that I was going to include, I printed off photos of the original wrappers or old advertisements for each specific treat and taped them onto the treat with the year it came out. This gift can be customized for anyone's birthday. Just do a search for treats that came out during their birth decade. CandyFavorites.com has a great retro candy timeline outlining the history of candy decade by decade from the 1840s to the 2020s.

Cheers,

Kaylie

DIY Wire Gem/Bead Tree

When I've gone to the Sudbury Gem & Mineral Show in the past, I've always noticed some booths selling pretty wire trees with gems as the leaves. There were all sorts of different colours since different gems were used. They looked so complex that I thought it would take a lot of work but, earlier this year, I decided to see if there were directions online. I bought some beading wire and gemstone beads at a craft store and tried it out. I wanted to make a small tree just to learn how to make them and it was easier to make than I thought! I gave my first tree to my Dad as a late birthday present. I decided to make another wire gem tree for this DIY post and I even made another tree, a weeping willow, with seed beads! The step-by-step directions are below along with photos and tips. Once you know how to make the wire gem/bead tree, it is easy to switch up some of the steps to make different looking trees. At the end, I give a short description of how to do some of the steps differently to make a weeping willow with seed beads.


Supplies:

• 24-gauge beading wire
• Gemstone beads (or regular plastic/glass beads)
• Ruler
• Scissors

Notes before starting:

*These instructions are for a small tree. If you want to make a larger tree, increase the amount and length of the pieces of wire.

*Always twist wires in the same direction so that they look nice.

*Trees are perfectly imperfect so make sure to keep this in mind:

• The twisting does not have to be perfect.
• Give your branches and roots some variety. Do not make them all the same.
• Arrange the branches and roots in a natural way so that they go all over the place.

Instructions:

Step 1:

Cut 24 pieces of the beading wire, each measuring around 12 inches.

Step 2:

String a gemstone bead on a piece of wire, bringing the bead to the center of the wire and folding the wire in half. Twist the two halves of the wire together a few times at the base of the bead. 

Repeat for all of the other pieces of wire.

Step 3:

Take two of the beaded wires and join them together by twisting them together at the base of the previous twisting. Add a third one to a few of them. 

Repeat this with the other beaded wires so that you have several small branches.

Step 4:

Take two of the sets and twist them together, just like we did with the single wires in the last step. Add a third one to some of them.

Repeat this with the other sets so that you have at least four large branches.

Step 5:

Twist all of the large branches together at the base of all of the twisting and twist down to create a trunk. Do not twist all of the way.

Make sure that you leave enough wire to create roots in a similar way as creating the branches.

Step 6:

Separate the wires into three groups.

Separate each group into two groups so that you have a total of six groups.

Twist each of the six groups a bit. A few of these groups can be twisted all the way. Others can be separate again into two groups which can be twisted all the way.

Cut off any excess wire.

Step 7:

Bend and arrange the branches and roots in various directions.

To make a weeping willow with seed beads:

Cut 24 pieces of the beading wire, each measuring around 12 inches. Keep each piece of wire straight. Curl one end of each of the wires in a bit to make a sort of loop that will hold the beads on.

String seed beads onto a third of a piece of wire. Do this for each of the other wires. Be careful not to let the beads slip off of the wires. Follow steps 3-7 of the wire gem tree instructions.

They make such pretty decorations and they especially make pretty gifts!

Cheers,

Kaylie

Tussie-Mussies

I found out about tussie-mussies when I was browsing the internet learning about uses for herbs and the history of perfume. I guess tussie-mussies are somewhat connected to those searches. I found tussie-mussies to be very interesting, especially when it comes to their history, and I decided to make one for my grandma for her birthday last year. First, let's go over a bit of information about tussie-mussies and how to make them and then I'll talk about the one that I made for my grandma!

Tussie-mussies are small bouquets of flowers, plants, and herbs. The flowers are arranged in the center of the bouquet while the leafy plants are arranged around the outside. The bouquet is then tied together somehow (using elastics works great and then a nice ribbon can be tied around that) and then the bouquet is wrapped in a doily or pretty paper with a hole cut in the center where you place the stem of the bouquet so that the bouquet sort of sits on the doily.

Tussie-mussies were used centuries ago and then became popular again during the Victorian era. During that time, there were certain customs that controlled conversation so people had to figure out a way to speak without physically speaking. Tussie-mussies were perfect because the important part of a tussie-mussie is that each flower, plant, or herb means something. People call this the "language of flowers." People would wear a tussie-mussie to express what they wanted to say or sometimes they would send one to a specific person. For example, maybe they would want to show that they were grieving or maybe they would want to express their love to a certain person. A flower, plant, or herb can have anything from one to several meanings and sometimes the meanings are even contradictory. People would therefore consult special dictionaries that listed the meaning of the flowers, plants, and herbs or they would attach a small card to the tussie-mussie explaining the meanings, especially if the tussie-mussie was being given to someone. I recommend searching for tussie-mussie dictionaries online and finding the ones that you prefer to use. Some are better than others.

Since I was making a tussie-mussie specifically for my grandma's birthday, I wanted to express joy over this occasion (since birthdays are joyous occasions) and I also wanted to express all of my wishes for her on her special day. I also wanted to use flowers, plants, and herbs that were currently available on my family's property and in our garden areas.

I chose the following flowers, plants, and herbs for her tussie-mussie:
Pansy = Merriment
Yarrow = Health
Vervain = Good fortune
Wood Sorrel = Joy
Basil = Best Wishes
Fern = Sincerity

The pansies came from our hanging flower baskets. The yarrow, vervain, wood sorrel, and ferns came from further back on our property (in the bush by a river). The basil came from our vegetable garden.

It is also common to create a phrase using all of the meanings so I created the following phrase:
Sincere wishes for health, joy, and good fortune on this merry occasion.

I used rubber bands to tie all of the stems together and did this several times throughout the bouquet to ensure that the various layers stayed together and didn't fall apart. I cut a piece of paper in a sort of round decorated snowflake style and cut a hole in the center large enough for the stems of the bouquet to fit through. I also tied a nice ribbon around the elastics and the base of the paper to hide the elastics and paper edge as well as to hold everything together nicely. I wrote out the meanings and phrase on a piece of paper along with a little birthday message and tied it to the bouquet. I also placed the bouquet in a small vase of water to make sure that the plants would last. I told my grandma that she could leave the bouquet in the water for a while and when the plants start to wilt, she can try drying the bouquet so that she could keep it. She ended up letting it dry and still has it sitting on her table beside her chair.

Tussie-mussies are not just simple bouquets. They are so much more! I think that's why they make such special gifts. Also, you can adapt them for basically any occasion since there is a large range of meanings associated with the flowers, plants, and herbs. Give it a try!

Cheers,
Kaylie

Easy Christmas Gift Idea for Friends

Here's a super easy Christmas gift idea for friends! Christmas sugar cookies! Most people like cookies (especially Christmas cookies) and the recipe that I used is delicious! I wasn't sure what to do when it came to little gifts for my friends so I decided that cookies would be something simple that they'd all like. You can even wrap them up in little boxes (I made little paper boxes with Christmas scrapbook paper) and tie them up with a bow! It would be wise to wrap the cookies in plastic wrap before putting them in a box so that they don't go all crumbly. I put three cookies in each little box and I gave a Christmas card with each box of cookies.

The recipe that I used for the cookies is a soft sugar cookie recipe from Food.com. I sprinkled some extra sugar and some red and green sprinkles on top of the cookies before I put them in the oven. The extra sugar gave them a nice shiny look (and made them taste even sweeter!). They are amazing! This is now my go-to soft sugar cookie recipe for the holidays!

You should definitely try this!

-Kaylie