Post- Christmas DIY

Good morning! Hope everyone had a fabulous Christmas ( I know I did!). I've been slaving away on creating a new layout for this lovely blog of mine. After a full day of pulling my hair out at my desk I'm pretty happy with it! Dare I say I think I may be getting used to the whole blogging thing.  I even edited my first HTML code! Self taught! Aah, the little things in life. My next project is to make a menu bar #nerdprobz.   Anyway, I know this is a little to late to be of use, but I made super cute DIY Christmas presents this year for my boyfriend's sisters. They're easy to make, and totally useful. Plus homemade presents are the best presents if you ask me! Here are my snowy day jars:

Cute right?!! Like I already said, I know these can't be used this year, but even as a thank-you gift or a quick New Year's party favor, these totally work. Here's what I did: 

• I made the hot chocolate using Lauren Conrad's recipie. The instructions are included in the link. (note, I tripled the recipie, and I had a ton left over. Depending on if you'll use it, I would stick to one batch). I filled the mason jars about 5/6 of the way with the mix, then topped it with plain ol' chocolate chips and marshmallows. So simple but it makes it look so delish.



Center



Front

• I was going to use the decorating ideas LC used in her tutorial....but then I decided that they were totally blah. So instead I made my own gift tags/mason jar swag. I bought a stack of Christmas paper at A.C Moore, (On sale!). Then I cut out a 5 by 1.5 inch rectangle out of one of the papers. Then I scalloped one of the edges just using regular scissors (you could trace it first if you wanted but I just went ahead. Then I trimmed the non-scalloped edge down about two centimeters. This made it so the edges didn't perfectly line up, so the pretty scalloped detail became visible:

Outside label

Inside label

Then, I added a 1 by 4 square of brown paper to the inside (using a glue stick), so that I could write the directions and sign it. I actually used brown paper purchased at A.C Moore as well, but even brown lunch bags or grocery bags would look fantastic. I also added a small rectangle to the front with scalloped edges to say who it was for (handwriting adds a great touch in my opinion) But you could always labels in a cute font.
Then I punched a hole in the upper left hand corner to string these bad boys to the mason jars.

If any of you are craft lovers like myself, you probably know that mason jar lids come in two pieces. The rim, which has the grooves so you can screw it on, and a separate top that fits in with the "rim" part. To make this even PRETTIER, I took the "top" part and traced it onto one of the papers, I cut it out, and then attached it by placing it onto the "top" and screwing on the "rim" part as usual.

The next step was to make labels for the essie nail polishes that I attached. This was super quick, just layered a rectangle of the brown over one of the papers and added my witty caption ;) MistleTOES...get it TOES!!

 I used Limitless Blue, Russian Roulette  and Scarlett O'Hara (all amazing winter shades).

Then, after a little experimenting, I found that the trick to attaching the polishes, is to unscrew it slightly, wrap the ribbon around UNDER the brush and then screw it on tight again. I used very thin ribbon, so this worked like a charm. Then I tied the ribbon, with the nail polish and gift tag to the mason jar. The shape of the bottle makes the ribbon fall away from the jar, which I thought looked sloppy, so I added a Candy cane under the ribbon, and twisted it a few times so that the ribbon became nice and snug to the jar. And voila! Snowy day jars.