"We Love You" Jar

This Fall-themed "We Love You" Jar fits right in with the autumn season, but it could of course be altered slightly to work for any time of the year. 

A few years ago when our friend Charity had a birthday during October, we left her a little surprise on her doorstep. We gave her some Pumpkin Spice candies and wanted to do something a little more personal than just candies, so we came up with this personalized "We Love You" Jar:

If you'd like to recreate it, or make your own version, here's what we did:

The Ultimate List of 100 Non-Toy Gift Ideas

Stop filling your home with too many toys! End toy overwhelm today with this huge list of specific, FUN non-toy gift ideas! 

Is this how you feel when you survey the growing collection of toys in your home?

I was recently interviewed on several radio shows across Canada about the idea of a Toyless Christmas, so I thought I would share a list on the blog of Non-Toy Gift Ideas that can serve as a reference for birthdays and Christmas when you're feeling overwhelmed with toys!

Mother's Day 2022 Gift Guide

I'm excited to announce this Mother's Day 2022 Gift Guide! 

How many times have you been asked what's on your wish list and had no answer prepared? This year, you'll be ready for that question when somebody asks! You might want to save this post for your birthday and other special occasions, too! 

There are discounts & giveaways for several of the items in the guide, and I'll be posting videos for several of them throughout this week, so stay tuned on YouTube and Instagram so you don't miss them! 

Now, onto the featured items- I've carefully chosen some special things that I would love to give (or receive) for Mother's Day.  I hope you'll discover something new that you'd like too!

How to Make Your Own Rimming Sugar

I've always thought it would be fun to make our own rimming sugar when we want to have a special drink. When the girls decided they wanted to have Disney Frozen themed birthday parties I thought it would be fun to have a blue drink and rim the glasses with sugar for an icy look. Around that same time we were putting together a gift for my mother-in-law who loves Piña Coladas and Strawberry Daiquiris, so we set out to figure out how to make our own coloured and flavoured rimming sugar as well!

Rimming Sugar Recipe

What kind of sugar do you use to rim a glass?

To Make Regular White Rimming Sugar, all you really need is white sugar and a citrus fruit!

To Make Flavoured, Coloured Rimming Sugar, here's what you'll need:

11 Creative Ways to Re-Purpose Mason Jars

I saw several great re-purposed jar ideas in the Sharing Time Link Party this month and I thought this would be a good time of year to do a roundup because many of these would make great gift ideas!

Here are 11 creative ways to re-purpose a mason jar!

A Gift Idea for Men - & a JORD Wood Watch Giveaway!

I know I'm not the only wife out there who has struggled to think of a gift idea for her husband. Men are difficult to buy for! Ken had his birthday a couple of weeks ago and I surprised him with a very unique watch as his birthday gift! He has always talked about how he'd love to get a really nice pocket watch that could be passed down in our family. He loves the idea of a watch that's all mechanical. This watch isn't for a pocket, but it's definitely unique because it's made of wood, for one thing, but it also has an amazing colourful face and a bunch of really special features.

I want to show you some pictures of it because it's such a cool watch and also because at the end of this post, you're going to have the chance to win $100 USD to put toward your own wooden watch from JORD!  This watch is from the Sawyer series and it's named "Ebony & Ultramarine" because it's made from ebony wood and of course, it has that beautiful blue face! (I mean... handsome.. it's a men's watch ;)

You can see in the photo above, that these watches come in a beautiful wooden box. It even has a little drawer in it where you can keep your wood polish. The boxes can even be personalized with an engraving.

Eye Found It! Free Printable Christmas Game

Today I have a cute free printable Christmas game for you called "Eye Found It". This is another fabulous printable that was created for the #LightTheWorld Service Initiative (encouraging people to find 25 ways to serve in 25 days). This one was created by Sam from thekiwiintheclouds.com.

This would be a great gift for a child to give to another child, or for anyone to give to a person who they would like to spend some quality time with.  It's so simple to make- just print and cut out!

Instructions for how to play the game are included in the printable!

You can download this free printable kit here.

Access other free Christmas printables from the #LighttheWorld campaign here.

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How to Surprise Your Kids on Christmas with a Trip to Disney World!

If you're looking for surprise Disney trip reveal ideas, especially if it's a Christmas Disney trip reveal,  I've got you covered!  

I have dreamed for a long time about being able to take our girls to Disney World.  I sometimes wondered if we would ever be able to do it!

In November we made the decision to go for it and plan a trip to Florida to take our girls to Disney World! We kept it a secret until Christmas morning, thinking about all of the different Disney World surprise ideas for ways we could break the news.  It was really fun to think about all of the different possibilities!

In the end, we came up with a fun way to give them a series of little gifts to open that would answer questions.  I took pictures so I could show you how we did it. :)

Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament Giveaway

For Christmas this year we surprised the girls with a trip to Medieval Times in Toronto. We were really excited to take them because we had been there for our first anniversary (10 years ago!!) and we knew that the girls were at a good age to really enjoy it!

They knew what Medieval Times was, so we were able to reveal this gift to them with a few visual clues:

These are pictures of them reading their clues Christmas morning.  In that last photo, Katrina put her head down and let out a thrilled squeal! haha :)  We got the reaction we were hoping for!

DIY Tic-Tac-Toe Game

Here's how we made these cute DIY Tic-Tac-Toe Games!

This was a great little sewing project for my girls to be involved in, leading up to Christmas. They made gifts for their pen pals and some of their long-distance cousins. I originally found this Tic Tac Toe craft idea among other sewing projects for kids on parents.com. It would be a great gift any time of the year and is a good easy sewing project for kids.  

Christmas Sugar Plum Classmate Gifts

When Talia was in Kindergarten, I made these little "Sugar Plum" Christmas handouts for her classmates.
I saw them here and thought they were adorable!

Here's What You'll Need to Make Them:

- candy melts
- lollipop sticks
- large marshmallows
- small clear bags
- sprinkles
- ribbon
- hole punch

And since there's already a great tutorial over at that link above, I'll send you there to see how to make them!
(That's also where you'll find a printable for the tags I made!)

This is another idea I didn't realize I hadn't blogged about and I thought you might think it was as cute as I did, so here it is!

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Hot Chocolate on a Stick

I was looking through some photos from Christmastime in years past and I found a cute Neighbour/Friend gift that I made back in 2011 that I had never shared on the blog! As soon as I saw this idea of "Hot Chocolate on a Stick" with homemade marshmallow squares on top, I knew I wanted to try it!

I didn't take photos of the process of making the chocolate, but you can find instructions for making the chocolate here. I did take photos while making the marshmallows and you can find that post and tutorial for homemade marshmallows here.

After making those two recipes, you just stack a marshmallow on top of a cube of chocolate and stick a sucker stick through it, then dip it into a little plastic bag (you can find the sticks and bags at Michaels or Bulk Barn). Then I tied them up with a ribbon and attached a little printed note that I made and printed from my computer. The font on the front of the tag (with the little snowflakes) is called Frosty and is free to download.

I thought this was such a cute idea!  Thought you might agree and wanted to share :)

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Long Distance Auntie- How to Remember Their Birthdays!

I want to be a good aunt to my nieces and nephews.
I have 15 right now, and only 2 of them live in the same country as me!
I want those other 13 to know how much I love & care about them!

I have tried doing things like sending cards for special events (like Easter and Valentines Day), but let's be honest- that has only happened a couple of times! I've also tried sending birthday cards but inevitably, I have great plans to be organized and send cards to every niece & nephew on his/her birthday throughout the year and after the first few months of the year (or whatever time of year I begin),
life gets busy and I forget to continue!

but, no more!

2013 will be the year of the successful birthday card-sending aunt! I'm committed!

And I'm on the right track, too.
I think I've figured out a way to get the bulk of the work out of the way early so that I can actually get those cards out and into the hands of those cute kids, so they can feel the love from afar! ;)

Here's what I've done:





I've already made a card for each of them- signed by each member of our family. I've even addressed the envelopes (some of which will have to be re-addressed because we've had some unexpected moves ;) I had some cute address labels that I got to use, too!

If you're not into making your own cards (or you just don't have the time to pull it off), you can get some really cute, personalized cards online! I've seen people make adorable cards or postcards with their photos on them or a cute note already printed on the card. You can also order address labels or stamps to add your return address to the envelopes easily. You don't have to spend a lot either, you can always find Great Deals on Vistaprint Products on their website. (at the time of writing this the return address labels are 80% off!)

I've made notes on my calendar for 2013 with when to send each of the cards so that they'll get there at the right time- I'll send them at the beginning of each month (or half way through the month, depending on the date of the birthday). I think this method is going to work!

I had to share it with you in hopes that it will help some of you to conquer your list of birthdays successfully!



Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Vistaprint.

Tutorial Tuesday: Love Letter Books

This gift idea was originally shared by me over at Or So She Says, in 2010! I realized I had never shared it here and thought it would be a good one as we approach Valentine's Day :)

This is a gift idea for significant others.

For whatever reason, I find it incredibly challenging to come up with a good gift for my husband. I know I'm not alone in this, so here I am to share one idea that I came up with that has been great for me- and it's a gift that keeps on giving! (sweet!)

You can get as creative as you wish with this. It can be strictly a love letter book (which is how I've done mine) or it can be scrapbookish.


Here's what you do:

1. Search the stores for the most masculine journal/notebook you can find
(I found this small brown leather book with a lot of pages).




2. Write your first love note. It can be the same sort of note you might write in a card or something a little more lengthy.



3. Give him the book as a gift, and explain that the pages will be filled (by you) over time.

4. Every time you notice something great that you love about your husband, get out the book and write a dated note to him. Don't tell him when you've written them. Just let him find them next time he looks in the book.

5. Next time there's a special occasion, instead of buying him a card, just get out the book and write in that instead. If there are past notes in there that he hasn't seen yet, he'll see them when he re-receives the book for that occasion.

Bonus: No more cards from random occasions to stash in a shoebox somewhere or add more clutter to your home. All of your meaningful notes will be contained in one small and accessible place- yay!


I've also started something like this for each of my daughters. They look way more girly and include monthly letters for the first year of their life and then random letters after that, whenever I find time or feel inspired. They also include notes about the hilarious things they say and do.

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If you're looking for more gift ideas for men, check out my Sock Bouquet!



Or for Christmas, here's a fun one: Dad's Root Deer


or click here to see a list of 100 great gift ideas!

Tutorial Tuesday (Canned Gifts!)

I was so excited by this fun idea when I found it on Our Best Bites.

I knew I had to try it!

Here's what mine turned out like:

So, you get little tin cans & you open them with a can opener (the kind of opener shown in the picture that doesn't leave the lid sharp), fill them with treats, close them up again, and give them as a surprise-inside-gift!

Start with your cans (preferably the kind with a tab on top) & a can opener. I used lunch-sized fruit cup cans.


Remove the label and open the cans at the bottom (empty the can and wash and dry) and fill them with whatever treat or gift you want to give.


Bunch up some tissue paper to fill the bottom of the can (this prevents hot glue from getting on your treat/gift in the next step).


Glue the "lid" back onto the bottom.


Cut scrapbook paper to fit your can and cover it to make it look cute. The messy glue job is fairly well hidden at the bottom of the can.


Once you've gotten this far, you can dress up your cans with ribbon on the tab and label the side of your cans!


I made my own labels to fit my small cans, but you can find a cute printable at Our Best Bites if you're using the right size of can for them!



I can't wait to use this idea for other things- I think they're so fun!

If you're looking for more gift ideas, click here  to see a list of 100 of them!


Here are some other fun crafts involving paper:

Make a Paper Triangle Bunting


He Said/She Said Bridal Shower Game


Paper Butterfly Display Frame


Easy Heart Garland


Paper Fortune Cookies