No Sew T-Shirt Scarves

Remember a few weeks back when we shared this sneak peak of the Christmas gifts I was making for my friends? 

Well now that gifts have been opened, we can show our MIHM readers the final products: DIY t-shirt scarves!

Finished scarves, waiting to be wrapped.

We'll just share some quick photos here on the blog, but if you want to try making them for yourself this is the link I used, complete with step-by-step directions and a how-to video. 

For each scarf, I used an extra large t-shirt I bought at Joann's, a burlap flower embellishment from Etsy, and scraps of leather fabric from my mom. In total, I spent about $12 per scarf. These scarves were so simple to make. After some cutting and hot gluing, each no-sew scarf was completed in about 20 minutes. I used new t-shirts from Joann's so washing the t-shirts was the most time consuming part of the process! 

T-shirt strings.

Leather & burlap embellishments.

I was so excited to give these scarves to my friends and it made me really happy to see how much they loved them. I had so much fun making the scarves, so I'm glad my friends are having fun wearing them :)

My beautiful friends and MIHM models, Marisa & Elisa.

I'm always looking for crafty and unique gifts for my girlfriends. These scarves were the perfect Christmas DIY gift! A big thank you to avid MIHM reader Julie for the idea and directions :)

Next Monday is Christmas Eve, so the Girls Team will be taking the night off to enjoy the holiday. Merry Christmas to our dear MIHM followers! 

Holiday Spritz Cookies

Every year, my mom and I bake Christmas treats together. We make them for friends, family, coworkers and even ourselves, so often times we have multiple Christmas baking nights together. Last night we whipped up the first batch of holiday goodies for the season. My mom made her famous chocolate fudge and I made my favorite spritz cookies. Spritz cookies are a Christmas baking staple in our house, so the Girls Team wanted to share the recipe on MIHM :)

First we gathered all of the ingredients together. Here's what you'll need:

1 cup margerine or butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar (we use bakers sugar)
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 egg
1 teaspoon almond or vanilla extract (MIHM tip: use the almond extract for more flavor!)

Ingredients for spritz cookies and fudge.

Start by preheating the oven to 400 degrees. Mix the butter and sugar together. Once combined, add the rest of the ingredients. Mix until all of the ingredients are combined into a dough.

Dough.

 

After the dough is ready, place it in a cookie press. We have a few shape templates for our cookie press. I chose the star and Christmas tree ones. 

 

Cookie press.

 

The cookie press will compact the dough as you place the cookies on an ungreased baking sheet. Once you do the first 2 or 3 cookies, you'll find a rhythm for how many seconds you should let the dough come out of the cookie press. I usually go about five long seconds before lifting the cookie press off the baking sheet. The cookie press is LOUD, but the high pitched whizzing sound reminds me of Christmas so I love this part of the baking process :)

Spritzing time!

 

Once all of your cookies are on the baking sheet, add sprinkles for color. Then bake at 400 degrees for 6-9 minutes. I think 7 minutes is the magic number. The amount of dough in the recipe will make about 2 and a half sheets of cookies, or about 50 cookies. 

 

Ready to bake.

 

As soon as the cookies are done in the oven, take them out and remove them from the hot tray to cool. Now, it's time to eat! I always try my first cookie while it is still warm because they have a light, fluffy quality to them that is delicious :)

Christmas trees and stars, ready to eat.

 

While I was making the cookies, my mom was making chocolate fudge. I have never made fudge on my own, and have helped in the past, but there is nothing like my mom's fudge! This should be ready to eat tonight after spending some time in the fridge. YUM :)

 

Homemade fudge ready for the fridge.

 

DIY Ornament Wreath

This week my Girls Team partner was off on a little vacation, so I was left alone with the hot glue gun and some Christmas spirit. I saw an ornament ball wreath on Pinterest and decided I could tackle it myself. 

I went to Target to buy plastic ball ornaments and stopped by Joann's to get a foam wreath. I bought one pack of 12 large ornaments for $5, and three packs of mini ornaments for $3 (I originally only bought two, but went back for one more pack to be safe.) In total, I spent $17 on supplies for my wreath. 

My directions from Pinterest said to hot glue all of the large ornaments on first and fill in the blank spots with small ornaments. The image I used as my sample was completely covered on all sides with ornaments. As I started gluing, I realized that I wouldn't have enough ornaments to cover the foam completely.  I knew leaving foam showing would bug me, so I ended up ripping the ornaments off and starting over with a new plan.

One trip to my parents house for ribbon later...I used gold festive ribbon, to cover the foam wreath. I used a small amount of hot glue to secure the ribbon in place. 

Now I was ready to start re-gluing! There was no exact science to this but I started by gluing the large ornaments around the wreath even distances apart, and then filled in the rest with small ornaments. Once the first layer around the wreath was finished, I filled in open spots by adding a second level of small ornaments and building the wreath upwards. 

I made sure to leave a little space open for the metal wreath hanger so it would fit between the ornaments. My Pinterest sample attached a piece of ribbon to hang the wreath instead, but my ribbon was too thick for that. 

It took me two nights to finish this project because once I decided to cover the foam with ribbon, I didn't have ribbon on hand! So the next night, I went to my parents house to borrow some ribbon. Had I not done this, it would have only taken about one hour to finish all of the hot gluing. 

Here is my finished wreath: 

And a side view, which makes me really happy I added the ribbon: 

After reading comments on other DIY ornament wreaths, I decided to hang my wreath inside. A lot of comments mentioned that ornaments attached with hot glue snapped off in cold temperatures when hanging outside. I didn't want to risk it! 

Even though I could have just bought a pre-made wreath very similar to this at Target for about the same amount of money that I spent on supplies, I'm glad I made this myself. It was relatively easy once I got the hang of things! This was a great project, but I'm excited for my Girls Team partner to be back next week. It's not as fun doing MIHM solo! 

20 days until Christmas :)