Tag Archives: christmas

make/do: holiday _2011 neon 'wrap + number system

As you can tell we went full force with the bright & neon-y colors here at H&H for the Holidays... just check out the Gifts Page and Catalog! We started working on the H&H Holiday concept & colorways back in August and it has totally inspired me in my own Christmas decorating & gift wrapping....festive! Happy Neon Holiday _2011!

Gift Wrap & Accouterments:
I have three small boys who are more interested in ripping wrapping paper than fancy bows and such. So this year I had more fun with bold color and skipped the extras. I bought a few rolls of wrap at Ikea -- a very Nordic black & white patterned paper as well as the subtly striped kraft paper. In addition I used neon yellow & black tissue paper to wrap with.

For adornments I used colored feathers found at the craft store, washi tape (hot pink!) neon yellow strips of poster board/paper for gift tags...(cheap! the huge sheet cost $.50) as well as a bit of grosgrain ribbon in black, grey, neon yellow & hot pink.

The Numbering System:
As I mentioned in my Give & Tell interview in November... this year I decided to follow in my Mom's footsteps and  number the gifts as she did years ago -- number all the gifts instead of assigning names, brilliant & simple! As each gift is wrapped, simply write a number on the gift tag. Then write that number along with the recipient's name (and even what the gift is) on the "master list". On Christmas morning it's great fun to shake a gift, call out "Number 12! Who is number 12 for?!" .. whoever has the "master list" will call out the name.  This makes gift opening take forever (the madness of everyone opening gifts all at once makes me cringe!) and adds an element of suspense pre-Christmas morning. No peaking!!

(I did add 1 exception: we will be having Grandparents with us Christmas morning & did not number their gifts which explains the "gMA" in the image above!)

& that's a wrap!

Happy Holidays _2011!!

Make/Do: Salt Dough Bird Ornaments

It's project week here on the H&H blog! Today's project: simple salt-dough ornaments.

Making salt dough is about as simple as it gets, I followed the instructions, here. My only pointers are not to roll the dough too thin & be sure to use a drinking straw to cut a hole so you can hang the ornaments later (as shown above on the swan).

My kids & I cut out a flock of various birds using a set of small bird cookie cutters. After the dough is rolled, cut & ornaments are placed on a baking sheet to bake at a low temp until they are dry, it's glitter time!

First, apply a medium layer of white glue. Work fast! The baked salt dough absorbs the glue rather quickly. Then dump a big coating of glitter on the ornament -- I used a couple different white course glitters I had on hand. After you knock the excess glitter off, set the ornaments aside on a piece of parchment paper to dry.

Once dry, time to hang on the tree..or wherever else! I used cotton string but a metal hanger would also work.

Making a collection of Bird Salt Dough Ornaments was a quick & inexpensive project the kids & I both worked on and enjoyed -- fun!

H&H guide to successful gifting _holiday '11

Yes! Here it is, the H&H 2011 Short List of Successful Gifting.
Browse! It's really gifty & good, affordable & fun with many design-y gifts under $40!

& inspirational! I am totally loving bright color combinations in contrast with black for the Holidays (more on that later!). DO you like traditional Christmas-y colorways... or do you dare to use neon?

View the SHORT LIST Gift Guide here.