DIY Holiday Mugs {for all the people on your list}

There are those Pinterest ideas you see, love, pin and never do anything with. Then there are the ones you see, love, pin, revisit, and not only do something with but do EVERYTHING with....that would be these mugs for me. I think we have all seen different versions of these DIY mugs. Simply write with sharpie, pop in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes, let cool and you are good to go. Anyone can do that! So I did - over and over and over. Thought I would share the versions some of the people on my Christmas list are receiving this year.

The Papa (insert any loved one) Mug:
The idea behind this one is cute. I actually saw this it through an advertisement on Facebook for a personalized gift company. It said something different but had all the grand kids faces around it which I thought was cute. I browsed Pinterest for a saying I liked best and settled on "All my MOST favorite people call me papa." I then {attempted to} add all my kiddos faces. An artist I am not. In fact, my kids themselves probably would have done a better job. Thankfully, Papa loved it nonetheless.

The Teacher Mug:
I found this one on Just a Girl and Her Blog and knew it would make the perfect gift for my kiddos teachers. She even makes it easy for you and includes the printable tag! Nathan goes to PEP one day a week and has two teachers there on top of his and Jordan's regular teachers so I made 4 all together. I filled the cup with peppermints and spearmints, a cute striped straw and a gift card to Starbucks. Along with the printable tag I attached an ornament that I also found at the dollar store. Actually, everything but the mugs and the gift cards came from the dollar store and the only reason I didn't get the mugs from there was that someone had already cleaned out all the pure white ones. A totally reasonably priced gift that is still super adorable and useful (Lord knows I NEED coffee in my life!).

The Snowman Mug:
I pinned these along time ago as a gift from Elfie and had originally planned to have them at our North Pole Breakfast but didn't have them ready in time. So I used them as part of a hot chocolate treat he brought instead. I picked these mugs with the cute red band at the top because I thought they looked like hats for the snowman (and you guessed it, I got these at the Dollar Store!). They love having their own mugs with their names on them and these will be fun to pull out during the holidays each year.

Have you tried this Sharpie mug method yet? How'd it work for you? Baking them is supposed to keep them from wiping off but we noticed that when we hand-washed the snowman mugs they did fade in some areas. Not sure how to remedy that but if any of you have suggestions I would love to hear them.

I will tell you a tip that helped when I was working on these - Magic Erasers will take off the sharpie if you make a mistake drawing on it in the first place so don't panic if you make an error!

Homemade Taco Seasoning Gift Jars

I was recently invited to a My Favorite Things holiday party. If you have never heard of this, the concept is that you pick one of your favorite things - be it food, bath item, homemade, cleaning product, etc - and bring 3 of that item to the party. Everyone draws to see what new things they will be taking home and it is a chance to get to try new products and get some gift ideas for the holidays. Tons of fun!

We had a $5 limit (give or take) so I wracked my brain trying to decide what one thing to bring and settled on one of my truly favorite items in the kitchen....homemade taco seasoning. Seriously, if you haven't tried it, YOU MUST. It is so superior to store bought and is simple to make with seasonings that you most likely already have in your possession. It's also cost effective and you know that there are no preservatives in it. I not only use it for taco meat but like to coat homemade fries in it or mix it into sour cream for a dip or put it into a Mexican meatloaf....this list of possibilities goes on and on. Can you tell it truly is a favorite?

Let's make this into a fun little gift now. I already store mine in the freezer in a small mason jar so I decided to use the same thing for my recipients. 

Time to mix the spices. You can get the easy recipe that I follow at $5 Dinners. To make this even more cost effective, I buy my spices from the bulk bins at Winco. I then mixed up one big batch and then evenly distributed it between the mason jars.

Should we make it pretty? Silly question! I found some free printable mason jar labels over at Limeshot Design and used one of the blank designs to create a label for the lid, which I attached using Mod Podge (I am sure basic crafting glue would work fine too). I also hot glued a little bit of yellow ric rac around the rim of the jar for some extra cuteness.

I wanted the people who received these to have a copy of the recipe so they could keep refilling their jars so I printed these adorable recipe cards from Design Eat Repeat. I ended up cutting off the sayings at the top just so they wouldn't be so huge in comparison to the jar. I wrote out the ingredients, where I bought them cheap in bulk, how to make it and some suggestions for using it. The only thing I left off was how much was equivalent to a packet you would buy in the store (which is 2 Tbsp, by the way).

Small Tabasco jars attached with twine completed the gift.

Wouldn't you want to get this from a friend, co-worker, secret Santa? I'm thinking I might have to add it to my own list of homemade gifts this year!