It's hard to believe Christmas is less than two weeks away! If you plan on crafting and doing some DIY gifts, well it's time to get cracking! Sometimes it can be tough to come up with a great DIY gift idea. But thank goodness for Pinterest in times like these.

DIY gifts are a great gift to give and receive, they're inexpensive but they do take time to make. And it's a gift that comes from the heart and for most people, that's what truly matters when it comes to gift giving and receiving. If you're stuck on what kind of DIY gift to make, here are some suggestions!

Mugs. DIY Mugs are so popular, easy to make and inexpensive. You can get a plain mug at any kind of discount or dollar store. And then all you'll need is a Sharpie. And then you can doodle and design the mug! If you can draw, draw! If you want to write motivational or clever quotes then do that! Who doesn't love a motivating or sassy mug? Once you design your mug with your Sharpie bake your mug in the oven at 350º for 30 minutes. And voila, it's done and super simple! And you can pair your handmade mug with hot chocolate, coffee or tea!

Picture Frames. A picture frame is a great sentimental gift that comes directly from the heart. These are great to give to your loved ones and are very fun to craft! The crafting frames at Michael's are $1! But they do have other options and ones with designs too. I always like to try to make my picture frames cute with some sort of design. Like the one I made my boyfriend. I made it blue striped, to try to copy one of his favorite shirts. I used tape as a stencil for the stripes and I hot glued the heart on there. Michael's also has the wooden shapes you can hot glue on to your picture frame. If you don't want to paint, you can always mod podge decorative paper on it! Be creative! I've even made picture frames with hole punched paper circles and that turned out super cute! Or you can get a wooden letter, and mod podge photos on there. If you need more ideas for how to decorate a picture frame go to Pinterest! I promise they'll be your best creative friend.

Scrapbooks. Similar to a picture frame, but a little bit more. Scrapbooks can be expensive, but if you use a journal instead, it can be a little less expensive. A journal makes it a little less bulky but just as cute! Plus if the journal has lines, it will be easier to write captions.

Alcohol Bouquets/Cake. This gift is great for guys, what man wouldn't want a tower of beer? For the beer cake, I normally buy the 24 pack and that's enough to make the cake. If they want something a little stronger than beer, well then there's always a bouquet of alcohol. Buy the little travel size alcohol bottles and place them in a basket and ta da! How simple is that? Or if you're in charge of bringing beer to a Christmas party or dinner, decorate it like so! That would be super cute and I bet everyone will be impressed.

Bake. If you like to bake then why not?! Who wouldn't want some yummy treats for Christmas?! There's so many Christmas themed pastry ideas and so many potential cute ways to decorate them! Put them in a cute little box or serving tray and ta da!

Cellphone Cases. Buy some plain cases and make them your own by decorating them! eBay and Amazon have plain cases for cheap. Use paint, nail polish, paper, mod podge, hot glue, or anything else you can think of! Be creative!

Coasters. Coasters, a fun and practical gift to make. It's true they'll always be needed. I've made coasters out a clay but I've also see people on Pinterest make coasters out of tile, which is really cool because there's so much you can do with it. With clay you can get colored clay and add bottle caps to it. But with tile you can paint them any color you want and design them. Like you can mod podge the beer logo on there or even make them into chalkboard coasters. The options are limitless!

Jewelry Holders. There's so much to do when it comes to making jewelry holders. You can get a box from Michael's and paint and craft it. Or you can get plates and candle sticks to make a tiered jewelry tray. Or take some plain trays from your local dollar store and paint and decorate them to make them look expensive and chic. Or if you want to get really crafty make one out of clay, I found this awesome how to on Pinterest that I've been dying to try!

Mason Jars. I don't know about you but I love mason jar gifts, and I love to craft mason jars. They can be so useful, especially when it comes to organizing. Try making a mason jar make up brush holder or pen holder or vase or even a soap dispenser! And honestly, they're great for putting presents inside too!

Blankets. Making a blanket may seem tough but it's honestly not. Especially the no sew fleece blanket. Joann's sells kits for the no sew blankets, but honestly you just need two sheets of fleece. Line up the two fleeces and trim it, both will need to be the same size. Then you cut off the corners and then cut the fringe all around. Then you'll tie the all the fringe knots and voila a warm fuzzy blanket!

So there are a few DIY gift ideas! Happy crafting and I hope this little gift idea brainstorm helped! Until tomorrow.

The best part of Christmas, is the tree and the decorating of the tree. In my family, we always decorated our tree with a specific theme. And when you have a specific theme, it can be hard to find ornaments that match the theme. Some colors are impossible to find! And other times, you may just want some ornaments in a specific color.

Well this year my mom wanted to have an Ireland themed tree, and she could not find any orange ornaments. So we decided to make them, and I came up with a pretty clever idea on how to make them. Instead of painting these plain glass ornaments, like my mom thought of doing, I thought about taking the top of the ornaments off and putting the paint inside. And that ended up working pretty well! So here's what you'll need to do.

First you'll need to get clear glass ornaments. Michael's sells them, and I recently just got a pack to make my own ornaments for my tree and one six pack was only $2. Thank goodness for 50% off Christmas items! Then you'll also need paint, any colors you want! Personally I like the Craft Smart acrylic paint, which I think works best.

You really do not need much to make these ornaments. But if you want to get fancy, try adding some glitter or even get some paint pens to design them. Be creative! But for now, let's focus on getting this clear ornaments painted!

So first you're going to want to take off the top of the ornament (duh). Then add paint to the inside, add as much as you think you will need to cover the entire ornament. At first I wasn't adding enough and I had to keep adding more. But if you add more at one time it is easier to spread the paint.

Once the paint is spread throughout the ornament fully, set it aside to dry. I say leave them out to dry for maybe a day? The first time I tried this, I didn't let the ornaments dry long enough. Once they were put on the tree, all the paint ran down to the bottom and created a giant puddle. So let them dry, especially if you used a lot of paint.

I put my ornaments back in the box to dry and I left the caps off. The first time I put the caps back on. But this time I tried letting them dry with them off and they appear to be drying a lot quicker!

So there you have it! There are my basic colored ornaments! I think they turned out pretty well and so I wanted to share this little trick and technique. It could be a fun crafting activity with your family before you decorate the tree! Plus, you just made your own unique ornaments! No one else will have ones like this! So that makes them pretty special!!

Let me know if you try this DIY out! I'd love to see and hear how they turned out! Tweet or Instagram a picture of them and mention me or tag me: @heykaitlinmary, I'd love to see them! Until tomorrow.

One of my favorite activities and stress relievers is crafting and doing little DIY projects. Now last year I made these Disney letters for my sorority's recruitment, and they were a big hit. I like to think they turned out pretty well, so I thought I would share how to do these for all you fellow Disney loving crafters out there! I got all my supplies at Michael's craft store but every local craft store should have your basic supplies and the items you'll need.

So let's start with Minnie! You'll need black, white and red paint, red ribbon, a hot glue gun and tape. If you're like me and you can't draw or paint a circle to save your life, you'll also need paper, a hole puncher, and mod podge. So what I did first was place tape in the middle of my D where I wanted it to remain white. You obviously then paint the top side of your letter black and bottom side of your letter red. Once it dries, take the red ribbon, tie a little bow and then use the hot glue gun to stick the bow where ever you please, I chose the top left corner on my D. Next what I did was the little polka dots, if you're confident with your circle and dot painting skills by all means go for it and paint them on with the white paint. However, if you have no confidence in your circle and dot painting skills, like myself, then take a white piece of paper and use the hole puncher to make however many dots you think you'll need. Honestly, I think I made way too many and put way too many on my Minnie, but do whatever you think looks best! If you want more dots, go for it, if you want less, do less! Now if you're scared to use mod podge, don't worry, it's just fancy glue. You take one circle, put some mod podge on the back of it and then stick it down on the letter! Now, do that for however many circles you want and then once they've dried for 10-15 minutes take a paint brush and brush over all of the circles on the letter. And voila, it gives it a glossy effect! Now take off the tape slowly and carefully, you don't want to get paint anywhere on the white. But if have my luck, it will happen no matter how careful you are. So that's why I like to go over the white part with the white paint to make sure I can correct any of my mistakes.

Next we have Mickey's pal and loyal companion, Pluto. You'll need dark yellow and green paint, a printout or a drawing of a dog bone, tape and a hot glue gun. So what I did first was similar to the Minnie, I put the tape in the middle of my P that way I wouldn't get any yellow paint where I wanted to paint it green. So obviously, you'll paint your letter dark yellow and let it dry. Then take the tape off so then you can paint the center line green, like Pluto's collar. I decided to add tape to the two sides where there was yellow so it would be easier to paint the green line and not have it look so messy. So after that was dry, I took the dog bone printout that I found, by googling dog bone printout, and I cut it out and hot glued it to the bottom left corner of my P.

Then we have good old Donald Duck! What you'll need is bright blue and white paint, red ribbon, a hot glue gun, tape and a printout or a drawing of Donald Duck's hat. As done previously, use tape to mark a divider for the top to be blue and the bottom to be white. Once done painting let it dry and take the red ribbon and make a bow and hot glue it on the middle of the letter. Lastly you'll take the print out or drawing of Donald's hat and hot glue it on the top of your letter.

Next we have Goofy, what you'll need is orange and bright blue paint, tape, a hot glue gun and a print out or drawing of Goofy's hat. As you've done with all the other letters, place the tape as a divider so the top can be orange and the bottom can be bright blue. After you let it dry, take the print out or drawing of the hat and hot glue it to the top of your letter. Personally, I think Goofy took me the least amount of time because it is so simple to do and there aren't that many steps to it, also the fact that I used the letter I for it made it that much easier. Last but not least, we have the king of all the classic Disney characters, Mickey Mouse. What you'll need to make Mickey is red, black and white paint, tape, hot glue gun and two white buttons. And like all the other letters take the tape and place it on the letter where you'd want it to remain white. Then you'll paint the top black and the bottom red and once that is dry and you remove the tape you can add white to the unpainted section. After it all dries you'll take the hot glue gun and glue the two buttons on the top part of the red side of the letter.

And there you go, a quick little guide on how to make some of these classic Disney characters wooden letters. With the letters I got from Michael's they had a hook in the back to hang them up with a nail, so hanging them on my bedroom wall was extremely easy! Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed! Good luck crafting and until next time!

Like every other girly girl, I'm a big fan of crafting and I've honestly probably spent a fortune at Michael's craft store. Today, I thought I'd share some insight on how to make your own abstract cell phone case. This should work for any kind of phone that you can get a solid colored case for. What you're going to need is: acrylic paint, a paint brush, a plastic bag or newspaper, and a solid color phone case.

I put the case on a plastic bag, I didn't have newspaper around me. Then I started just splattering paint on the phone case, because honestly I was just trying to make a paint splattered phone case (which I had done before, but I used nail polish instead). When I didn't like how the colors were turning out, I just decided to take the case and flip it over so the paint was facing the plastic bag and I just applied pressure to it, so the colors would spread.

This can be messy, so I hope you don't mind getting paint all over your hands and under your fingernails. After I applied the pressure, I turned the case over and ta da! My solid coring phone case was now a piece of abstract art!

And there is my lovely phone case! The best part is that when the case dries and if you're not happy with it, you can do it all again and see if it turns out better a second time!