Sending out Christmas cards is a timeless tradition. Some families send them out throughout the month and others buy cards to pair with a gift. Sending out a Christmas card during this time of the year is a little thing you can do to show your friends and family members that you are thinking about them. Buying cards can be really expensive, yeah I'm looking at you Greeting Card company, but that shouldn't stop someone from sending a card to someone they care about.

You don't need to buy a fancy card to send out this holiday season, in fact you can always make them yourself! There are so many Instagram video tutorials, Pinterest tutorials and even some Blogmas posts from other bloggers showing off how to make a great card all by yourself. So this weekend, I went to work on making some of these DIY Christmas Cards and here's how they turned out!

I'm going to be completely honest with you, I could have done a lot better. I feel bad for my friends who are going to get the cards I didn't do the best on. But what really matters is that you always try your best and as long as it comes from the heart that's all that matters. Here are a few tips I have if you're going to attempt to make any of these cards.

The card with the flat ornaments is probably the easiest one you can make. For all my beginner crafters out there, this card is going to be your best friend. Pick the paper you want to use as the color for an ornament, and to get a perfect circle shape use a cup to trace the circle. And voila a perfect circle! Then when you want to create the ornament topper, cut out a mini trapezoid. Glue it all down, make a line from the ornament topper to the edge of the card and write down what you want your card to say. And then you're all done!

For the Starbucks Cup card, this one was also quite easy to make. Cut a tall Starbucks cup in half along the seam. To give it a pop of color, I hot glued the edges of the cup onto a piece of green paper and then glued the green paper on the card. Then write whatever you want it to say. Pro tip, get a slightly bigger envelope. The addition of the cup onto the card makes it a little bulky.

When it comes to the card with the Christmas tree and reindeer, this one was not my proudest crafting moment. The green paper I used for the tree was just too small. I was trying to upcycle some green scraps I have collected over the years. The scraps were too small to make the 3D tree, yeah that's supposed to be 3D. I ended up gluing it all down because I was ashamed at how funky it looked. So if you want to make it 3D like it is supposed to be, using bigger pieces of paper will be a lifesaver. As for my fingerprint reindeer, less is more. The lighter one was used with less marker, while the darker one had more. Make sure you leave just the right amount of room to connect the body to the head, otherwise it will just look wonky like mine.

For the card with the two Christmas tress on it, this was me trying to redeem myself from the ugly tree I made with the fingerprint reindeer. I chose some different shades of green paper to cut into different triangle shapes and glued them starting with the largest on bottom and smallest on top. This is craft is so easy and simple and it looks so cute!

The 3D ornament card was the first one I attempted to make, and with this one I bit off more than I could chew. Each ornament needs three circles, so use a cup to make the perfect shape. Then once you have them all cut out you fold them in half and glue one half to another half. This is where things got tricky, it turns out I can't cut a circle to save my life. Some were too big and others too small, but it wasn't that huge of an obstacle. When you have the circles lined up you can measure and cut them to make sure they are even. While I like the idea of the 3D ornaments, I think I'll stick with the flat ones since it is a lot easier.

My attempt to make Christmas cards shows you that you don't have to be a fancy artist or calligrapher to make a decent looking card. Making a card is a better option than buying a card. It will save you money, and it will really show the person you are sending it to how much you care. Take a look at what you have lying around your house, this is a great opportunity to take something old and make it into something new. Happy crafting and good luck! Until tomorrow.

The holiday season is meant to be a happy and cheerful part of the year, but for some people it can be a difficult time filled with nothing but stress and anxiety. That's not what the holidays are supposed to be about. But luckily there are numerous ways to make sure you're living your best life this holiday season.

Happy Planner, a popular planner created by Me and My Big Ideas (MAMBI), has created a challenge to help ease your stress during this holiday season. It is called the Happy & Healthy Holidays Challenge. Instead of over-indulging, over-spending, and over-committing yourself, Happy Planner wants you to focus on being more mindful and having the best intentions.

The Happy & Healthy Challenge is hosted by Stephanie Fleming, the co-founder of MAMBI and Happy Planner. Every Sunday until the end of December you will receive an email from Happy Planner that includes a video, a note from Stephanie, and some special downloads. The downloads include: the worksheet, wallpapers for your phone and computer, and inspiration cards. Each email also explains what each "gift" will be.

Here are the six gifts, or traits, that Happy Planner will be focusing on during this challenge:

Gratitude — the first gift that was given to us during the week of Thanksgiving. Perfect timing right?

Health — and of course this is the second gift given right after Thanksgiving. After over-indulging is delicious Thanksgiving food it makes sense to get your health and diet back on track. I also view health as staying healthy and taking precautions to make sure you're not getting sick. Flu season is right around the corner people!

Presence — is probably the most important gift, and it is the focus for this week! Being present in the moment and showing up is literally half the battle.

Creativity — will be the fourth gift in the challenge. I'm intrigued to see what this one will hold!

Self-Care — is a necessity and is the fifth gift of the challenge. Taking care of yourself is one of the most important things you have to do. From what it sounds like this week is going to be more than just treating your self.

Joy — is the sixth gift given to us which will arrive just in time for Christmas!

Planning A Happy Life — will be the final gift given to us so that way we are the most prepared for the upcoming New Year.

Every video for this challenge is posted on Happy Planner's Youtube channel. It includes Stephanie introducing each gift and going over the worksheet for the week. She also shares her progress with the challenge, yes even the co-founder of Happy Planner is participating in the challenge too!

Along with the inspirational videos, comes the worksheet! Now, a worksheet doesn't always sound like a lot fun, but for all the planner people out there, this is exactly what fun looks like. Each worksheet introduces the gift of the week and includes an inspirational quote. From there you have five little boxes to fill out. First is your intention for the week, how are you going to implement the gift of the week into your life? Next is the planning section where you map out exactly what you plan to do to carry out your intention. After that you choose a helpful habit, something you want to do daily that goes along with your plan for the week. The next section is a spot for your daily thoughts, the boxes for each day are not a very big. And finally, the last box is a spot for your weekly reflection.

If you want to participate in the challenge, you can go to Happy Planner's website and all of the past weeks and worksheets are in the blog selection. You can also see more content on Happy Planner's Instagram account. Every Monday, Stephanie goes live on the Instagram and continues talking about the gift of the week and shares what's going on with her! The challenge also has its own social media hashtag: #myhappyandhealthyholidays!

Even though the challenge has been going on since Thanksgiving, it's never too late to pick it up. The challenge is meant to help you do all the things you want and were probably going to do this holiday season. The challenge helps you hold yourself accountable and set your intentions, it's not meant to add any extra stress to your life. If you're waiting for the New Year to reset, why do that? Why wait to reset? Why not get a head start now? I know I will be! Until tomorrow.

Building a gingerbread house is probably one of the most festive things to do during the holiday season. And sure it looks like it's all fun and games, but you're dead wrong.

Building a gingerbread house is one the hardest and most frustrating Christmas crafts to do. And I'm not exaggerating. So today, sit down for story time and grab a juice box because Kaitlin is going to tell you about the time she attempted to build a gingerbread home.

'Twas a night like any other, Kaitlin and her friend Michelle were feeling very crafty. So the idea to build gingerbread houses came to mind. So they went on an adventure to find the perfect gingerbread house kit. Because ain't nobody got time to bake gingerbread AND build a house. So the first stop was at Michael's. They searched and searched around the store, but the only gingerbread houses to be found were ones of Elsa's Frozen palace. So they told Michael's to just let it go, and they went searching at Target instead.

So the two friends walked to Target and alas, they found the kit they were searching for and on sale for $8.99. The kit came with everything! Gingerbread pieces, frosting, gumdrops and so much candy! 'Twas the perfect find. So after finding the perfect kit from Target, they returned to Kaitlin's home to start building their creations. But little did they know, they'd run into trouble very quickly.

Because as I warned building a gingerbread house isn't as easy as it seems. But these two young ladies went ahead to construct the cookie homes of their dreams. Little did they know, their dreams would turn into a nightmare. They spread out their pieces, and cut open their frosting bags, and got ready to go. Michelle had no problem at first putting the walls together, but Kaitlin struggled. She was more concerned with eating the frosting and conserving it as a snack rather than using enough to keep the walls up. She put her walls up with little frosting, and they somehow remained standing, but once the roof was to be added she'd have to change her approach.

It was time for Kaitlin to add the roof, but once she placed the roof on top. CRASH. The house collapsed! Kaitlin had to start over, and use even more frosting to repair the damages. Bah Humbug! But Kaitlin learned her lesson, and realized she couldn't be selfish when it came to the frosting, because her house needs it. So she rebuilt it as well as she could and it could stand again!

So then it was time to decorate, but ever so carefully, because she did not want her house to collapse yet again. So she caught up to Michelle and two friends decorated their houses. The roofs' lines were traced with frosting and candies and gumdrops were added. Maybe one or two gum drops were eaten during this process. Sometimes snacking on the candy made the tracing a little less difficult and frustrating. Looking at the box, the two young ladies wondered why their houses didn't look as perfect, and how on earth did they make icicles from the frosting?

But the two prevailed and did the best they could to make their gingerbread houses look as cute as can be. They added frosting windows and a frosted a chimney to the roof. Even a candy frosting wreath was made above the door! Frosting icicles were attempted and gumdrops were added for some color. Even a candy door knob was added! Plus you can't forget the gummy plants added to the front either!

The house was complete! A little messy but made nonetheless. It may not have looked like the one on the box, but at least their houses had character and charm. Just as they were finished and proud of their accomplishments, Michelle realized it was time to pack up her house and get ready to head out. Once she started to pack up her house CRASH! The whole thing collapsed. But at least she snapped a photo before her house turned into a delicious snack.

And there you have it! That's tale of the time Kaitlin and her friend Michelle built gingerbread houses. They may not have been built to last, but at least they made a very tasty snack.

You all have been warned about how making gingerbread houses do not always go as planned! I hope you enjoyed our little story time. Until tomorrow.

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!