Recently in Handmade gift ideas Category

Christmas is only a few days away and you still don't know what to get?

The following are five Christmas gift ideas that take very little but will keep on giving all year:

1. Give coupons outlining your time helping someone: an evening of babysitting; a promise to mow the lawn; take grandma on a picnic; give Dad a hand finishing that house remodeling project. Make one coupon for every gift, or give a week of doing something.

2. Like to cook? Put together dry ingredients to one of your signature dishes and give with a card saying you'll cook it when the recipient wants a home-cooked meal.

3. Have a lot of kids in the family? Be creative and recycle. Make a "go fish" card game out of family photo prints glued to an old deck of cards.

4. Have to take an ornament to an office party? Print a photo on cardboard; hole punch the top and add a ribbon. Make it a fun photo and get the party started!

5. No time to shop or getting to the Christmas party late? Give a coupon to take the special person shopping in after Christmas sales. Make a day of it with a breakfast or lunch.

Only you can give of yourself, and isn't that one of the gifts of this season?







Charlotte

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Gardening to Distraction on a MO Hill

Remember hearing Purple Martins eat a ton of mosquitoes so every garden needs a Purple Martin house?

Not so, according to the Purple Martin Conservation Association.

The whole story about Purple Martins being natural mosquito predators was promoted by Purple Martin house manufacturers.

The campaign worked so well, Purple Martins today are the only bird species who depend exclusively on man-made houses.

Purple Martins eat insects, but few to no mosquitoes. If they eat anything interesting, these birds feed their young insects, and small rocks and glass pieces to help them digest food.

After years of watching these birds in other yards, I bought a plastic purple martin house kit  last year I thought I could easily put together. I did but trust me, it takes two people!

I have a number of Missouri backyard birds visiting my garden through the year.  I usually spot Purple Martins sitting on utility lines and in Bluebird Gardens mid March, their big wing span and long, double pronged tail marking the arrival of north America's largest sparrow./

Like hummingbirds, Purple Martins winter over in Brazil and make their way back in early spring through Florida. Fun to track their way back to North America; some weather forecasters now even show Purple Martin migration map!

For many years, Fort Leonard Wood, our neighbor to the southwest as the Purple Martin flies, celebrated the arrival of these lovely purple birds with Purple Martin Day on March 14.

Whether you celebrate or not, consider getting a Purple Martin house, either for yourself or to give as a gift.

If you're handy with wood, consider making a Purple Martin house. Some of the most interesting Purple Martin houses I've seen have been lovingly handmade as gifts.

I've given birdhouses, including Purple Martin Houses, as housewarming gifts and birthday gifts, as well as been thrilled to receive them.

One of the more whimsical birdhouses I've seen are handmade license plate birdhouses, which recycle favorite license plates and give birds a nice roof.

We carry license plate birdhouses with, and without, a roof so you can easily install your own.

Pair a Purple Martin House, or a license plate birdhouse, with a book on Purple Martins for a gardening gift that will keep on giving all season.

Once Purple Martins decide they like the real estate, they will keep coming back.

After centuries of peacefully co-existing, Purple Martins have little fear of people and make charming, very interesting garden neighbors.







Charlotte

Bluebird Gardens: custom quilts, gifts, gardening
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Gardening to Distraction on a MO Hill

 

Bluebird Gardens is delighted to exclusively now offer Melody Lea Lamb's wonderful original animal art in our custom baby quilts!

There's a lot in a name, especially if it's embroidered and added to a gift.

Even after 13 years of running a custom gift business, I'm periodically surprised at how adding a name to a quilt and gift can make a gift that much more special.

Making special personal gifts is the foundation of Bluebird Gardens.

The concept has evolved over the years to include personalized baby quilts, such as Applique ABCs Baby Quilt (left) and New Noah's Ark Baby Quilt (right)  including monogramming ready made and custom baby quilts, as well as making personal matching gift tags for easy inclusion in baby scrapbooks.

This spring, we've also seen an increase in Bluebird Gardens customer requests for our embroidered patches services, a reflection, one customer said, of the down economy.

Adding embroidered patches can be a great inexpensive way to personalize quilts.

After giving one of our personalized baby quilts as a baby shower gift last year,  Sarah said her family went "wild with the idea" of having the baby's name, birth date and other information on their baby quilts.

Sarah said now "the pressure's on"  to personalize all her future baby quilts!

No pressure, Sarah.

Our embroidered patches can be made in a variety of sizes, font styles and colors, and come with an embroidered stitched border to make it easier to applique, or sew them, on a quilt.

Embroidered patches can be sewn either on the front, or back.

Although it may be tempting to put embroidered patches on front,  consider the request of a 7-yr old customer who asked me to change the location of an embroidered patch  last year so he could pull up the quilt and look at his name on the back before he went to sleep at night.

Yes, it's ALL in the name...

Happy dreams, Harold!



Charlotte

Bluebird Gardens: custom quilts, gifts, gardening
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Gardening to Distraction on a MO Hill



 

"....Not a creature may be stirring" this time of year but at Bluebird Gardens Quilts and Gifts, it doesn't include mice.

Chocolate mice.

I've been making these handmade chocolate mice as gifts for years and they've become a holiday favorite with several Bluebird Gardens customers.

The ingredients are simple; chocolate bark, Hershey milk chocolate kisses, maraschino cherries and sliced almonds.

It's exciting to be working with the charming original artwork of East coast artist Melody Lea Lamb.

An award-winning illustrator, Melody has the uncanny ability to capture the animal's soul in her more than 200 colored pencil drawings and miniature art of domestic and wild animals.

I'm currently working with Melody to identify a series of animals from which Bluebird Gardens Quilts and Gifts customers will be able to select and design your own baby quilts, throws and bedding quilts.

We know from the first two test rabbit quilt blocks, these quilts will wonderfully reflect the charm of Melody's original art and bring the joy of animals into your home decor.

We'll be printing Melody's original artwork onto fabric blocks, like we currently do with original photos and other mementos.

I'm testing possible layouts for the blocks, all designed to frame and highlight the charm of the art.

Right now I'm focused on a rabbit theme; I also have my eye on a series of cat blocks, and another series of wildlife blocks.

With art so cute and charming, it's hard not to want to  use them all.

Melody has also started an interesting collaboration with a custom fabric company, which is now featuring one of these charming rabbits in fabric.


(You bet I have my eye on that bunny fabric, too!)

Melody also offers these charming designs on her own website as original tiny art in a variety of forms, including pillows, stamps and buttons.

Great gift ideas for special occasions, including Christmas!

One of the charming handmade gift ideas for sale at Phelps County Master Gardener's 9th Annual Garden Tour June 13, 2010 were hand-painted by several Phelps County Master Gardener artists.

The gardener who grew the gourds said she uses unpainted gourds for her birds for a couple of years because she doesn't cut a bottom out to clean them. With annual cleaning, she said they would last longer.

These painted gourds will definitely make charming garden gifts, as well as make the birding neighborhood even more colorful!