Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Christmas Update

It has been a busy couple of weeks here at hippy headquarters and I am sure it has been busy for you as well. Just a few more days and we will be back to our regularly scheduled hippy programming. In the meantime I just wanted to pop in and say Happy Holidays and Happy New Year! (Or is that Hippy Holidays and Hippy New Year?? Hmm?? Is it? Wow... maybe my gift to you guys this next year will be no more bad hippy jokes... nope sorry, can't do it. That is just too much than I am willing to give.)

Monday, December 14, 2009

UPDATE: Handmade Xmas Gifts

Wow! You hippies are sooo creative! There were some great suggestions and I am going to be stealing these and claiming them as my own ideas to be sure... Here's a sample of the awesomeness:

  • Hippy Lola suggests "You could take a bunch of jars and fill them with the dry ingredients for cookies, then tie a patch of fabric around the top and include instructions. Voila! instant cookie mix."
  • Hippy friend Julie recommends "Homemade heating bags: I have one that I bought at a store and I use it all the time. I looked at it and thought, this is SO easy to make, yet I paid $16 for it.  I just sew up a rectangle of thicker cotton cloth and fill it 2/3 full of flax seeds. Super easy, and you can fill it with something a little cheaper than flax seeds too.
  • Virginia, my espaƱol hippy chick says "I just made a bunch of change purses from vintage silk neckties. Super fast and easy. You can either machine sew or hand sew. Cut off about 8" from wide end of tie. The point becomes your flap. On the inside of the point the two halves of the tie need to be sew to each other. Then tuck the raw ends inside each other and sew that hole closed. Fold into desired shape, sew sides. Sew on snap. About a 30 min commitment. (The narrow end can be made into headbands!" (Sidenote: Check out Virginia's etsy shop for awesome "upcycled" projects that she makes including her neck tie coin purses. Very hippy chic. I also am using her suggestion of making napkins and a table runner for Christmas dinner out of old linens I found at Goodwill.)
  • Hippy neighbor Stephanie suggested making handmade ornaments for the grandparents and I found a few simple recipes for those dough ornaments that you used to make in school here and here
Thanks everyone for the input and I'll be posting some of my Christmas crafting adventures later in the week (let's hope my gift recipients don't read this blog =)

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Handmade XMas Gifts

This year, the family and I are trying a new thing: making each other Christmas gifts. It seemed like a great idea at the time (take the focus off of shopping for the holidays and put it back where it belongs) but now I am rethinking this idea. I should have started like January of last year making gifts as I think I will be lucky to finish one before December 24. Eeek! Maybe everyone will just settle for me making copious amounts of food and that can be everyone's gift. What do you think? Any quick gift projects you like to use? Come one hippies! Help a gal out for the holidays!

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Back from Colorado

So good to be back! Our trip went so well and the bug did so good on the car ride. Our family is being really supportive of our new-found hippy-hood. Woot! They did think that the knitted plastic bag bag was a little weird (more on that later) but they were nice enough to not make fun (they are so polite =). And they even let me spread potato peelings in their yard. Awesome.
Also, I would like to take this opportunity to give mayjah props (yeah, that just happened... don't laugh, I'm old) to the city of Fort Collins, Co. Honestly if you have the chance to go it is so awesome and hippies thrive there. And they have lots of sweet parks where we took the bug to swing. Honestly, the picture says it all: