DIY Gift Ideas take 1

Hello, happy Thirsty Thursday! Today I quenched my thirst by drinking lots of water. I was feeling under the weather today so no fancy drinks for this gal. I wanted to share with all of you some homemade gift ideas that I recently made for Christmas for a few of my family members. Below are some pictures of the gifts I made and brief descriptions of what I did to create these gifts from the heart.

I created this orders of sharks sign for my brother for Christmas. 

 What I did: I first did my research on how many order of sharks exist and found pictures of one shark from each order. My boyfriend Brian helped me create this poster by using Photoshop once the Photoshop portion was complete I went to Staples and printed out the image on poster size matte paper. I purchased a wooden board from Michael's and Mod Podged the poster to the board. When using Mod Podge provide a medium coat onto the board before placing the image on top. Be sure to allow your image to dry at least for 20 minutes before continuing to Mod Podge. Make sure to also smooth out any bumps or air bubbles that may appear before beginning to lather on Mod Podge on top of your image.

Left: My brother with a big old smile on Christmas morning. Right: My brother as Lance the Land Shark.

Right: The sign I created for my sister's Christmas gift. Right: My sister posing with the sign. She was crying. Big baby! J/K

What I did: I wanted to create a sign that represented the year that she was born.  I researched all the major events and inventions from 1974. The major events I listed are The Godfather Part II was the blockbuster of the year. I also provided an image of the way women dressed that year. Muhammad Ali knocked out George Foreman, The Oakland A's won the World Series and Connect Four was published. The Boston Celtic's won the NBA Finals, The Miami Dolphins won the Super Bowl and Genesis's album The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway was the best album of the year. I also placed a very adorable picture of my sister from when she was a kid (wearing her Strawberry Shortcake shirt) on the poster as well. My boyfriend Brian designed the sign by using Photoshop and I performed the same procedure as before (same instructions as my brother's sign) as far as printing and Mod Podge is concerned.

Brother in- laws candy tin Christmas gift.

What I did: I purchased a tin from Michael's and found a photo that contained a bunch of brand name candies in the image and created a sign in Photoshop that reads "Phil's CANDY STASH." I printed out one copy of the sign and one copy of just the candy image. I Mod Podged the lid of the tin and cut out Phil's name so it would fit on the lid. I placed the candy images that matched the same candy the image of the candy found within Phil's name above and below the center where his name is located. I followed by placing Mod Podge in the center of the body of the tin and cut out the part of the sign that reads Candy Stash. I cut out the rest of the candy image and constucted it to be molded onto the sign so it fits just right. I performed the same Mod Podge technique as before.


 I hope you enjoyed reading about these three DIY gifts I created for my family for Christmas. There are more gift examples in Part 2! I will be posting up the follow up very soon. Until then Happy New Year and may you all have an aMAEzing 2013!