Recycled Crayons- Gift Idea

Day 13

I initially got this idea from a book of preschool arts and crafts ideas and I've seen it on a few blogs lately as well. Every blog post I've seen has started out with brand new crayons though! Brand new crayons! Don't you people have used crayons?! Seriously?!

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This is how we made recycled star crayons.

First, the girls and I went through our big old container of crayons of every sort, taking all the broken ones out to use. Then we sorted them by color, testing the wrapperless ones on a sheet of scratch paper (to figure out the color if it wasn't obvious), and removing the wrappings from the others. I made a ziploc bag for each color and wrote the color on the outside. There were variations of each color and some crayons could have gone in more than one bag, so just use your best judgement. I liked them all to have a bit of variation.

I used a silicone cupcake pan I got at Michael's (with a 50% off coupon!) to make the new crayons. I've also made circles in a regular muffin tin before too. The kids helped me break up the bigger pieces and put them in the pan. I made each well a different color. You could also use multiple colors in each well to make rainbow crayons.

I preheated the oven to 350 and put the silicone pan on a cookie sheet (per the instructions it came with). I baked the crayons until they were mostly liquid, but with some crayon shapes left in the middle.

You could totally liquify them and mix them for a consistent color, but I like the variation. If you bake them too long, the wax kind of separates and they end up kind of two-toned.

Let the crayons cool completely and then pop them out and put them in a cute little package.

Along with the crayons, I'm giving some coloring pages made from pictures we took. You can also find lots of free coloring pages online.

Make a gmail recipe database

Day 12
I have to give credit to my husband for this one. For a long time, I've wanted to convert all my recipe books, binders, clippings, and so forth into a nice and tidy electronic database. My husband is a computer guy, so I've asked him a few times how I could go about such a thing. I wanted to be able to search by ingredients, or type of recipe, or the name. He told me a couple of times that I could just use gmail. Eventually, I finally believed him when he explained to me how it could do everything I wanted it to do.

Now I've only just started this project, but here's what I've done so far. I set up a gmail account just for recipes. I typed up a recipe using it's title as the email subject along with a few descriptions of it (holiday, dessert, pie for example). Sometimes you don't even need the descriptions if it's included in the recipe title, ingredients list, or instructions. Next I sent the email to that account. Now when there are lots of recipes in there, I will be able to just use the search function to find what I'm looking for and eventually I'll be able to get rid of the hard copies. Obviously, this will only work if you have computer access near to where you cook, but that's not a problem around here!

I'm looking forward very much to when my oldest daughter learns how to type so that I can hire her to work on the massive data entry project! One thing I have done to avoid some typing was to find the recipes that I got off the internet originally online again and then just copy and paste. Another option could be to scan recipes to include as attachments and then just include more description words in the email.

Ship it!

Day 11

From the Postal Service, deadlines for shipping stuff to get there by Christmas

Domestic Mail

Domestic Mail Class/Product	Cut Off Date
First Class Mail	Dec 20
Priority Mail	Dec 21
Express Mail*	Dec 22
Parcel Post	Dec 15

The sooner you get it done, the better though!

Save yourself some time (and some sanity) and print your priority mail postage online at usps.com and leave the package out for the carrier (it's cheaper if you print it online than if you pay at the post office too!)

Be sure to check out ups as well if you're sending a big or heavy package. It might be cheaper.

Christmas Unplugged

Day 10
This year we bought some solar powered LED lights to put up outside. We don't have outlets on the front of our house, so in the past we've had to run cords inside through a gap in the doorway or the window (neither one a great option, and with a new door, the gap is gone now).

Besides not having to run cords inside some crazy way, we are cutting down on how much energy we're using to light up outside.

The LED lights aren't as bright as incandescents. The white ones actually look a bit more blue than white, but they still look pretty in the dark. They have built in sensors that turn the lights on when it gets dark enough so we don't have to worry about setting up timers (or figuring out why timers aren't working right either). We even got a snowflake light that changes color to use as the star above our outdoor nativity set.

I've read that in some places, utility companies have incentives for switching to led Christmas lights. Ours doesn't, but it's worth checking out if you decide to go that route. LEDs, especially the solar powered ones, cost a bit more than incandescents (which are way cheap these days, remember when they weren't?) but we were able to buy all of ours on sale after Thanksgiving.

Another cool thing I found lately was a set of battery powered pillar candles. These ones have a built in timer. You can set them to be on for 4 or 8 hours from when you turn them off. They'll automatically shut off after that time and then turn themselves on again the next day at the same time you originally turned them on. Real candles look better of course, but these aren't going to start a fire or burn your kids! The battery powered tea lights I bought a few years ago have to be turned on and off, but perhaps I will find some programmable ones sometime for a reasonable price.

Start A Family Gift Exchange

Day 9

It's a little late for this year, but now is a good time to talk with your family or extended family about starting a gift exchange for next year. Last year, we started a gift exchange with my husband's family. With seven kids and spouses and children, it was getting a bit crazy. With everyone's input, we were able to make up a schedule for the next several years. Each sibling has one sibling to buy for and one sibling gets them something.

My family is a bit smaller, so we haven't done this yet. But my sister and I have talked about doing something a little different for next year. She and I are going to each buy something for ourself to be a present from the other. Then on Christmas we'll call each other up to find out what we got for each other.

Other ideas I have heard include setting price limits, doing all homemade, doing a yankee swap, doing a white elephant exchange, or even giving things during the year and none at Christmas to focus more on the Savior at Christmas.

Doing a gift exchange or deciding to limit presents to kids or whatever can help with saving money (less to buy, less spent on shipping) and it can also help make things less hectic at this busy time that is supposed to be special.

Free Unique Holiday Picture Backdrop

Day 8

When my husband was a missionary, he and his companion took this picture to send home to their families for Christmas. I believe they took it at a Walmart.

Two years ago we took that same idea and took a picture at a Target. We probably should have picked an aisle that was less bare though!

If you need to take a family picture earlier than most stores have Christmas stuff (though seriously, that's getting to be less and less of a problem- Christmas stuff goes up with Halloween stuff now) hit the craft store. Some craft stores have Christmas stuff year round.

Holiday Notes to Self

Day 7

You think you're going to remember what you did this Christmas by next Christmas? Probably not. It's a good idea to write down reminders to yourself of what you put where, what worked and what didn't and so forth.