However, this loving day doesn’t only have to be about romantic love. I see it as a time to just celebrate love and beauty in general with friends and family. So this Valentine’s Day, why not broaden the definition by creating some Valentine’s cupcakes with the kids or cooking that special someone that is important to you a nice Valentine themed dinner. At the end of the day, you will have fun and feel the love whether you are part of a couple or not.

More Valentine’s Day Resources:
Valentine’s Day
Valentine Cards
How to Decorate for a Valentine’s Day Party
How to Make a Romantic Valentine’s Day Dinner
How to Make Valentine’s Day Cupcakes
Best Valentine’s Day Recipes
How to Choose Valentine’s Day Roses
How to Make Valentine’s Day Crafts
How to Make a Heart Friendship Bracelet for Valentine’s

All too often kids stick to the common gifts for Valentine’s Day such as the homemade holiday card or box of candy. However, an often over looked option is making a friendship bracelet. Almost every school girl has made one at some point in time. I spent countless hours making stripe, chevron and diamond designs in my youth. Yet, it never occurred to me to knot a heart friendship bracelet for a holiday gift.

It’s astoundingly simple to make a heart design using simple knotting techniques. Mainly, you just need to know how to make a basic chevron and have three strands of white along with three strands of red embroidery floss. On the How to Make a Heart Friendship Bracelet for Valentine’s page, you can learn how to create a bracelet with hearts in one color or alternating colors.

For those needing a refresher course on the basics, the How to Make a Friendship Bracelet site is very informative and concise.

Valuable Friendship Bracelet Design Resource:
http://www.friendship-bracelets.net/

The holiday time is here now and the kids are out of school for the holiday vacation. The holidays are less exciting as people grow older, but it’s of supreme excitement to young kids. While anticipating Christmas day, kids can get awfully bored. Alternating between writing projects and crafts projects may be the no-cost answer to you child’s boredom.

How about writing Santa a letter and sending it to the North Pole? Just print out a few pages of Christmas writing paper and half the work is already done. Just find an envelope and pop it into the nearest mailbox. Your child may want the Santa writing paper, or may prefer to have the Nativity scene writing paper or an Angel or Sled. The alternative is to draw your own writing paper or let the child draw their own personalized writing paper.

Origami (折り紙) is an old Japanese art form. It works with paper and when folded this way and that, is made into a work of art.

Some Origami paper works are fairly easy. The Origami paper rose is one of the easiest and with the green leaves and stems, will work great as a bouquet of paper roses. There are more difficult origami crafts and ebooks on the subject can be found online. Some really great artwork can be created using toilet paper and the dollar bill. Toilet paper roses in a dollar bill vase may be just the present someone is looking for. Children may like an entire menagerie of dollar bill creatures in a basket. Grown-ups like dollar bill trinkets, too and a dollar bill origami sculpture will be treasured as priceless.

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Kwanzaa or Hanukkah, there are activities for children’s crafts that are very easy, so that even small children or adults can put the Origami candle and candleholder together, or cut out the paper dolls and clothing. There are several ethnicities and several wardrobes of paper clothing. The candle can be used for all three holidays. Children will love spending time with these arts and crafts and the projects will keep them busy while waiting for that special Christmas morning.

To say that Christmas can be hectic is an understatement. Between fighting the crowds at the latest sale and trying to find the perfect gift for all the friends and family, you can find yourself more than a little exhausted and stressed. However, it’s a great time to just decompress and take a break from the rat race by making a do-it-yourself decoration. Remember, that this is the season to enjoy the beautiful and fun memories created just be spending quality time with your loved ones.

Just two days ago, my 7 year old son and I decided to make some star decorations to hang around the house. Surprisingly, it gave me an opportunity to sneak in a little learning with a ton of fun and laughs. We discussed real life stars and the nativity story. I even had him counting out the stars without him thinking it was “boring” school work. All in all, it will be a lasting memory we both share when we pull out our homemade stars next Christmas.

Try out some of the following Christmas DIY pages:

How to Make Christmas Party Favors

How to Make Christmas Stencils

How to Make Christmas Tree Ornaments

How to Make a Pop Up Christmas Card

How to Put Your Face on a Christmas Tree Ornament

There was a time when far less people had jobs that had financial room for gift-giving. The holiday season would be a time to give gifts that don’t really cost much money, but would be valued by the gift receiver.

Presents had to be hand-made and inexpensive to make. Parents ensured that their children would receive holiday presents, even if they had to give handmade gifts. Children and teenagers could also make great gifts for the people they cared about with very little effort and money.

Making homemade sugar candy is one of the most old-fashioned and easiest holiday gifts. Just by mixing little bits of water into a cup of sugar and vanilla flavoring until the consistency is moist but thick, and then spooning the mixture onto a plate, a great holiday gift is easily created. A dot of food coloring can turn your creation into a rainbow work of art. Setting the plate in the refrigerator for a day will make the candy solid. The candy can then be placed into a little candy tin.

Opting to make a tin of homemade cookies has always been an old-fashioned holiday favorite. The cookies should be baked no more than two days before the day you will give your home-baked gift. A batch of no-bake or easy bake cookies such as chocolate chip or peanut butter makes a tasty holiday gift.

Another inexpensive gift is a crocheted scarf. Even if you don’t know how to crochet, you can learn in a few minutes how to make the basic stitches to make a scarf. You will just need a crochet needle and yarn. Variations of the scarf, including a hat-scarf combo by stitching up a portion of the scarf or making a very large scarf to be used as a shawl or wrap for the cold weather, would make a nice holiday present. The recipients of these homemade gifts will treasure and value the items for many years.

A homemade potpourri sachet is easy to make, and material stores will carry a variety of gauze material, satin ribbons and bows that can be sewn or tied around the dried perfumed leaves or herbs. Sachets can also be made with regular kitchen ingredients, such as cinnamon sticks, sage leaves, ginger or dried fruit peels.

If making a present for children, both boys and girls may like a poppet or rag doll. A very easy rag doll can be made just by sewing edges together and stuffing the doll with cotton. Jewels or buttons can be sewn onto the doll’s face for eyes and mouth and the hair can be made from slices of material sewn onto the doll’s head. The doll’s clothing can be made easily also, with a free pattern that can be printed out. The dolls can be made with felt, muslin, old T-shirt or fabric remnants.

Think of all the things that we use in our everyday lives that could become a holiday gift. Look in the supermarket also. For instance, for parents or adults, a can of ready-made eggnog can be used as a base to make a holiday beverage jar. Just add ¼ brandy or rum to ¾ eggnog, place a few cinnamon sticks in the jar and sprinkle with cinnamon and nutmeg powders. The mixture should be refrigerated until you are ready to give the gift. If you take a strip of aluminum foil and wrap it around your finger, it will mold a nice swirl to be twisted into a holiday bow for your jar.

After the holiday, you will be satisfied that you were able to make someone happy with your homemade gift.

If you have a lot of decorations and not much time, you may want to pare down your decorations. Make a list of those you really want to have up and start with your highest priority. You’ll probably want to start with the Christmas tree and work from there. Take a look at the Mahalo guide on how to buy a Christmas tree to help you pick out a tree.

Once the tree is home, you’ll want to look at the Mahalo guide on how to decorate a Christmas tree for tips you may not have thought of and to make the process go more smoothly. You may decide you don’t have time at this point, but a great holiday idea is to make your own Christmas ornaments. For great ideas and instructions, check out How to Make Christmas Ornaments

Although, not a decoration, one thing that can make your house have the aroma and spirit of Christmas is baking homemade Christmas cookies. There is a wide variety of cookies you can make for Christmas and nothing quite says Christmas like the smell of baked goods. Mahalo has a great How to Decorate Christmas Cookies to add a little flair to your cookies.

Maulana Karenga, the creator of Kwanzaa, said that each day of the 7 day celebration (held December 26th to January 1st) stands for a principle in the Nguzo Saba (The Seven Principles) philosophy. He stated the following definitions of it:

• Umoja (Unity): To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race.
• Kujichagulia (Self-Determination): To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.
• Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our brother’s and sister’s problems our problems and to solve them together.
• Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together.
• Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
• Kuumba (Creativity): To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
• Imani (Faith): To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

This year I plan to take the extra time out of my hectic schedule to teach not only myself but my son about Kwanzaa’s philosophy, traditions, foods and symbols. By celebrating this holiday, he will learn more about his heritage, remember his ancestors that have passed on and develop an understanding of community. Beyond all else, the importance of community, cooperation and volunteerism is stressed instead of commercialism and materialism. In the end, I hope that our family not only has fun but grows for the better this holiday season.

Official Kwanzaa Site

If this still seems like too much work, why not try a cookie swap, where you bake several batches of one recipe, and then trade with friends?

Even among stuffing-lovers, there is a disagreement over what is the best thanksgiving stuffing. Your stuffing choice is a difficult decision. Should you go with a traditional bread stuffing (How to Make Bread Stuffing) or look for something different to spice up your meal? It’s a tough call–not everyone will appreciate a break from tradition–but it could be the one thing to make your dinner memorable.

Rice stuffing, fruit stuffing and potato stuffing are three great ideas to add a little extra flavor to the stuffing tradition. Take a look at the great article, How to Make Turkey Stuffing for ideas and recipies. There are some more great ideas in the guides How to Make Chestnut Stuffing and How to Make Leek and Wild Mushroom Stuffing. Some other delicious ideas are oyster stuffing, cornbread stuffing and sausage stuffing. Whichever stuffing-recipe you pick, the it is sure to be your guests’ favorite part of your holiday meal.

Since this will be the first year that I host Thanksgiving dinner at my home, it has come to my attention the incredible amount of anxiety but also excitement that comes with hosting for the holidays. Not only do you have to plan out a great meal, but you have to organize the guest list and plan the activities as well. I sit back now and wonder how my Grandmother juggled it all while still managing to make it seem effortless.

However, I know that I don’t want to get so caught up in the hustle and bustle that I forget what is truly important during Thanksgiving. What really matters is the memorable and fun times you spend with your loved ones. So, if you’re in the grand position of  host this year, take some time to enjoy yourself as well. Make your own Thanksgiving party favors and decorations with your kids so that you’ll have something to remember the occasion by for years to come.