Holiday Crafting

I hosted a Holiday Party for the CalSERVES staff and AmeriCorps leaders.  We focused the party around creating handmade gifts.  It was a fun and economical way to send everyone home with some of their holiday gifting done!

I always worry about our AmeriCorps members at the holidays.  These wonderful people are serving the community, receiving only a living stipend each month that enables them to just get by.  This was a great way to partially address the challenge that can pose during the holiday.

In addition to good food (thank you Emily!), egg nog and cheer, here are the projects we did:

1. Cookies in a Jar.
I offered 5 recipes for guests to choose from, and in all the recipes, dry cookie mix would be layered into 1 quart mason jars.  I had all the basic ingredients (flour, sugar, baking soda/powder, chocolate chips, nuts, etc.) and from there guests could make whatever they liked.  I had tags where they could write the recipe and raffia and ribbon to make it pretty.  We made 20 jars!

2.  Cross Stitch Ornaments
Kathy brought ornament patterns and everything else for us to cross-stitch our own ornament.  What a wonderful project and new skill that many learned.

3.  Peppermint Sugar Scrub.
Megan brought us this fun and fragrant project.  You use sugar, peppermint oil, olive oil and food coloring.  You can get creative with the pattern as you pack it into a smaller mason jar and decorate it with ribbon and card.

4.  Paper Garlands
These fun and colorful garlands can be used to bring a pop of color to any room!  Lauren brought us this project which involved string, colorful paper, and scissors.

Most importantly, I got to spend the day with so many great people...laughing and learning together like we always do!  Thank you my CalSERVES team....you are all such shining examples of what the holiday time truly means to me.