 Hi everyone, welcome back to my channel. It is Drew here from Lone Fox and I am so, so excited to start taking off the holiday content here on Lone Fox. I honestly just wanna do it a little bit earlier this year to give you time to create and decorate this holiday season. So I figured why not start off my little roundup of holiday videos with a DIY Christmas gift ideas video. That way you guys can kind of start getting some ideas for Christmas gifts to create for your friends, for your family, whatever it might be. And I'm so, so excited because today's video is sponsored by Vista Print. I absolutely love Vista Print. I am an avid customer. I have been a customer of Vista Print for probably eight or nine years now. I've used them when I started my first ever business up to now. I literally had my first business card created through Vista Print and even my current business cards created through Vista Print. As many of you guys know, giving thoughtful Christmas gifts is a great idea every single year. However, I do think this year it is extra, extra important to give a thoughtful, memorable, unforgettable, DIY-able, handmade Christmas gift to a friend or family member just to brighten up mood and just, you know, set the tone for 2021. And Vista Print allows you to do just that. They have so many different customizable photo gifts. They have mugs, wall calendars, holiday cards. You name it, and Vista Print probably has it. And the great thing about a lot of their items is that they are designed so beautifully. They have such great, already pre-made templates and you can just insert your own wording or insert your own photos, whatever it might be to kind of customize them and create stunning Christmas gifts. I'm going to be showcasing three of them for you guys. I want to share with you all three that I created that I'm going to be gifting alongside my DIY-able gifts as well. So the first one here is the cutest ever Christmas card. How cute is this? It is a happy holidays card. And as you can see, they actually already had created this graphic around here. I adjusted the font a little bit in foil and then added from our family to yours right there. And I also created a matching envelope. And on the backside of the card, there's a little blank spot to journal line. I love how you can customize these. You can add a family photo in them if you want to, photo of your children, photo of your dog, whatever you want to do. You can customize everything, which is awesome. And the next item that I created is a wall calendar. And these are totally customizable as well. You can add photos to the front. You could add text to the front. You can actually customize every single page on the inside as well. And then on the inside, of course, you have your January, your February, March, April. You flip through and it's just a cute little wall calendar. And I think this is such a nice gift for somebody because every time they look at this, they're going to think about you and remember it, especially if you add photos to the front of here. And the last item I want to share with you guys is this printed canvas, which is just so, so cute. I ended up putting on the front of this my moth art print, which I actually sell over on my website. And it is such incredible quality. The back is like fully finished. It has a mountable features on the top and the sides all around for the price. This thing is awesome. And again, you can totally customize this. You can have a big family portrait blown up on here. You can have a photo of your animal put on here. So if you guys would like to start customizing your very own photo gift this year, which I think is such a cute idea, definitely follow the link in the description box below and check out all the different offerings VistaPrint has. They have so many different items you could print on and customize. And also they are giving you guys a 20% off discount code. So use the code HOLIDAYYT20 at checkout to get 20% off of your entire purchase. We do have some DIY Christmas gifts to jump into. I have a four really cute projects for you guys this year that are all affordable and very light. They're like a fulfilling gift, you know, like I would love to receive something like this. So let's go ahead and just jump right in. Alrighty guys, jumping into our first project, we are gonna be creating a candle because who doesn't love a candle for the holiday season? I am using some soy wax and also some lilac and vanilla scented essential oils along with a wooden wick and also these really cute glass mugs, which I thought would be a perfect little canister that could be reused once you're done. And I picked up these lavender florals over at Trader Joe's. So those are all the supplies that I'm gonna be using. And our first step in the process is going to be to glue the wooden wick to the bottom of our canister. So I glued that right into the center of our glass mug here and then I filled up a pot with about a third of the way of water and put it on the stove top, which I'm going to be boiling that water and using it as a double boiler for this little glass container that has my wax in it. And as you can see, as you melt the wax, it actually condenses down in size. So I kept on adding more to melt as much as possible in this container here and just occasionally stirring it. Now also guys, I do want to mention that I am not a professional candle maker in any means at all. There are professional ways to make candles for sure, but this is just kind of like an at-home DIY method with things I already owned. So I poured in about half the container of lavender oil and half the container of vanilla oil and mixed it in. I know traditionally you're supposed to do this at 185 degrees, but I didn't even have a thermometer. So you know what, I just winged it and I love the way that it turned out. So I next went back to my craft area and I picked off a couple of these little lavender stems here and my original idea was to actually coat the inside of this mug with these lavender stems. So I was cutting them off and then I was gonna paint a bit of the hot wax on the inside. That way I can kind of use it as a glue to then glue the stems inside. However, the wax was just drying too quickly and it didn't end up working out. So I just went ahead and crumbled some of the lavender into the actual candle itself, mixed it throughout to kind of release some of those natural smells. And I also love when candles have like real elements in them as well, like mixed into the wax. So I thought this was a nice little touch and I poured it in my candle base very carefully, making sure that nothing burned me or anything of the sort. And that was really all, you're gonna let this harden for a couple of hours and that is your lavender vanilla crackle candle. I ran across this hand knit trivet, which I thought was just so cute by Flax and Twine.com and I just love the idea of creating this with only your fingers. So I picked up this rope here, which I will link below for you guys. All the supplies for the entire video will be linked below. And all you have to do is it's very repetitive. So what I'm gonna start off by doing is I'm going to wrap it around my finger. You're going to wanna create two loops on each finger. So as you can see, I have two loops on the left finger and two loops on the right finger there. All you have to do for this entire process is pull the bottom loop over the top of your second loop there, pull the string behind your hand, your leftover string and kind of pull it down that will tighten everything. Then you're gonna create two new loops. As you can see here, I created two new loops and simply repeat the process. So I'm gonna pull my left bottom strand over the top of the second loop and the same thing for the right strand as well. And it might look like I'm struggling on camera a little bit, you guys, but it's because I wasn't able to work on this in my lap and I was filming it, so it's a bit more challenging, but I'm gonna go through it just one more time. So basically you're gonna loop over the top of your right, over the top of your left, then just start with your left finger always and just pull that loop up and over first to start and then do your right finger right after pulling that bottom loop up and over. And then just make sure to pull your kind of leftover remaining tail that you started off with and that will tighten everything up on the back end. And you're gonna repeat this process for about three feet of length. You're gonna need a little bit of this to create your trivet, but it's really fun and simple. So once you get the hang of it, this is definitely a project that you can do like in front of the TV, whatever it might be, but you're just gonna repeat this process until you have three feet of braided cording. And something else you might wanna try if you feel like the cording is getting really, really tight is to just do one loop at a time. So instead of wrapping over the right and left to create two loops, just do one loop at a time and work that way. So as you could see here, I started off with the right first. That way you can gauge how much string you're gonna need and kind of pull from your skein of yarn or your skein of rope and work from there. So it's not super tight all the way around. And then once you finish off, just leave a little bit of a tail. I wasn't exactly sure how I was gonna attach this in the end, so I left a pretty long tail. I pulled that tail through my two loops that were on my finger and pulled it really nice and tight to create kind of like a knot right at the end there. And then we're gonna be spiraling this around itself to create the potholder. Now you can also totally create coasters out of this. I think this would be a fun coaster project if you used like a thinner macrame cord and then you're gonna cut off your excess. And I honestly just hot glued this entire thing. I know that there's a way to like stitch it all together but just me being like DIYer, I just had to quickly create this. So I went around and I used my Gorilla Hot Glue which I'll link below for you guys. It's super strong, perfect for fabric like this. And I just glued it all the way around adding a generous amount to make sure that all of those knots were nice and secure. This is also washable as well, which is amazing. And lastly, you can totally dye these as well. So feel free to dye them whatever color you want. And that finishes off these cute little woven trivets. So you can use these at your next family gathering or when you have friends over to protect any countertop or surface. This next project is one of my favorite ones for sure. These are super cute little faux leather pouches which are perfect for gift cards or small little gifts. And I love these because they're totally reusable as well. I found the inspiration from cleverpoppy.nz. And make sure to check out her blog. I will link it below because she has some really great DIY projects over there. So what I did was I picked up these 14 sheets of faux leather material. You get 14 of them for 14 bucks, which I thought was great because you can create a variety of colors and they're only about $1 a pouch. And this right here is a template that cleverpoppy also created, which was amazing. So you can just download this right off of her website. That's exactly what I did. Originally, I was gonna kind of come up with my own template and kind of reshape it a little bit. But I was like, you know what? She did the hard work for this project. So her template is perfect enough. I really love it and it worked amazingly. So I printed this out and all I had to do was cut the shape out of the paper and then trace it on. I have an industrial hole punch that I've used for years here. This is actually for grommets and like leather work. So I went around and I punched out all of the holes that were necessary for this piece. And then I just traced them on the backside of the fabric as well. And you probably guessed what's up next. We are just gonna be using a pair of sharp scissors to cut out our shape. So just make sure to kind of precisely cut this around the marker that I used. Oh, and also guys, I did wanna mention, don't use a marker like I did. Definitely use a pencil or something that's not going to transfer because this marker was transferring all over the place. So maybe a quick dry marker or a pencil would work a little bit better, but just cut out your shape and then also make sure to punch out the holes using the same hole punch. Once that is done, I used one of these bronze little post pieces and I put the nail side of it or the screw side of it up right and I'm going to flap over the left one, flap over the right one, as you can see here and then flap up our bottom section. Make sure all of those holes go right over the top of the post and then you could screw on top of that little ball piece. I don't exactly know what to call this and then you snap it shut on the top and that is your super cute little leather pouch. I just absolutely love the way that these turned out and I'm gonna create a couple more of them so that way we can decorate them together. Okay, how far can cute are these? We're not gonna lie, like they're just so cute. So the next one I'm gonna do is I'm gonna grab a white paint marker and I'm just going in because I love how she added details to her pouches as well with the white paint marker and I'm just gonna go around and add a couple of dots and lines and doodles here and there just to finish it off and add a little bit more personality. You can also like add someone's name to this or do really whatever you want. You could personalize it however your heart desires. I added a cute little plus sign pattern to this navy one here and I just love these pouches because they're great for holding a gift card or a small gift and then they're also reusable. I actually use these for my camera cards all the time. I store them in there or smaller bits and trinkets. I think it's just perfect. A little jewelry pouch for when you're travel as well. I think absolutely yes. And our last project is probably one of my favorites. I'm starting off with a one by three foot pine board and we are actually going to be cutting this down and creating a wooden floating frame for our canvas print from Vista Print. So these are great as is. However, I just wanted to go ahead and elevate mine a little bit more. So I put my saw on a 45 degree angle and I'm going to be cutting my wood down to be two inches wider and two inches longer than the canvas. So my original canvas was 16 by 24. So basically I'm cutting these to be 18 by 26 and then I'm 45 degree angling the sides. That way they match up together perfectly. I do not have the best like construction terminology but I hope this makes sense. So these are the two pieces that I have cut. Just make sure you have those 45 degree angles on the sides. That way they butt up together perfectly just like this. I then brought everything back inside and we're going to be constructing the base of our frame. So as you can see here, the two smaller parts are going to be the top and the bottom and then our two longer parts are going to be the left and the right side. So how I'm going to be assembling these is with a little bit of wood glue and I'm just going to be applying the wood glue onto one side of that 45 degree cut that we created. And I'm going to be kind of pressing them together for a couple of seconds and just make sure that they're nice and flushly mounted together. And then I'm going to be using my brad nailer to drive a couple of nails just through the side there to hold the glue while it dries and also just make sure it's extra secure. So the assembly is honestly pretty simple and if you didn't have a brad nailer you can absolutely just wood glue this and I'm sure you would be totally fine with it. I just added those nails as a reinforcement and also you can glue it and then go in with just some simple picture nails or finishing nails to just add a bit more reinforcement as well. So as you can see here I'm just adding on our top section just kind of fitting that in and everything fits so nicely. I love when I cut wood pieces and they fit perfectly. It is so satisfying. Now it is time to test it with our canvas. So I dropped into my Vista print canvas and as you could see it drops down about two inches or so. So I knew that I wanted to cut these eight inch pieces of wood that I then also cut 45 degree angles on each side because we're going to be creating almost like an inner shelf that's going to hold up our canvas and I also have these little wooden rings. Now these do not have to be wooden rings but I needed something to elevate each one of these little wood pieces about a quarter inch off of our tabletop. So I'm adding wood glue to both of these angle cuts here and then I'm going to place it in the corner and set it on top of that wooden ring there which is just going to lift it slightly off of the table. That way when I place my canvas in later it's going to be perfectly flush with the top. And you're going to see exactly what I mean in a second here but I'm basically just using these little wooden circles as spacers and then I'm going to be placing it in. So if your canvas was thinner or thicker you might want to adjust that spacer size. Once that has fully dried I went in with a coat of early American wood stain. Now you could stain this however you want you can also paint it if you want to or you can just leave it as is and maybe give it a nice little clear coat over the top. However, I wanted to warm it up just a little bit because I felt like the butterflies were really warm on the inside of the print. So I also wanted to add a little bit of warmth to the frame. So I used the early American stain just stained everything including those little shelf pieces on the inside there and also the outside. Basically anywhere that's going to be showing. Once that's done, I use these Velcro little peel and stick strips and I'm actually going to be mounting this on the inside of my canvas and it's going to be allowing me to remove this from the frame if I want to. So it's never like dead set in this frame. So I peeled off the adhesive placed my little canvas on the inside from Vista print and I'm going to just maneuver it around until it's spaced nicely how I want it. You should have about a quarter inch around all of the sides. And once you have it in position just press it down over the top of those Velcro strips and you are good to go. And there you go you guys. I hope that gave you some ideas for some DIY gifts this year. I think they are so cute. And if you guys have like another round of this video like another batch of projects totally let me know in the comment sections below because I can come with some more DIYable gift ideas maybe even gift ideas for like children or kind of theme it a little bit if you want more of a themed gift DIY idea video you know, but all around I think these projects are really, really great especially if you pair them with a Vista print photo gift this year. So definitely make sure to take advantage of my 20% off code. It is holidayYT20 at checkout. I'll put it in the description box below and also make sure to click my link in the description box below as well to head over to their site and start customizing your very own photo gifts. But that's really all for today you guys do not forget to subscribe to my channel if you are not already I post brand new videos every Thursday and Sunday and this is just the start of my holiday kind of video series here on my channel which I'm so excited about we're gonna have a Christmas makeover coming up soon I wanna do some DIY ornaments, DIY holiday decor all of that fun stuff so definitely subscribe and I will catch you guys in my next one have an amazing rest of your day bye guys. Thank you so much to Vista print for sponsoring today's video.