I recently discovered Dots & Loops Handmade, a super cute store in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, selling all kinds of handmade goodies - including a wide selection of products made by Canadian and Nova Scotian artisans. If you can't make it to the store in person, you can still visit them online and I'm sure you'll have no trouble finding a holiday gift or two (or maybe something for your own wishlist). Here are several of my favourites:

Chelsea and Maria scarves
Flowers card
MAASAI necklace
Triangle earrings
Hand printed bracelet (made in Nova Scotia)
Chevron necklace (made in Nova Scotia)
Your new boyfriend sticker set
Blue + white lace tea towel
Zipper case
Amethyst soap rock (so cool!)

P.S. I wasn't paid or perked to write this post, I just like sharing good stuff!

I made these finger puppets over the weekend as a birthday gift for my niece. They were super easy to make  and I love how they turned out. If you're interested in making your own, read on for the how-to.

1. I drew my pieces freehand and figured out what I needed by looking at a few examples online, but you can also find printable templates on Pinterest. To create the same puppets I made, you'll need templates for the body (with and without arms), various heads, a mane for the lion, ears for the elephant, and an oval for the dog's snout.
2. Trace your templates onto felt pieces and cut them out. Remember to make doubles of each body piece and head (for the lion, you'll need two mane pieces, but only one face piece).
3. Using a glue gun, I glued my body pieces together first (remember to leave the bottom open for your finger!), then sandwiched the body between two head pieces and glued those together. The last step is  to glue on the eyes and any little nose, ear or cheek pieces. I also cut little hearts out of some leftover fabric and glued those on too. 

I hope my niece likes them as much as Adam does - he wants me to make him some, haha.

On Wednesday I shared my holiday wishlist and yesterday I started shopping (for my family, not myself :). This year, I'm determined to make something for everyone on my list. I love the personal touch that comes with a DIY gift and of course they're fun to make, too. Even if you don't consider yourself a DIYer, the ideas below are easy enough for anyone to try.

I love these DIY copper-leafed candles by Emily Henderson. Perfect for a stocking stuffer or a hostess gift.

source: stylebyemilyhenderson.com

There are lots of options for home baked gifts, but if baking's not your thing - or maybe you're just short on time - here are some really pretty ways to make store-bought goodies more gift-worthy.

source: style at home magazine (dec 2011)

My friend Sorren put together a ridiculously easy how-to for a DIY coffee exfoliant and a DIY sugar lip exfoliant. With some cute packaging, they would make great holiday gifts.

source: classic noise

Nicole featured two great posts on how to make a simple bauble necklace and how to make a statement necklace...

source: making it lovely

...and plants always make a great gift. Here are two simple ways to make them extra special with DIY painted planters.

source: homedit & the proper pinwheel

Will you be making any gifts this year? Share your ideas in the comments.

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Have you started your holiday shopping yet? I have a few ideas written down for family and friends, but no shopping yet. We have quite a few gifts to mail this year, so I need to get started soon!

I had a little fun putting together my holiday wish list (too early?). A graphic poster, a linen shower curtain, a great everyday necklace, some new down pillows, a pretty basket for the snake plant in our dining room, and a couple of good books :)

What's on your list this year?

I'm not a Black Friday shopper because a) I live in Canada and b) I would pay almost any amount of money not to battle a crowd and stand in line (yup, not a huge fan of amusement parks), but hats off to you if you braved the fray to score some amazing deals today. With the gift-giving season underway, here are the items on my wishlist this year. What's on yours?

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This is one of yesterday's wedding thank-you gifts all wrapped up and ready to go. I love wrapping gifts with kraft paper - it's so simple on its own, but you can dress it up for any season or occasion with a little ribbon and a few embellishments (and it's easy to re-use, too). I used leftover twine from our wedding and a few semi-dried chive flowers (picked from my mother-in-law's garden a couple of weeks ago) for a little pop of colour.

Our DIY wedding wouldn't have been possible without loads of help from our parents, so of course we wanted to do something to say thanks (aside from actually saying thanks, which we've done many times now). Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of extra money to spend on gifts right now and I can't imagine my parents or parents-in-law wanting any of the thank-you gift ideas I found online (how many engraved objects does one person need?). And since our photographers took so many beautiful pictures that day, we decided to frame a few for my mom, my dad and his wife, and Adam's parents.

I found some pretty silver frames at Winners, all on clearance for $7-$8 (unless you're my parent or parent-in-law, then the frames are solid silver and cost hundreds of dollars). I ordered a few prints and bought a piece of mat board ($3), then got to work with my handheld mat cutter. As an aside, I highly recommend cutting your own mats. It's easy to do (with a little practice) and it's so much cheaper than having custom mats cut (I almost always prefer the look of custom mats to standard mats, even though I cut these to standard-size haha). Eventually I'd like to invest in a heavier-duty model, since my handheld occasionally slips and doesn't do corners as cleanly as I'd like. Anyway, enough about my mat cutter dreams, here's how the frames turned out:

I think this is a nice, simple thank-you gift that our parents will enjoy (at first I told Adam this was my new mantle-decorating idea: an homage to ourselves). Now I just need to find a pretty way to wrap them.