Handmade Christmas: The Gifts that Didn’t Make It

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… And now that my handmade gift shares are over, let’s talk about the gifts I didn’t make but really wanted to.

With my track record, I’m surprised I got any of it done, but I did and I sure appreciate that round of applause you’re giving me (I’ll wait while you finish).  There were, however, several Pinterest finds that I thought were awesome but didn’t make the cut this year:

1. Woodland Tree Quilt
I mentioned this when I shared the lap quilt I made for my mom, but I fell in love with the Woodland Tree Quilt when I first saw it. I couldn’t find fabric I thought would work, and I was still getting over sewing nerves, so this guy went to the back burner in favor of something a little more in tune with my (lack of) skillz. Still, it rocks.

2. DIY Lip Balm
Who knew lip balm was SO easy to make? Not this girl! My family uses enough lip balm year-round to make me want to shoot myself (especially Darin), so making it at home and saving some pennies sounds pretty fantastic. There’s also a method that uses Vaseline and Kool-Aid if you want to get even simpler and that would make a great birthday party or sleepover craft or even something quick and easy to give for Valentine’s Day.

3. DIY Cake Stands
My dad makes cakes for me quite a bit and he doesn’t have a cake plate (just a carrier, which works just fine because he brings them to me), so I wanted to make one. And I did make one using a clear dinner plate ($2) and a clear candle holder ($1.50), however I used epoxy to try to adhere the two pieces and it didn’t happen. In fact, the one-hour drying time has turned into two weeks and counting, so the Cake Plate That Could is still sitting next to my sink (the good news is it holds the speaker for my phone). There are so many DIY cake plate pins on Pinterest and a lot of them use dinner plates, but I want to warn you that if they are not flat, they are not effective cake plates. That said, I am digging this terra cotta version, but I worry it’s too heavy. I should just buy one, I think.

4. Headbands for Baby Eleanor
Time ran away from me or else I would have tried this one. When I saw this felt hydrangea baby headband I immediately pinned it with the intentions of making this for Eleanor, my new baby niece, because hydrangeas are my sister-in-law Dara’s favorite flowers (I think that’s right). The good news is Eleanor’s head isn’t going anywhere, and she doesn’t really wear a lot of headbands yet, so this is still a very real possibility. There are SO many cute little baby headbands on Pinterest, too, like this one with roses and pearls and netting.

5. Homemade Cow Tales
This is another time-got-away-from-me project that I really wanted to make for my sister-in-law Katie. Once I heard her say she really liked Cow Tales and, perhaps because we couldn’t find any?, I bought some for her. So now I want to make some because I think of her when I see them. One of these days I will attempt it.

And there you have it.

I think we’re about done with the handmade Christmas gifts. Aren’t you glad?

Follow my gift ideas board, the giving tree, on Pinterest for more.

 

Handmade Christmas: Photos

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It’s the twelfth day of Christmas – and the last post in my Handmade Christmas series.

Today’s project is easy, breezy, Cover Girl.

In 2010, my mom asked for a photo of the burning bushes in front of her home. I forgot all about it last Christmas, even though I did take the photos before Thanksgiving, and so she was all over me this year to get these photos (especially since Mother’s Day and her birthday also passed without the photo). Oops. So this Christmas, and for what seemed like every day for 2-3 months, she brought up the photo.

And so, I printed it. (Well, two different ones.) But I had to mess with her. So I drew the bushes on newsprint and framed that with the photos in the frame behind the illustration.

Total cost: $3 + frame

See? EASY.

I’m still waiting on my mom to hang it …

–

And so ends this handmade Christmas series! It’s been fun, though exhausting, to create and blog it all. I really did have fun and, for the first time (probably!) ever, I knew what to give my parents for Christmas. They can buy whatever they want, and they do, so it’s hard to shop for them, but making them things is fun.

Also, I tried to get bonus points by wrapping my gifts in newspaper, the very newspaper I write, edit and produce each week.

This year I did not spend a dime on gift wrap. These were the only gifts I wrapped in newspaper; the gifts for my kids were wrapped in paper we had leftover from last year and the year before. We didn’t do bows or fancy tags; no one even missed them. (Though I really did want to wrap things in kraft paper, but I was running out of time for everything.)

My thoughts on handmade Christmas? Go for it. I am already working on my brothers’ gifts for next year.

Thanks so much for reading along as I chronicled this journey in gift-giving! If you’re on Pinterest, why not follow me and we can share handmade holiday ideas all year round?

Handmade Christmas: Etched Glass Candy Jar

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Are you Handmade Christmased out yet? This is our next to last post!

And I just realized I never took the after photo. Eep. Oh, well.

When my kids go to my parents’ house, the first thing they do is make a beeline for the candy. Grampy ALWAYS has candy. But Grampy doesn’t have a candy jar, so we made one for him.

To make this I used Armour Etch ($12-14), painter’s tape, an X-acto knife and a glass container we had in storage. I originally bought the container several years ago to store cereal or laundry soap, after seeing them on the ever-fab blog Young House Love, which is also where I got the idea for glass etching. However, this particular one has been sitting in storage for about two years, so why buy a new one when this one was perfect?

I used myfonts.com to find a G I liked that wasn’t too thin, then I enlarged the window (on a Mac hold the Command and + keys) until it was as large as I wanted for the jar. I traced it onto a piece of paper from my screen, like it was a light box, then cut the G out, traced it to several strips of tape that I’d already stuck to the glass and cut it out. The next step is coating on the Armour Etch, which I did very liberally and with a foam brush. Let it sit for 5-7 minutes, then rinse and you’re done!

(When I explained to Jenna that the G was for Grampy because it was Grampy’s candy, she told me to make sure I didn’t forget the K for “kandy!” lol.)

Of course you can’t give someone an empty candy jar, right? I filled it with several bags of various candy and gave it to him. Incidentally, my sister-in-law Kelly gave them a cookie jar that is the same only bigger. Great minds …

The breakdown: The jar itself wasn’t very expensive for me as I only bought the Armour Etch (10 oz. bottle for $12-14; it goes a long way), but the jar was purchased at Walmart for $6-8 in 2008 (ours still has them); I used about five bags of candy which varied from $2-5 each

The verdict: I would TOTALLY do this again! It turned out looking SO great, but very subtle. I was SO excited about it.

Handmade Christmas: A fuzzy, embroidered blanket

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On the tenth day of Christmas my true love brought to me … a fuzzy blanket with embroidery …. !

The day my niece Eleanor was born we took a fuzzy blanket to my sister-in-law with a G, the first letter of their last name, embroidered in a corner. I thought it was a neat way to personalize a blanket that wasn’t expensive or time-consuming and I wanted to make one for my dad, too. He always cuddles up in his recliner with his dogs and naps, so I thought it’d be great for that. (I think my mom is tired of his woodland camo fleece blanket, so I was trying to help her out. lol.)

This project? SO SIMPLE.

Draw your desired design, poke little bitty holes along your pen marks with a push pin (for easy embroidering), secure your pattern to your fabric with pins and go! I forged my dad’s signature (and he says it was pretty close!) and used the outline stitch to stitch it in gold (on a dark gray blanket). When the embroidery’s done carefully pull your paper away from the stitching and voila!

(This is a really, really horrible photo. I know. I’m sorry.)

The breakdown: The blanket was on sale at my local Kroger ($5-8) and I already had the embroidery floss

The verdict: These blankets are not meant for embroidery and are pretty difficult to work with, so I doubt I will embroider on these again. They are super warm, though!

Up next? Another sweet gift for my dad! See ya tomorrow.

Handmade Christmas: Lap Quilt

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Continuing with the Handmade Christmas series, we have come to the most intimidating project in my arsenal: a lap quilt.

In full disclosure I cannot sew. It stresses me out, mostly because of past experiences with tangled bobbins and being far away from anyone who could teach me how to fix it. That was seven years ago; my sewing machine sat in my mom’s attic from 2005 until Thanksgiving 2010, when it was given to Jaiden and loaded into my trunk. It sat in my trunk for 55 – yes, 55! – weeks until I decided to bring it into the house.

When we first started this handmade mission I found a quilt I wanted to make for my mom. Of course, I first spotted the tree quilt via Pinterest and I thought, immediately, about how much I’d like to make it for my mom; I dreamed up all kinds of schemes and such for that heart and variations on that design and I loved that I didn’t have to sew straight lines to make it look good. I’m digging the faux bois right now.

I went to Hancock Fabrics the day after Black Friday (Really, Really Rainy Saturday is what I call it), after spending about two hours or more in Hobby Lobby, and it took me almost another two hours to finally walk out with two yards of two different fabrics for this quilt (plus other things). I couldn’t find any fabric I liked enough to make this work and I was getting frustrated. I don’t know enough about sewing to just completely make something up in a fabric store and my anxiety was growing, but I finally figured it out. I walked up and down the aisles of fabric about 84 times, looking high and low, pricing things and trying to pick out different fabrics. I’m no good at picking things like this out because I don’t want to make something that someone hates (I’d rather not make anything at all). At one point I saw fabric that looked Japanese and a light bulb went off: the week before she was talking about how much she likes visiting Japan (which she does at least once a year for work). The hunt was officially on.

The fabric I thought was Japanese was really a different sort of toile and … nothankyou. It took another hour before I finally found something I thought was Japanese inspired and, as it turns out, it was from a Japanese-inspired line (on the right track – yay!). It was BRIGHT, though, and I couldn’t find anything that’d coordinate, so it was back to the drawing board (this was SUCH a painful process lol). Eventually I found something that was not only Japanese-inspired, but also more of her style.

(Aren’t you glad I’m finished with the play-by-play of fabric selections?)

The fabric was 45″ wide (I think?). I bought two yards of each at $6.99/yd. (The Jaguars fabric was for my nephew’s pajamas. I picked it up for my mom.) I also bought batting, which was 45×60″ in size. The binding was REALLY confusing and after about 30 minutes of waffling back and forth, I decided to call my mom and ask for help. Of course I told her I was making a quilt for my niece, Eleanor, who was still in utero at this point.

My mom, true to form, tried to talk me into making the quilt smaller and, thus, cutting down on the amount of binding I’d need. I tried to tell her I was sticking to the 45×60″ size, but she adamant that I make a smaller quilt. lol. I had to basically guess.

Of course the fabric and materials sat, folded and still in its bag, for about three or four more weeks. I started sewing it on … probably two or three days before Christmas, perhaps?

I didn’t end up using the binding, because I didn’t want to have to learn another new skill as the quilt and the sewing were nerve-wracking enough.

To make the quilt I laid the fabrics together, right sides facing, with the batting on top. Ever the professional, I just cut the fabrics and batting down to where they were the same size, then sewed around 3.5 sides. I turned it right side out, embroidered an R in purple (my mom’s first initial) and added some happy little red leaves, which went with the design on the fabric, in one of the colors.

Then I stitched (top-stitched, perhaps?) the last half-side so that it was completely closed and continued stitching alllllll the way around the blanket … thus eliminating a need for binding. Ahahahaha. I planned it. ?

When the sides were done, I …. quilted …? the damn thing by stitching lines willy nilly across it and side to side and … just whatever and wherever, following some of the branches and limbs on the top fabric.

And then I called it D-O-N-E.

The breakdown: Each fabric was $6.99/yd. (2 yds. each), batting was on sale for $5 (which was half-price, I believe), thread; I also used my mom’s 40 percent discount, which she suggested, not knowing the quilt was really for her.

The verdict: This was the second blanket/quilt I’ve made and … it really wasn’t that bad! I got over my nervousness, never had one problem with the bobbins, and even sewed puppets afterward. MUCH improved.

Other than puppets, this was the only thing I sewed. That said, I don’t have any sewing plans for the near future, but who knows what the distant future holds?

There are still three more handmade Christmas posts to go, which should last us until Epiphany. Stay tuned!

Handmade Christmas: Personalized Notepads for Teachers

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Ready for something that looks hard but is actually SUPER easy? To help round out personalized gifts for teachers, I made quick and easy notepads. This sounds intimidating, but it’s really not (says the girl who is intimidated by the sewing machine). It is also pretty inexpensive, but very functional and very loved.

(As I’ve said before: Christmas doesn’t have to cost a fortune. When I post that something was inexpensive I want to be very clear that I don’t mean it as an insult to the recipient, rather I want to show that creating something meaningful is what’s important and that doing that can be within any budget, big or small.)

You will need: computer, paper, printer, thin cardboard, binder clips, rubber cement

Start out with your design. You can do this with any word processing program/templates you might have, but I used Adobe InDesign, which is the layout program we use for the paper. (You can download a free trial at adobe.com.) Work with what you have, though.

I made notepads for the kids’ teachers that are sized at 4.5×5 inches, which is a quarter of a letter-sized page. Design them in any way you want; I kept it simple by writing “A note from” and then the teacher’s name (I used Calluna and Carolyna Pro fonts). One of the teachers is very much into animal prints, so I put an animal print border around hers.

When you’re satisfied with your design, print out as many copies as you’d like, perhaps 25-50 sheets (if you’re making one notepad, you can use the design four times on one page; if you’re making two notepads, you can do the design twice on a page). We have a print shop at work and the paper was trimmed using one of the machines there, but you can do it on any paper cutter. You might also want to find thin cardboard and cut it to size to act as a backer.

And now we physically make the notepad. Use binder clips (or something similar – I used the clip that holds my press badge too lol) to secure the pages together. You can stack all of the pages together, with the cardboard backer used to separate each one, then apply rubber cement to the top end. Let it dry for 30 minutes and either apply another coat (if it was thin) or separate each notepad and toss into your teacher tote bags.

You can do the notepads in any design, size, shape you want. If you don’t have time to do them yourself, you can have them printed at your local print shop (like ours at The Leader) pretty inexpensively AND they will be real-deal professional.

I made notepads for Jenna’s former teacher, Ms. Genniece, also.

I made these as vertical half-sheets and they were printed and assembled in our print shop. For YEARS I’ve wanted to design these daily report sheets for her and this year I finally came up with a good design. I LOVE them. And yes, I did use copyrighted photos on the notepads (she teaches the A Becka curriculum and Jenna gave her a children’s Bible just like that for Christmas, it’s one of Jenna’s favorite things to give).

I have to say, this one was my favorite; I was very proud of them. And Ms. Genniece seemed to love them, too.

We also gave her a personalized bag with notepads, but inside she had Rice Krispies Treats made with strawberry marshmallows, something she made with Jenna once and Jenna requested to give her.

Totes & notes? SO EASY and not expensive at all.

Next up we have the lap quilt I made for my mom. Stay tuned!

Handmade Christmas: Tote Bags for Teachers

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Welcome back for yet another Handmade Christmas post – this time it’s all about the teachers!

I knew I wanted to give the kids’ teachers something they could use, but I didn’t want to just buy a package of dry erase markers and call it done. I bought a couple packages of canvas tote bags from Walmart (3 bags for less than $10), a package of paint pens ($10) and then various things each teacher needed for her classroom – the aforementioned dry erase markers, crayons, pens, pencils – plus some goodies like Almond kisses, lip balm and notepads that I designed, printed and made at home.

To decorate the bags, I drew the first letter of the teacher’s name in pencil first, then drew over it with a paint pen. I added little touches, like dots and hearts, too. I did four bags all in less than 45 minutes (might have even been 30 minutes). I wanted to go ahead and fill them, so I hung each bag up on a skirt/pants hanger, hung them from the door moulding in my office area, then filled them and tied a black and white ribbon on it. I think they came out cute!

The breakdown: Less than $25 for six bags and five paint pens (if you don’t already have them)

The verdict: They were SO easy! These will definitely happen again and the customization possibilities are endless.

Remember the notepads I mentioned? They’re up next! From there we’ll cover blankets, candy jars and the infamous burning bush. My plan is to finish this series on the 12th day of Christmas (Jan. 6), so there are still four more days of handmade goodies and I’ll even share the things my mom handmade for us.