Homemade Christmas gifts ~ 2015 edition

Probably seems a little out of season, but here's our report of what we made for Christmas gifts this year.

There are a whole bunch of us in my family and thankfully my siblings and their spouses draw names and just give one well thought out gift instead of 15 desperate gestures of goodwill.  I got my sister's name and knew just what she wanted; shredded coconut husks to use for worm bedding in her new wormery composter....yep.  So I just let Amazon take care of that one.  But Marc got my youngest sister-in-law who lives 1,500 miles away and even her husband was at a loss about what to give her.  Marc has been trying his hand at turning wood on the lathe.  The Black Hills is seriously infested with a deadly pine beetle and our yard has been no exception.  When a tree dies a pine beetle death, the wood is stained with blue-grey stripes that I think are gorgeous and Marc turned a beautiful bowl for her out of some of the beetle wood.  She's a huge Harry Potter fan. So I made her a little golden snitch necklace to add to the gift.

Instead of matching pjs this year, I made the kids giant sleep sacks that looked like ocean creatures. I used super soft, minky fabric so they are thin, but so so cuddly.  I'd seen mermaid and shark blankets sort of like these, but needed a third character, for J.  Without telling him what it was for he said his favorite sea animal was a squid!  I was so excited to make a squid!! S wants to modify her mermaid tail to be a sea serpent. AJ is perfectly happy with his shark.

They were a big hit, but I was sewing on them right up to the second before they were opened on Christmas Eve. Yes, I am usually a procrastinator, but this time it was multiplied by the fact that we ended up with two very unneeded “snow days” where the kids were out of school and nosing around the house in the week before Christmas, and unfortunately I had planned to use those same 2 days as my “sew days” on the blankets.  Here they are without their cute owners so you can see them without distraction.

...and a few close-up details!  The squid eyes and suction cups are fleece, and the mermaid scales have little sequins and pearls sew to them.

All five of us got Star Wars t-shirts, only apparently the fashion gods must not think that plus size women would have a flattering Star Wars t-shirt on their Christmas wishlist because I tried on about 50 horribly fitting before I gave up and made my own iron on and put it on a decent shirt by myself.  No you can't see much of it, but it has a young, handsome Han Solo & Chewbacca.

 and we always get a goofy pic too.

oh.  See that icicle hanging from J's nose?  We made those too.  I hot glued some paper clips to chopsticks.  When they cooled I added a bunch more hot glue around the top to build up an icicle shape and let them cool upside down to help them keep the top heavy taper.  Then the kids painted them white and glued glitter on them.  We made them with AJ's school class too.

After Christmas I've been enjoying myself immensely (possibly enhanced by the industrial strength adhesive fumes) with a couple of Christmas projects for the future.  I got a bunch of cool-shaped, shatter-proof ornaments on the after-Christmas deals.  They were cool, but you know I can never leave good enough alone. I let the kids help a little bit, but this project was mostly glitter, paint, sequins, gems, E600, me and a good audio book. (FYI: the book was Cinder by Marissa Meyer ~ fun sci-fi version of Cinderella.  The next project took me through the next three books in that series ~ The Lunar Chronicles.)

This last project has been on my to-do list for a LONG time.  I love to design my own Christmas cards.  I've kept a copy of all but one since 1993...dang!!! how is that possible?!?! I can't be that old can I?  Anywho, once the kids came along I saved a copy for each of them too, with the plan to give each kid a collection of Christmas cards when they leave home and begin their own homes.  All the cards have been tucked away in a rumpled, bulging, manila envelop, but not anymore!!!  I found some binders that are for half sheets of paper and thought they'd be just right.  I covered the binders with pretty paper and lined them with velvet and the kids declared them "very Christmasy". 

 I used various gold washi tapes and card stock to make tabs attached to the envelopes, that could be hole-punches and put, custom return address labels and all, in the binders.  

You can take each card out and admire.

I decided to add copies of each kids' birth announcement and baptism announcement and I imagine their high school graduation announcements will go in there too.  Technically these announcements aren't Christmasy, but I did design them,  and they fit in with the whole lovely-memento-from-your-childhood gift concept.

and clever, clever me...I pre-cut enough tabs and tape to add the next decade or so of cards as they get created.