Handmade Holidays 2013

I ended up not doing a whole lot of Christmas sewing this year (I had big plans, but didn't get to most of them), but there was a fair amount of knitting.  I just mailed out the last thing this week *sigh*, so I'm finally blogging about the gifts as well.

I made O's teacher some boot toppers and also gave her some coffee and coconut oil exfoliating scrub that apparently never got photographed.  It was brown and in cute jar, so just imagine that.  I was quite pleased with the boot toppers.  (Ravelry notes)  Someday I'd like to make myself a pair.  I looked on Ravelry a couple of days ago, and the last time I knitted myself anything was 2009!  I still wear that hat too.

E's teacher and para also got the scrub, along with some slippers.  I made her teacher Bea's Slippers (Ravelry notes) and loooooved how they turned out.  They took a lot longer to knit than I was expecting, though, so I had to find a quicker option for her para.

I ended up knitting double-stranded slippers for hers, and they were super quick and quite squishy.  (Ravelry notes)  She told me after the break that her kids kept swiping them from her.  Haha.

I also wanted to give a little some thing to the secretary at E's school, since I end up bugging her to sign in and out nearly every day at drop-off and pick-up time.  She had a bio up in the entrance at the beginning of the year that said she sewed, so I had that in the back of my head and decided to make her a jar pincushion and fill it with a few chocolates.  Honestly, she had one of the best reactions to a gift that I've given in a long time.  It made my day to see how happy she was that I had read her bio and remembered that she sews.

Here's my only actual sewn project!  Ray asked for a phone cozy for when he runs in the cold.  I took this tutorial and simplified it, since I knew he couldn't care less about the piecing.

O wanted to make E a blanket and decided a tie blanket would be the way to go.  He was right, she loves the fringe. He chose the fabric, I did the cutting and Ray and I both helped him tie it, but he did a significant part of it.

It looks like E's staring down that raccoon.

Back to knitting (I have no rhyme or reason to this post, I guess), my SIL requested an earflap hat for her younger son, so I made him this one.  (Ravelry notes)  This was my most shamefully late gift of this holiday season.  Winter doesn't seem to be ending anytime soon, though, so he will have plenty of opportunity to wear it still.  Hopefully it fits!

And last, but not least, the kids' annual Christmas ornaments.  (You can see 2011's here and 2012's here.)  O has been very into watching the Peanuts holiday specials, so I was inspired by this ornament on Etsy and made him Charlie Brown.  I wanted to use a glass ball like the original, but couldn't find any when I finally went shopping (I think Hobby Lobby has them, but it was a Sunday, so they were closed).  I settled for a paper mache one instead, so Charlie Brown is a little bumpier than I would have liked, but O didn't seem to care.

E's ornament was again based on her Halloween costume (as well as her on-going love of our cat).  It ended up being a huge pain to knit and then sew up this fun fur yarn, but I do like how it turned out.  (Ravelry notes)  I used scrapbooking stickers to put her name (blurred out, obviously) and the year on the ornament the cat is holding.  Stickers are the way to go.  Much less stressful than trying to paint the name and year with a shaky hand like I did on O's!

 

And that's it!  I felt really busy, but I guess I didn't really accomplish much.  Now I'm on to working on birthday gifts, since we have several in our family in February.  Winter KCW was this week, but I didn't even make an attempt this round.  I have been enjoying looking at what other people have been making, though! Have you been sewing along?

Handmade Holidays: Ornaments

For the first time ever, I actually accomplished my goal of making at least one handmade gift for every person on my list!  We just won't talk about when I finished up my list.... Well, in all honestly, I still have one thing to make.  I gave my oldest nephew an IOU as part of his so I could consult with him a bit, but for all intents and purposes, I'm calling it a win.  Next year, though, I need to start much earlier!  (Every year I say, "Next year I'm going to ____!)

I'm continuing the tradition of making an ornament for each of the kids with something that was representative of their year.  E's was once again based on her Halloween costume. I used this tutorial to make her a Raggedy Ann ornament using the yarn from her wig and fabric from her costume dress.  I think my clothespin base must have been thinner than the original, because I had to change the proportions of several things, especially the arm length, which I shortened considerably.  I also sewed a tube for the sleeves instead of wrapping the pipe cleaner, in order to have finished edges.  Instead of the gingerbread button, I cut a heart out of felt and embroidered her name (blurred out in the pic) and the year on it.  It was a putzy project, and I think I may have glued the head on a bit crooked, but the finished product is pretty cute.

O is very into all things Egyptian, thanks to Rick Riordan's The Kane Chronicles, so I decided to go with that theme.  I made his from Fimo clay "engraved" with hieroglyphs from a generator that I found online but forgot to bookmark (this was late Christmas Eve, of course) and painted with a few coats of metallic acrylic paint.  His name and the year are written on the back with Sharpie.

I also made a golden snitch ornament for my oldest niece, a fellow Harry Potter geek.  I got the idea from this one on Etsy, which has much cooler wings.  It took me forever to find paired wing charms, but I did finally find some at Michael's.  The wings don't like to stay in place, but it is still pretty funny.

Handmade Holidays: This Year's Teacher Gifts

I'm always looking for teacher gift ideas, so I'm posting this even though:

A) it's probably too late to be helpful to anyone for this Christmas
B) there's very little crafting involved
C) it isn't overly original

We talked over a few different ideas and decided to go with a "movie night" gift basket, containing three classic movie theater candies, regular popcorn and kettle corn, a Redbox gift certificate, and two kinds of hot chocolate mix.  I'm not sure what hot chocolate has to do with movies (Do theaters sell it?  I'll pretend they do even if they don't.), but I wanted to include something homemade. They're tweaked versions of this salted caramel hot chocolate and this peppermint hot chocolate recipe.  I would recommend them both -- much tastier than other mixes I've made -- plus they have cute printable labels.

I wasn't sure what I was going to package them in, but then I saw these plastic popcorn tubs at Target as I was walking to the checkout.  Perfect.

We gave these to E's teacher and paraprofessional, and O will be giving his to his teacher tomorrow along with a card he made her.  We also gave a set of the hot chocolate mixes to each of  E's therapists.

I was looking for a fun little token gift for E's four classmates too.  When I saw these cute glittery red wooden letters on clearance at Michael's for 29 cents, I picked up one for each kid.  A little ribbon and some hot glue and we had an inexpensive personalized ornament for her to give her friends.

Have you seen or given any unique teacher gifts lately? 

More Ornaments

The only gifts for my kids that I made this Christmas were felt ornaments. E. got her own owl ornament.  O. asked for one too, but I told him I'd seen something else he'd like even better.  I was right; he was thrilled.  I mean, really, what says Christmas joy like Darth Vader??

I also embroidered their names and the year on the backs.

O. had a playdate with one of his buddies a few days after Christmas and wanted to make him a gift also, so we made another book ornament.  This time, the book of choice was the Harry Potter Lego book, which was O's "something to read" this year (We do the "something you want, something you need, something to wear, something to read" thing, plus a gift from Santa and stockings).  His friend had brought it to school earlier, so we knew he was a fan as well.

Continuing with the Harry Potter theme, which seems to be a constant in our house, I made the older of my nieces a Weasley sweater ornament.  Not just a Weasley sweater, though, but one for Draco!  I'd asked my brother which character he thought she'd choose, and that was what he said.  O. was befuddled.  Ha.  She later told me that it was probably more Tom Felton that she liked than Draco.  ;)

I had the pattern from Charmed Knits, but was looking for something in the round, so when I found someone's top-down raglan modifications on Ravelry, I was sold.  Done and done.  I can see many more of these in my future.  

Teacher Gifts: Part II

Earlier this month, I had the following conversation with O.

Me: What does your teacher like? We need to think of a Christmas present.
O: I don't know.
Me: Anything? Favorite animal, food, color? Last year you said your teacher liked dragonflies and tacos.
O: I think she likes teaching.
O: And kids.
O: And probably her mom.

He's a helpful kid.  I asked again several times and got about the same response. So... generic teacher gift it was. He was adamant that he wanted something "teacher-y", but had no suggestions about what that might actually be, so I suggested a book ornament like this. I asked if there was a book they'd read in class that he'd really enjoyed, and he said Snowflake Bentley. I printed the cover image on this June Tailor printable fabric, which I'd never used before.  I was really happy with the picture quality, although I didn't rinse and iron it to make it colorfast, assuming an ornament wasn't too likely to get wet.

O. chose to use some sparkly red felt for the cover, and asked that we make the pages from paper (cardstock) instead of felt so he could draw on them and could write the "to" and "from" inside. 

Mr. Bentley with his camera

For the second part of the gift, O. looked through my gift ideas board on Pinterest.  He picked this orange peppermint scrub.  It smelled really good, but probably could've used a bit more peppermint.

He finished it off by stamping on a brown paper lunch sack and adding a ribbon bow and tag.

Teacher Gifts: Part I

E. is in an early childhood class four mornings a week. There's the teacher, a paraprofessional, and three therapists that come in to work with her. They're all fantastic with her. We're grateful she's in such a great program.

Last month I started brewing some vanilla extract to give as gifts (I start using mine much sooner than she does). I found some cute food-safe bottles at Hobby Lobby, added some new beans and bottled up the extract.

It's probably a good idea to check your tag size before printing, so they're not bigger than the bottles.  Ha!

I wanted to make something extra-special for her teacher and para, in addition to some other purchased edibles that I stuck in their bags. I've had this pattern printed off for *two* years, and figured with E's owl theme this year, now was the time. I finally sucked it up and ordered some wool felt, and wow, it is amazing. So much better than the sheets of poly felt.

As I've mentioned about a billion times before, I don't really do hand sewing, so I vastly underestimated how long they would take.  That quickly reminded me of just why I avoid hand sewing.  They're so cute, though, that I'm glad I made them.  I have one more on my to-sew list for E. herself.

One minor drawback of finishing projects at night is terrible lighting. And stress. The latter is a given at this time of year, though, since I will apparently never learn my lesson.

Handmade Holidays 2010

One of these years, I hope to not be frantically sewing on Christmas Eve day.  2010 was not that year.  There's hope for 2011, I guess...


The first things finished were these reversible tote bags for a friend's sister-in-law's toddler. I had planned to use a lightweight iron-on interfacing, but was out and it was blizzarding that day, so I used the sew-in heavyweight I had on hand. I really like how sturdy they turned out.

A friend got married the week before Christmas (coincidentally, she's also related to the purse orderer), so I made a gift bag and tied on this cute ornament that I thought was fitting for a December wedding.  I usually make gift bags with a drawstring, but tacked the ribbon on the back of this one.  I like how it turned out, and will use that method for younger kids from now on, since it's easier for them to open.

If you're following the time-line here, it's now a week before Christmas, and I haven't yet made a thing for my own kids.  But there are therapist and teacher gifts to make first.... E. has a team of three therapists and an early childhood teacher who each come to our house twice a month. They used to come weekly, so they're a big part of our lives.  I made them granola, using a tweaked version of this recipe.  I found printable labels and then made gift bags.

Next up was O's teacher. I asked him if he had any ideas, and he said she likes dragonflies and tacos.  Helpful.  We spent some time looking at beaded dragonfly tutes to make an ornament and settled on this one.  I changed some things to use beads from my stash and added beads to the wings to make them stand out more on the tree.  I also made some note cards and a chocolate cobbler mix from printables here and added a gift tag from here.  Hooray for blogs!

The cards have her first initial on them, which is hidden a bit by the ribbon.

O. had originally picked out the following fabric for his teacher's bag, but I thought it might be inappropriate to give to a woman, so I strongly encouraged him to choose a more colorful print.  I don't know how I didn't notice it before -- maybe because I'd used it for kids before?  LOL  I thought my aunt would think it was funny, so I made a bag for her from it.

Isn't the spacing weird?  I think it would have less insult potential if the words were grouped together like "ho-ho-ho" or something!

O. needed Christmas jammies too.  The kids usually get them from St. Nick, but of course I hadn't made his by the 6th (E's still a blanket sleeper girl, so I bought hers), so he looked at the fabrics I had and chose "candy cane" jammies.  Both pieces are from Ottobre 06/09, the "Night Owl" top and "Stripy Legs" pants.  He's a 6 in RTW, and the 110 fit perfectly.  I sewed these on Christmas Eve day.  *sigh*

He swore he needed a candy cane hat to go with it, so I showed him this, and while it wasn't exactly what he wanted -- which was something that looked just like the top of a candy cane! -- he thought it would work.  The he refused to have anything to do with it, so I wore it on Christmas Day.

E's only handmade gift this year -- other than some of the playsilks from my last post -- was a fleece hoodie from this print I found at Hobby Lobby.  The poor girl takes after her mother, who is always cold.  This is a T3 from Kwik Sew Sewing for Toddlers (or KSFT) which has horribly dated photos, but is great for basics.  I added two inches to make it more of a tunic length. 

O. requested two things: a lion knight shield and a hat that looked like a police helmet.  One of the coolest things about being a sewing mama is that your kids think you can make anything, but it's a bit of a double-edged sword.  Hee.


The boy already has a dragon shield, but wanted a lion shield (a la LEGO Kingdoms) for battles.  I used the same basic pattern as the other one, from Ottobre 04/04, but changed the shape and used an applique pattern from McCall 5500.  I had planned to make it color-blocked like the LEGO one, but I didn't have any white pleather, just red, and since I was, of course, doing this pretty much at the last minute, I didn't want to run to the store for some.  He seems okay with the lack of authenticity.  ;)

The police helmet was a little tricky.  He suggested that I make it like E's fleece hat, from the Rainshed Convertible Bomber Hat pattern, but I wasn't sure how to get the word on it and have it look nice.  I'd had my fill of applique from the lion.  My next thought was to try the freezer paper stencil technique, but was afraid that ironing it on would melt the fleece, so I decided to try using printable sticker paper.  It worked pretty well.  The edges aren't as clean and crisp as I'd like, but it looks pretty good from a distance.

The lettering really is straight and even, it's just not flat in the photo.

In retrospect, there weren't even that many projects -- although I sewed up several gift bags that aren't pictured and there were cookies to bake, etc. -- but considering most of them were crammed into one week, it was pretty hectic.  Next year's my year!  Yeah, right.  Check back and I'm sure I'll be saying, "2012 is my year.  I mean it this time!"