Handmade Christmas 2011

What with everything else that was going on, I was quite late with planning out and getting started on Christmas gifts.

Let's start with little people, shall we?

For my nephews, ages 2 and 8 months, I appliqued matching shirts for them (and neglected to take a picture, so perhaps their mama will help me out.) It was pretty standard - iron Wonder Under on the back of fabric, cut out the design, peel the paper and iron onto the shirt, embroider around to help it stay on. In the interest of full disclosure, I tried machine stitching it on like I usually do but kept getting huge snarls with my thread and I punted!

For my older nephew, I made a train/road/farm play mat. I used various ideas including this farm play mat from The Crafty Cupboard, and this DIY Car Mat Backpack from I Can Teach My Child (though I didn't go with a backpack).
















Though I used a large piece of tan felt (from a bolt) for the main backing, the rest of the mat is made from fleece, bias tape, and thread. I find fleece to be more washable than felt, and I am not a fan of the felt squares that are so readily available as they seem to pill and fall apart rather quickly. Anyway, I drew out a basic sketch of what I wanted. Right now, O is a huge fan of trains, but I suspect at some point he may branch out into cars and tractors, too. The first thing I put down was the train tracks, which are made of bias tape stitched down. Next, I cut pieces of felt for the road. I made it (and the tracks) rather wide to accommodate big-ish trains and cars for now, and possibly matchbox cars and the like in the future. I sewed down the middle of the road with black thread to help it stay in place better, then went back and made the center lines by zig-zagging with bright yellow thread.

The farm was super fun to put together, if I do say so myself. The yellowish patch is a field. I took strips of felt and sewed them down the middle, then snipped down the long sides. Yup, I should have taken a closer picture so it makes sense, but I used the haystack in the above farm play mat as inspiration so check that out. The barn is red fleece with white bias tape stitched on for doors, and the fenced pen area is just zig-zagged white thread. The house, tree, and dog house are all fleece. I didn't have a good shade of blue fleece for the pond, so I used a thrifted sweatshirt and hacked a piece out of the arm. All fleece shapes were sewn around the edge with more or less coordinating thread.

I then took a piece of Thomas fabric (much beloved by O - in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he just used that side to drive his trains on for a while) and added a pocket for trains and cars and whatnot and a fleece O. By the way, it matched the green on the fabric much better before I cut it out and attached it... All along, I intended to add handles so it would fold up and carry a bit easier, so I made sure everything lined up properly. I totally winged the pocket - it's a rectangle of Thomas fabric with elastic at the top and a button and loop closure.

To attach it to the mat, I pinned the handles in place, stitched it to the felt then pinked off the extra Thomas fabric. I ended up getting a serger from hubs (squeeee!) for Christmas and I'd have used that to finish the edges (I think - I haven't learned enough about it yet) if I'd have had it. Except I don't know how that would have worked with the handles...

I went a bit more low key this year for my nieces. The oldest (12) got a case for her phone, of which I didn't take a picture, sigh. There are a bunch of patterns for cell phone cases at Tipnut, though I don't think I really used any of them; more just basic phone dimensions and winging it. (do you see a pattern here for my crafting?) I made a bag of appropriate size with a lining, and put some ribbon at the top. I attached a elastic pony tail holder on one end and a button on the case so it can go on her bag, backpack, or purse strap. I cut her initial out of fleece and stitched it on, then embroidered a peace symbol on the other side. Thankfully hubs pointed out that I forgot to finish it and it was just the Mercedes Benz symbol. (sigh)

The other three (8,7, and 4) got girly spa bags similar to those at Come Together Kids.

I purchased a set of canvas bags and used the above-mentioned Wonder Under method to put their names on, though this time I was able to machine stitch. Note to self, though - it would have worked MUCH better to have stitched the names to a piece of fabric and THEN stitched the fabric to the bag. I did finally figure out that I needed to pin the bottom strap out of the way and pay attention to where the top strap was... I only had to take stitches out once because of that!

I then used fabric in a favorite color (pink is shown - there was another pink and a blue as well) to make smaller bags. As I was making them, I thought how nice it would be to line them with flannel, so I did. And they are nice! One was filled with body stuff like lotion, body wash, lip balm, bath fizzies, a pouf, and an eye pillow. For the eye pillow, I just made a little rectangular bag and filled it with rice then sprayed it with some lavender spray that my sister in law bought me last year.

The nail bags were a trip to put together. I started by making the mat, though I did it a bit differently than the other site. I didn't have any oilcloth (at least I think that's what she described) but I *did* have clear vinyl. I didn't want to be looking at the wrong side of the fabric, nor did I have enough fabric to have two pieces that size.

Enter the thrifted fabric - again. I had several panels that may have been intended for quilting or embroidery or... something, so I used those. I put the fabric wrong sides together and the vinyl on top, and pinned it all together. I then trimmed everything so it was the same size and ran bias tape around the edges and pinned the heck out of that. I stitched the bias tape down then flipped it over and stitched again to make sure that I didn't have any loose edges. It was a pretty long process, but I was pleased with how they turned out. Because of the size of the panels, my mats turned out to be about 19x23".

Also in the bag, I included two or three bottles of nail polish , a bottle of nail polish remover, and a package of cotton rounds. Oh, I guess I didn't mention - the little bags were drawstring, and I didn't want the ribbon to get pulled through so I either stitched buttons on the end or put beads on the ends and tied knots to keep them from sliding off. (Yep, the whole entire process really was that much work.)

Ooh, I almost forgot, I made a hair stuff bag for each girl. I bought some pretty clips and pony tail holders, I made some more tulle pom pom pony tail holders, and I also made some headbands.

Come to find out, my nieces have pretty much collectively chopped their hair off and pony tail holders are on their way out. Oops. So I was glad to have the headbands. I bought a three pack of wide black headbands - one I left plain and hot glued some pretty beads on it. Another I covered with white ribbon (which was a process, whew) and then I strung some flower beads together and glued them on the white. I covered the final headband with blue ribbon, glued a flower on it, and glued a gem in the middle. I've seen them on a head several times already, so I'm overall pretty pleased.

I also freezer paper stenciled some shirts for Goose and her papa. I am quite enamored with this technique because it's pretty easy - and it'll be even easier now that I have a Silhouette craft cutting machine! (another squeee!! Christmas present! It wasn't looking like Hubs was going to come up with a gift for me, so I ordered myself one on ebay using some paypal money I had built up.)

It's a bit hard to see the detail on Goosie's shirt - it's a girly font plus I stitched a little pink bow on the C and used a button as a dot on the i. Papa indulged me by wearing his shirt and matching Goosie at our family dinner on Christmas Day.

My one last homemade gift was a button bracelet for one of my sisters-in-law. I got the idea from this button bracelet, but instead of attaching so many buttons to a chain bracelet, I used jump rings to attach buttons to each other. I put a jump ring through each hole and then attached those rings to each other with another ring. (Not nearly as complicated as it sounds, but no picture, sorry.)

And that pretty well sums it up for this year. Did you make anything fun? I'm thinking I'll link up to Skip To My Lou tomorrow, since it's been a while.

Family Memories Board Game

I mentioned waaaay back in December that I made a Family Memories game for Hubs' cousins Christmas gift swap. I got the idea from here, and THEY got the idea from Family Fun, who provided a convenient cheat sheet PDF here. Admittedly, assembling this took a fair amount of time, and I put myself in a pinch by not really starting it until a week before Christmas or so. (oops.)

If you want to do this for Christmas, I'd suggest getting started now - compiling family trivia for questions and looking for the parts. Since I'm a tightwad, nearly EVERY piece was thrifted, purchased on clearance, or pulled from my random stash. Let me show you what mine looked like:

First, instead of calling the game "Memory Lane", I went with [our last name]~ville. It's kind of a joke, because our extended family has lived more or less in the same area for a hundred plus years, and it's referred to as a "suburb" of our very small town. And it's called just that - [our last name]ville.

I didn't have a whole lot in the way of old pictures scanned, but thankfully I was able to get my hands on enough to cover the box. I used a few duplicates under the name area, where it didn't really matter.

For the game board, I used some of Family Fun's suggestions, and just did what worked for me otherwise. I used some pretty blue paper that I had several sheets of on hand, and if I remember correctly, I think I used mod podge to stick it down. I also measured my board and calculated how big the each space should be so they fit well, and the corners are bigger than the rest.

I really liked the "pick a card" since it meant asking family trivia questions, so I put on five of those. As an afterthought, the Start space seemed a little lonely, so I made that "pick a card" too. I wasn't crazy about the "swipe" spot, where you steal a treasure from an opponent, but I put three of them on there anyway. "Score" spots were just picking a treasure. (See treasures below, by the way.)

If a player lands on a picture space, they are to share a memory of that. There is one space for each of the four brothers and one sister (and their spouses) in my father-in-law's family, and one space for Hubs's grandparents. Other spaces include the school in our small town where all of hubs' uncles and aunt and Hubs and most of his cousins attended plus a space for the school in the nearby town where they graduated; livestock (a cow and a pig), the city name signs from the two nearby big towns, a space for dogs, cats, & chickens; a space for the nearby town where they all went to high school; a space for farming & harvest; a space for holidays; and a space for the church where most of the family was baptized and attended. (I know it's a lotta spaces. whew.)

I provided a notebook and pen to jot down any stories or details that came about as a result of playing the game. For the trivia cards, I used business cards (I think?) and printed them out, including several blank cards to fill out as new stories came to light.

Trivia questions included tidbits such as:

Who was born in a sod house?

How did Great-Grandpa lose his leg?

How many times was the {small town} Bank robbed?

In what year were (each aunt & uncle and grandma & grandpa) married?

What is the age gap between (oldest grandchild) and (youngest grandchild)?

Name at least four of Grandpa's horses.

Who was the first (last name) to graduate from (small town) high school? (a trick question - no one with our last name actually graduated from the school. Either they didn't graduate, graduated before they married into the family, or graduated from another school.)

Aaand finally, the treasurers. I chose an ear of corn (prosperity), a cross (faith), an apple (health), a bell (security), a heart (love & family), and a dove (hope). These items and their meanings were partially chosen based on the items I had on hand. :>) I happened to have some tins to hold the items, so I put labels on them. I let Goose paint the treasures for me, by the way.

I kind of tried uploading the directions to a Google doc, but then figured since they were rather short, it was just as easy to paste them in here. Just know that they were prettied up for the actual game!
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{NAME}~VILLE … a walk down Memory Lane

Object of the game: To be the first player to collect all six treasures and make it Home.

Setup: Each player chooses a game piece, and places it at Start. Shuffle the cards and place them face down on the board. Set the treasures off to the side. The oldest player goes first and play proceeds clockwise around the board.

How to play: Each player rolls the die on his or her turn and moves around the board. When you land on a space, follow the instructions.
Picture spaces – share a memory or fact about the people, location, etc. involved. For example, if you land on Grandma and Grandpa, you can either share a memory about one or both of them (it doesn’t even have to involve you), or a memory involving their house or yard.
Pick a card – take the top card from the pile and have another player read the question aloud. If you answer the question correctly, you may pick a treasure.
Score! – pick a treasure.
Swipe! – take a treasure from an opponent.
Start – if you land on Start during the game, pick a card. If you answer the question correctly, you may pick a treasure.

Once you have collected all six treasures, you can make your way towards turning up the path to Home. If someone swipes one of your treasures before you make it Home, you must go back down and continue around the board until your collection is again complete.

The first player to roll the exact number to land on Home wins the game. (Doesn’t everybody win with sharing all the memories, though?)

Blank cards are provided to add more trivia questions, and a notebook is also provided to record random details and memories. Players may also make notes directly on the trivia cards… especially if the answer is incorrect!

Game assembled by Lenetta [name] for the cousin gift swap, Christmas 2010. Treasures were painted by Goose, age 3. Many thanks to Grandma [name], [and other names], and others for helping compile trivia questions.
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Let me know if you have any questions in making your own! I'll be linking up at Skip to My Lou and Life as Mom.

Beauty Shop in a Box

Although this was a birthday gift for one of my nieces, I'm including it in Abbi's Handmade Christmas Roundup. Click through to see handmade gifts by others. And OK, this is more "homemade" than "handmade" but I put it together with my own two hands and that must count for something.


The idea came from Chasing Cheerios; I certainly can't take the credit for it. Instead of using a box, I found a hard-sided suitcase at our awesome thrift shop for fifty cents. I scrubbed it well on the outside, and tried to paint [Niece's name]'s Beauty Shop on it. The paint flaked off. So I scraped it all off and just used a sharpie.

There are two pockets on the top part of the suitcase, and in those are clips, combs, picks (no brushes - especially no round brushes! - as those are more likely to pull hair and/or get stuck), and a couple of small mirrors. There is one comb sitting below the pockets that has a small spray bottle built in - I figured they could either pretend or as their mom to put water in there.

In the main part of the suitcase, I have a set of hot rollers to which the pins are lost - they can use the clippies to hold them in more or less, a hair dryer, a hand mirror, curling irons in two sizes, and a straightening iron.

*** Please note that I cut the cords off the electrical appliances so that little ones wouldn't be tempted to plug them in, they won't get hot, and they also won't be in the way (or a tripping hazard, or heaven forbid, a strangulation hazard!).

I tried to find a crimping iron but didn't have any luck. Sadly I sent mine off to Goodwill several years ago. Regardless, this was a huge hit! My niece's party was in the party room of a pizza shop, and they actually had a little girl come over from the main part to join in the fun. Most everyone has has their hair styled and there have only been a few mishaps. Grandma and Grandpa (nope, he doesn't have much hair but it's been styled, too!) reported that the straightening iron really pulled, so they asked the girls not to use it on their hair.

This would be an awesome gift with Mess Free Play Makeup for sure! [Update - this makeup set has been sold; I'll get another listed later today, I hope. You can leave a comment if you're interested in a set and I'll let you know when I get it done.] Unless you are one of my sisters-in-law, you can see what I'm doing for handmade Christmas presents here. I'm also linking up to Frugal Fridays at Life As Mom.

Handmade Christmas 2010

Remember, just like last year, if you are one of my sisters-in-law, don't read any farther!

OK, for the rest of you, I'll share what I'm planning to make for Christmas presents. If you're doing handmade this year, I'd love to see what you're working on in the comments!

Last year, I picked up a bunch of Christmas fabric and ribbon on clearance in anticipation of making fabric bags to use for wrapping this year. I made several bags then realized how tedious it is and ended up wrapping most of the gifts in a piece of fabric not really unlike how I wrap with paper. The exception is that I didn't use tape, I just used ribbon and a bow (or bows...) to hold things together. I'm quite pleased with how they turned out, and surprised that I have quite a bit of fabric left over! I also would like to mention that I made tags from last year's Christmas cards. I cut out any pretty picture and even some of the wording, punched a hole in them, and added a reinforcement sticker just in case I want to use them next year, too.

Let's start with my nieces. The oldest is 11, and she isn't getting much in the way of handmade. Right now, she's into all things peace sign and her favorite color is green. I found some big signs at Hobby Lobby, one that says Peace and one that is a peace sign, that were in every color *except* green. So I bought a can of spray paint and painted them! She is also getting an electronic Phase 10 game that I picked up for a few bucks on an Amazon.com sale last year.

Next niece is 7. She'll be getting a Husker sweatshirt (thrifted, 'cause I'm like that and her mom is OK with it), a Geoboard (No Time For Flash Cards), and a tiny fairy doll, including the "fairy catcher necklace" as seen here (both Treasures for Tots).




Niece #3 is 6. She'll also get a geoboard, tiny fairy doll (maybe something like the fairy house that is linked from the doll post above), and velcro catch ball. (Craftzine)



My fourth niece is 3. She'll be getting some lacing beads, a preschool sewing kit (The Adventures of Bear) or like this one at Frugal Family Fun Blog, and a toss & catch toy. (Chasing Cheerios). Her birthday just passed, and one of her gifts for that was a beauty shop in a box (see mine at that link). (Chasing Cheerios - see the one that inspired me at this link.)

We usually give my brother and sister-in-law meat from our cattle. My brother will also be getting some lego cards (Filth Wizardry) which will be used by my nieces with his enormous set of legos that still reside at our parents' house. I also made him some poppers out of a pool noodle (clearanced!). We had something similar when we were kids, and I got a kick out of making them. I also made a simple drawstring bag to store them in. There are 88 poppers, which means each of my nieces will have to pick up 22 after the mayhem is over...

All mothers and sisters-in-law will be getting homemade vanilla (Heavenly Homemakers), though I am making mine a bit differently. I read in the comments that bourbon makes a better vanilla than vodka, so I bought that instead. It is more expensive, and I haven't ran the numbers yet but I think it's still cheaper than buying vanilla at the store. I got a late start on the vanilla, but I think things are going to work out fine - I ended up with more beans than I needed, plus the bottle I am using doesn't hold quite a gallon. I'm hoping that by using extra beans and less booze, it'll be extra strong and will cancel out the shortened brew time. Plus, since it won't be "steeping" for as long, I plan to add more bourbon and let it keep on keeping on.

We got family pictures taken as Hubs's parents' gift.

Hubs' two sisters will get vanilla, of course. One is getting an initial kind of like this one from Flamingo Toes for one of them, perhaps stealing an idea from the fabric wrapped initial at goody-goody. Luckily, said sister-in-law painted her room based on something I made her and I have leftover supplies from it, so that helps! I found most of the letters of the other SIL's last name in the clearance section at Hobby Lobby. I'll paint them and fashion the missing letter similarly enough to pass muster. (Update, I broke my craft knife blade, but I turned a g into an s!)

I attempted to recreate something like this necklace from Catherines. As usual, my theory is great but my process is not so much. My flowers are not looking like flowers... Instead, I'm looking at something like this fabric bead necklace from froo*gal.

It floors me that my nephew is a year and a half old. Where does time go?? He will be getting a couple of toys that I got during a huge Amazon sale, a button snake (Counting Coconuts) and a tie rattlesnake (Skip to My Lou).


Last but not least, Goose is actually getting more store-bought presents than homemade ones. I found some Lincoln Logs (well, Frontier Logs, but same thing) on clearance, a pair of kitty slippers from Target's dollar aisle, a thrifted Snow White dress up dress, a thrifted book about kitties (it's in brand new condition, though), and a toss & catch toy like her cousin above. Though I have ideas to make her a fabric "book" of sorts with different scenes for her Care Bears, along with some elastic loops to store said Care Bears. We'll see how that turns out.

I don't have much for Hubs yet, though we have discussed pooling our resources and getting an elliptical as our gift to each other. Thanks to hubs's genius, we'll be getting some college hockey tickets for our brother-in-law, and he's getting a set of poppers as seen above as well. Men are much more difficult to stitch for! (My parents get meat from our cattle, too, by the way.) As I said above, I'd love to know what you're doing if you're making Christmas presents - let me know in the comments. You can see what I made for Christmas last year at this post.

For tons of frugal ideas, visit Life As Mom, where Jessica is also talking about gifts!

Keeping My Cool

Hubs will be the first to tell you that I'm a big weenie when it comes to heat. I honestly think there's a little glitch in my system somewhere that makes me that way, but I guess I won't know for sure until I get a chance to ask the Big Guy that made me, and once I get to that point, I'm not sure I'll care anyway.

But I digress.

This summer, Goose has wanted to spend more time outside than at any other time in her little life. I am just starting to wrap my mind around the fact that means tons of bug spray and baths, let alone the HEAT. (Feel free to leave a comment with your favorite bug repelling methods, by the way - I'm still looking for one that works besides greasy DEET.)

Today, I whipped up some neck coolers and sponge balls. I looked at a few tutorials for neck coolers (including Salihan Crafts, Heather Lessiter, and Aquadiamonds) but they're all more or less the same: make a long, skinny tube of fabric, stitch across the width of it several inches in on one end, add the crystals, stitch several inches in on the other end, fold in your edges and sew. You soak the cooler in water to activate the crystals, tie it around your neck, and do your thing.

[Edited to add: I made four more for my nieces, and I loosely followed the Aquadiamonds pattern which instructs you to sew several inches in (which makes your tie on one end), add 1/4 teaspoon or so of crystals, sew a few inches up to make a pocket or channel for those crystals, add more crystals, stitch across again, etc. I didn't follow the measurements in the instructions; rather I put pins to mark where I wanted the ties to end/cooler to begin on each end, then I pinned to mark the middle, then I pinned to mark the quarter-way points. So, I ended up with four pockets for the crystals.

Since one of the coolers was for my two-year-old niece, I made hers shorter than the others. I didn't change the amount of crystals I used (1/4 teaspoon per pocket or channel) and hers got pretty tight after soaking the same amount of time as the others that were larger. I plan to re-do mine and Goose's to add the pockets, and I will decrease the amount of crystals in hers.

Also, I discovered that after two days of soaking (in a bowl - not in a cooler!), the crystals that started out smaller than the "bead" on the non-business end of my sewing pins became a bit bigger than a marble. So these things really expand - be aware.]

I made one for me and a smaller one for Goose. Here they are before and after soaking:

(Should you happen to click on the above pic to make it larger, you'll notice that the fabric has kitties on it. :>))


Yup, that's my cluttered countertop, in all its glory. I didn't bother to measure the crystals and I wish that I would have... I was trying to get that part of the project done before the 3 year old got interested in what I was doing. Her smaller cooler could probably have used more crystals, I think.

My biggest obstacle in getting these made was finding the polymer crystals. I didn't want to buy them online and have to wait for them to arrive, but I couldn't get them locally via Wal-Mart or the regional garden store chain. This morning, in a burst of creative genius, I stopped at the local flower shop - success! I ended up with about 2/3 of a cup, which is way, way more than I need, and paid $5, which I thought was too much. But it was the best I could do, and it worked!

The other thing I made was Sponge Balls. I stopped at the dollar store after hitting the flower shop and picked up two bags of sponges for $1 each. Turns out they were miscellaneous and random rejects in varying sizes, shapes and types. I just cut them into strips and went with it, though. The results are kinda cute, I thought:

I'm really looking forward to smacking my brother in the back of the head with these--- I mean, tossing them around with Goose and my nieces.

If there's a Frugal Friday this week, I'll be submitting this post, so if you want more frugal tips, check out Life As Mom.

Date Night In - Guest Post

I am so excited about today's post! As noted below, Christy is on a break from blogging, and I've missed hearing about her projects. I asked her if she'd like to share them over here, and here's the first one. I seriously think Christy has done more things on my crafty to-do list than I have. This project would be perfect for Father's Day, I think - enjoy!
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Hi! I am Christy from the Zimms Zoo. Lenetta has very kindly allowed me to guest post over here once in awhile because I am not currently blogging regularly at mine (life kinda got in the way). I am very excited to do this. Lenetta always has some great info on eating healthy, cleaning naturally and my personal favorite (the reason I stumbled upon her blog) links to fabulous handmade projects.

With Father's Day coming up, I thought that I would share with you a project that I just made for my husband: a date calendar.

A friend of mine said she had seen a calendar that you could buy that had pre-planned dates on it. However after she started looking at them, the dates were very expensive. I don't know about you, but with 6 kids and a great-grandma living with us, I don't have a lot of extra time or resources for those kind of dates. This got the wheels in my head turning. Why couldn't I make something like this, but with cheaper or free dates?

I started searching the internet to see what I could come up with. The first place I landed was Love, Actually. She has fantastic ideas on dates at home and dates out. I browsed the website, but still some of them required a babysitter. This isn't always easy for us. Then my friend suggested Dating Divas. Another wonderful site full of date ideas. Between these 2 I was able to get several good ideas that I could modify to use.

But then I hit the jack-pot with Project 52! Hosted by Simply Modern Mom, it is a commitment to date your husband at least once a week; most of these dates should be at home, and without the kids (meaning after their bedtime for us). I think the angels were singing when I found this one. It was exactly what I was looking for! Cheap or free, could work with our crazy schedule, and lots of inspiration. What was not to like? She even had a weekly linky party with other people's ideas right there for me to see.

That did it! I was going to make this calendar with pre-planned date nights and themes and have it professionally printed (I know I said I was cheap, but I wanted it to look really nice) so that he could hang it in his office and be reminded of when the date nights were coming. Just a little sidenote: Be sure and see how long it takes to get it printed. I used Sam's, which is like Costco for some of you, and I thought it was printed in-house. Wrong! His birthday was yesterday and it won't be arriving for another 2 weeks. Bummer!

I also made a Date Night Idea tin, with simple ideas that we could do if we found some un-expected time. After browsing all those ideas, I started coming up with some on my own. I tried to put at least 12 more in there so we could do at least another one a month. But I know I will be adding to this as the year goes on and things pop into my mind.

Here are some pre-planned date night ideas that I came up with and some that I borrowed (and modified) to get you going:

1. Fondue night- different fondue dips and things to dip in them.
2. Drive-in movie night- taking the laptop outside and setting up our canopy to use as a stall.
3. Light drawing- you need to check out the post to see all the details
4. Bookstore date- does involve leaving the house. Just hanging out at the bookstore, browsing books, and having something from the cafe.

Date Night idea can:
1. Scrabble and strawberries (chocolate-dipped!)
2. Would you rather....- This came from Simply Modern Mom.
3. Who can make the best story or sentence out of magnetic words. Someone gave us a HUGE set of magnetic words for the kids. Give each of us a handful, set the timer, and see who wins.
4. Chopped- This as an idea I saw on Project 52, based on the TV show. Looks like fun!
5. Massages~Need I say more?
6. Photo Booth- Gather a handful of props and snap away! I found this link for mustaches that I thought looked like fun too.

I hope this inspires you to start dating your husband again. Don't let the busy-ness of life crowd in and make you forget why you married him in the first place. Our husbands have a very stressful responsibility of providing for the family and we have the stressful job (which is also a privilege) of raising that family. So take some time and laugh together!
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Christy, thank you SO MUCH for this post and all these ideas! (I haven't seen the show Chopped but after reading that post, I want to!) What a fabulous way to keep some fun in your relationship - I love it!

Anybody else have any good ideas for Father's Day, or seen anything you'd like to do? Between you and me and the fencepost, Hubs already got most of his gift - a chimney starter for the charcoal grill he got for Christmas. I gave it to him early so he could get to using it. I also have a little bug catching kit and butterfly net squirreled away that I bought on clearance last year... it's more for Goose, but since bugs aren't my favorite thing, he'll be the one searching with her, I think.

Thanks again, Christy - can't wait to have you back!

This post will be submitted to Frugal Fridays at Life As Mom, and also to Amy's Finer Things, because really, what is finer than dating the man you love?!?

Birthday Crafting

[Please see my post for the Spring Cleaning Carnival on Getting the Food Additives Out! for a giveaway with a chance to win one of two copies of the Feingold Association of America's "What are all these funny things in food...and should I eat them?"]

April is a big month of birthdays in my family. My mom, two of my nieces, and me! I had a couple of things tucked in the gift closet for the girls, but I wanted to add in something homemade. The girls turned 11 and 7, so they're getting to ages where they like what they like and their auntie doesn't hardly know what whippersnappers are liking these days.

For the 11-year-old, she loves the color green and peace signs. Although "Lenetta at 11" is a bit hazy, I seem to remember being a bit broody, hanging out a lot in my room listening to music, and contemplating the world and how I was going to make it better. (Or something... like I said, it's hazy.)

To help her set the mood for her musical brooding, I wanted to come up with some lighting. And, within the next couple of months, they'll be moving into a new house and she'll have her own room! I was inspired by Ruffles and Stuff's Pom-Pom Lamp, but in my typical fashion, I did not plan ahead. :>) Our dollar store doesn't carry the plate covers, but after poking around, I found a four-pack of paper plate holders for $1.50 in green.

The only short strands of Christmas lights that I had on hand were multi-colored lights. Thank goodness for my mom! She brought me a few strands from her stash, and I ended up using a strand of 50 lights in each, leaving a "tail" from the bottom set to plug in.

I set two plate holders "face up" (like you would normally use for a plate) and tried to evenly distribute each string of lights within the holders. I then put another holder "face down" on top, which created a pocket between the two for the lights. There were three holes in each holder where the plate tucked in, and I threaded ribbon through those and tied it in bows to hold everything together. I threaded a ribbon through the top as a hanging loop, and another to hold the two lights together.

Since the plate holders weren't solid like the plate covers in the original project, the lights poked out and it would have been more difficult to glue on the tulle. Instead, I just stitched around the holders with embroidery floss using a running stitch then I trimmed the tulle. I included the light bulb that makes the strand blink so my niece can use it if she wishes. I didn't like it myself because it made the whole strand blink off then blink back on, rather than twinkling. (And we didn't think to try it until after I stitched it all shut anyway...)


For my seven-year-old niece, I made a fishing game with a math twist. I combined two fishing games for this, one from Shiso Mama and the other from Counting Coconuts.

I used fabric instead of felt because I had it on hand. I ended up purchasing two sets of buttons for some variety, one set of kitty buttons (she loves Nappies, too!) and a set of flower buttons, which were about $2.30 each. I used all white buttons for the eyes and perhaps I should have gone more colorful...but simple seemed like a good idea at the time.

To make my patterns, I used fish clip art. The yellow fish is actually a whale because I discovered my fish weren't really big enough for the buttons. I was a bit torn as to whether to stitch them right sides together and turn them or to stitch wrong sides together. With all the buttons and embellishments, I didn't think it would work to turn them, so I zigzagged around the fish, leaving the tail open, then used pinking shears to trim around the fish. I stuffed them with poly-fill, zigzagged the tail shut, and pinked the tail.

Some of the fabrics were sheer and/or prone to fraying. I used a total of four layers on the sheer ones so they weren't so see-through. I used fray check on the cut edges of the fabrics that wanted to fray to keep them intact. To make the fish "catchable" I stitched washers about where their mouths would be, then applied fray check to keep the washers from tearing out.

My sweet dad made the fishing poles using dowels. He put duct tape on the handles, and drilled holes in the ends, threading string through for the fishing line. I had planned to tape magnets to the line, but he was able to drill holes in the magnets, so I tied them on. (We tested the magnets with the washers and found that three magnets was enough to really grab a fish, and even two fish at a time, but three at a time was a challenge.)

For the bag, I considered trying to make the sides velcro or snap or button so it would open all the way up to be a good-sized "puddle" for the fish. That quickly got too complicated. I just stitched up the sides, and the top ended up being the selvage ends, so I just folded them down and stitched to make a channel for the drawstring, which is a rainbow ribbon.

To set up the math game, I penciled out a template and then made a similar-sized table in Microsoft Word. I then penciled out all the different problems that I wanted to use. I checked with my mom to see what kind of math she was working on, which is single digit addition and subtraction. I didn't double any up (i.e. 2+3 and 3+2), so that cut down on the number of cards I had to make. In the template I made, the math problem was on the front and then you unfolded the card to find the answer inside.

For double digit answers such as 9+9=18, we thought she could either pick up the 1 and the 8, or the 10 and the 8. As an added bonus, we thought she could also start teaching her two-year-old sister numbers. We put the cards in a box, and everything went inside the bag.

I was blessed to get a phone call tonight from the girls squealing over their gifts, so I think they liked them! This post is going to be linked up to Made By You Mondays at Skip to My Lou, Thursday's Treasures at Treasurers for Tots, and Frugal Fridays at Life as Mom.

The Latest Baby Shower Gift

One of the blessings of having a big extended family is lots of opportunities to celebrate! I have two cousins expecting babies, and there is a shower this weekend for the one expecting her first. (Don't worry, I have a few things tucked away for the one who is expecting her second!)


Flannel burp cloths - while utilitarian plain white prefold cloth diapers get the job done, I loved using pretty burp rags! (I called my pretty flannel ones my "goin' to town" ones :>) though I hadn't figured out how to stitch my own yet at that point!) The cousin being showered doesn't know the gender of her baby, so I picked ones that are neutral. You can click on the link to see how I made them, and you can also click over to my Etsy shop from my sidebar to see what I have listed there.






This is probably my favorite crinkly taggie toy that I've made so far! Thanks to my sweet sister in law for fixing the photo for me! I love the way the ribbons pull colors out of the print. You'll notice I don't pay too much mind to keeping everything straight... I think it's better to be cheerful than perfect. :>) Plus, I prefer to spend my stitching time praying for the recipient than being cranky over ribbon that keeps creeping over - and I especially pray when the gift is for a new mama.





I suppose I'm biased, since I loved putting these on Goose so much, but I just love to give homemade baby leg warmers as baby gifts! I usually tell the recipient that they may not need them too much the first winter, when the baby wears a lot of sleepers. But when they start wearing pants and skirts/dresses, they sure come in handy! The link above is my attempt at explaining how to make them, or you can visit my Etsy shop by clicking the link in my sidebar to see all the styles I have available over there.

I also cleaned out Goose's closet and found some things that we loved but are no longer using that need to be passed along - think unopened bottles of baby lotion and baby powder, diaper cream, etc. I'm thinking that's going to count as a bag! (See the closet post for an enormous list of things that I gave to my cousin expecting her second baby when she had her first. It was the perfect way to "go shopping" without spending too much!)

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Flannel Burp Cloths

Burp cloths, burp rags, swipers - whatever you call them, they're pretty handy when you have a little one that is an urper, and they all tend to urp for a while at least. I used the heck out of plain prefold diapers for burp cloths and they work well. But I found some fun flannel printed ones that I used as my "goin' to town" burp cloths. (For those of you who aren't country folk, you save your nice stuff for trips to town.)

Thanks to this tutorial at Paper Dolly Girl, I was inspired to make some flannel burp rags and I was very pleased with how they turned out. As I noted in my post on how to make your own taggie blankets and embellished burp rags, I cruise the reminant bins at Wal-Mart and Hobby Lobby pretty much every time I go and pick up anything that catches my eye. Because of this habit, I tend to let the piece of fabric dictate the size of my final project. That is, I'd rather have a some bigger and smaller burp rags than have them all uniformly sized and a big pile of scraps. (Not that there's anything wrong with scraps!)

My method also differed in that I used flannel on both sides, and I stitched down the flannel in the middle. Some of my scraps were a bit short, and I didn't want them migrating around in the wash. I also sewed some scraps together for the middle piece. Initially I was concerned that the seam might feel lumpy between a sleeping baby's face and a loving adult's shoulder but I could barely feel the seam.

I was so pleased with how these turned out! I will be giving them as gifts for sure, and I also listed some in my Etsy shop (with more to come) if you'd like to give a special tiny one the gift of handmade flannel burp cloths but don't have the time or sewing skills.

For more frugal ideas, visit Life as Mom. You can also check out my handmade gifts section and see what I'm making for Christmas if you'd like!

I-Spy Bags

Yet another of my gifts for this year's Handmade Christmas is I-Spy Bags. I tucked away the link from Peculiar Momma on how she constructed hers, and I was heavily inspired by Pondered in My Heart on the items she included in her I-spy bottles, and especially the drawings that Kimberlee's daughters did of the items!

Here are some things that I considered when thinking about bags versus bottles:

Using bottles would certainly be easier than constructing bags! We don't use bottles like Kimberlee's though (I'm guessing they're from sports drinks . . . though I'm realizing that a glass jar would work fine - doh!). With bottles, I think it's more of a shaking action, and with bags, you do more manipulation with your hands - plus you can feel around for things that you can't see. With bottles, the entire thing is a "window" and with bags, you only have the little spot to peek inside.

Because my four nieces range in ages from 10 to 5, I made the bags more difficult for the older one and easier for the younger one. Some ways that they differ from oldest to youngest:

* Window size - smaller windows for the older niece, bigger windows for the younger
* Size of bag - bigger bag for the older, smaller for the younger
* Shape of bag - the youngest got round bags so nothing could get lost in a corner, and the olders got rectangles, I even made one long, skinny one for the oldest with the window on one side, so there's a lot of real estate that she can't see
* Amount of filler - I tried to put less rice in the youngest's bag so it would be easier to manipulate and more rice in the older's bag
* Size of items - the older the child, the smaller the items
* Color of items - I tried to have several different brightly colored items for the youngest, but the oldest got nearly all green items (different shades) but that makes it more difficult because it's not like you see a glimpse of red and know it's the pony tail holder, you see green and don't know if it's the button you already saw or the bead you're trying to find
* Similar items - the youngest got all very different things, but the oldest got a few things doubled up, like paper clips in different shades of green
* As I was finishing the post below, I realized that it would be more difficult with different colors of filler items. Colors pop more when you see something orange in the all-white rice, but if you had white rice, red beans, green lentils, yellow corn (etc.) things aren't going to be as noticable. I mixed together a bag of bean soup mix, a bag of red beans, pinto beans, black beans, lentils, split peas, popcorn, and maybe field corn. (remember that I have a LOT of bags - and I still had extra mix left over.) I then opened up the I-Spy bags, emptied them, removed some rice, added the beans, mixed it up, refilled them, and stitched them back shut. Whew!
* Kimberlee's children also made it more difficult by finding the items in the order of the list - i.e. if you see the wheel but are looking for the flat purple bead, the wheel doesn't count yet

To make the bags, as usual I based a lot of things on the size of my fabric scraps. :>) (You can see here how I pick up fabric on the cheap.) If possible, I tried to make one edge the fold so I would only have to sew three sides, but that's just me.

I'll admit, sewing in the windows gave me some fits. What finally worked for me, was to carefully cut the vinyl (which is sold on the big rolls by tablecloth kind of stuff and pretty inexpensive, even without a coupon) and make it a good inch larger on all sides than I wanted the window to actually be. Then I carefully cut a corresponding shape out of the fabric. First I traced the vinyl, then I took a ruler and measured an inch and an eighth (just for extra security, I guess :>)) to the inside of the window tracing. You should be able to click on the picture to make it larger. I ended up with a home plate shaped window because it first was a triangle and I didn't like that at all.

Next, I cut out the mini window out of the fabric on the lines I made. I then carefully made a 1/2" snip with scissors toward the corners, and folded the pieces back then pressed them down. (that's my ironing board cover you see peeking through. A new one is on my Christmas list as it has some major issues - not the least of which is some navy fabric left an enormous stain when I pressed it with some steam. It's cute, though - it has pictures of different clothing items scattered about. You can see the socks peeking through the window.)

To stitch the vinyl on, I found I HAD to use a piece of paper to get it to feed through my machine, otherwise it stuck and made a huge mess. I also found that I had to make sure it was well-sewn onto the fabric. The first one I did was a circle shaped window on the round orange bag, and I was so proud to have one all completed . . . until the first thirty seconds I field-tested it. The vinyl pulled loose and I had rice everywhere. I'll tell you that one of my nieces is likely to find the cure for cancer someday, but until that day comes, she's going to take apart everything in her path. So they needed to be K-proof, and that definitely didn't pass. It was then that I figured out (with a bit of help from Shalet at Peculiar Momma!) to cut the window out of the fabric smaller than the vinyl and fold the pieces of fabric back so the vinyl really had something to hold onto when stitched down.

So, after cutting the window from the fabric and pressing the little flaps back, I then laid the vinyl over the opening in the fabric, and put a piece of paper over the vinyl. I found it impossible to line them up with the right side out so I could pin them. So I left the right side of the fabric down (so the order from bottom to top is table, fabric right side down, vinyl, paper) and put two or so pins in from the "inside" or wrong side to hold it while I flipped it over. I then pinned everything together with the pins on the right side of the fabric and removed the two pins on the wrong side after it was anchored from the top. (Clear as mud?)

To make sure that it caught, I zig-zagged around the window three times and then did kind of a wandering zig-zag over all that a fourth time. The needle holes make a nice perforation in the fabric, so it's easy to tear away the paper. I did the outside first, then bent along a seam and picked a bit at the paper over the actual window and it tore quite easily as well. I didn't worry one bit about the bits of paper left underneath the stitches - I don't think there's a good way to get it out anyway.

Before I stitched the bag shut, I made up the list of included items and sewed it on. Because I ran out of plain fabric, I used some yellow print that I just turned over and wrote on the back. To start, I used a ruler and pencil to make faint lines, then I used a fine-point sharpie to write the names of the items and draw the little pictures. I know art is NOT my strong suit, but I thought I did well enough that the non-readers and new readers would be able to figure out what they were looking for without too much difficulty. I also used markers to color in bits that I could to help even more, though some of them worked better than others. :>) And, I didn't have a pink marker, which would have gone a long way with these items, so I just left those blank.

Please note that you should stitch the list on BEFORE you sew the sides of the bag. Go ahead, ask me how I know . . . I can also tell you that if you forget, you can get away with hand stitching it on carefully using the opening you left for pouring in the filling, but it takes a while and isn't nearly as pretty. So stitch your list on (I just pinked the edges and didn't worry about folding under and pressing then stitching, but I guess you could), and then stitch your bag *making sure to leave an opening into which you can pour your filling stuff*! (again, ask how I know . . . I try to remember to use a sideways pin - or six - to remind me to stop.) I found it much easier to leave enough room to use my canning funnel as rice doesn't move well through a regular funnel. When turning your bag inside out, use the point of a closed pair of scissors, a choptick, or something along those lines to poke your corners out well. I didn't bother with pressing my seams because it didn't seem to matter since they get filled with stuff.

Finding items wasn't as hard as I feared it might be. I kept an eye out at the thrift shop, and found a surprising number of items in my own house:

From the thrift shop:
* Small owl salt shaker (which I stuffed tight with a piece of fabric since it didn't have a stopper to keep other items from getting lost in there)
* Miniature tea cup
* Pumpkins and gourd from fall “spray”

From my craft stash:
* Beads of larger various sizes and shapes
* Small corks
* Buttons of various sizes
* Googly eye
* Jewel beads
* Jingle bells
* Mini clothes pins
* Metal bobbins that fit my sewing machine but don’t work very well

From toys:
* Marbles
* Bouncy balls
* Wheels from a toy motorcycle something or other (from a rummage sale, actually)
* Pats of fake butter, plastic bacon, small carrot
* Small Garfield the cat
* Small plastic triangle
* Small action figures
* Small plastic key

From the bathroom:
* Small terry pony tail holders
* Flower off cheap barrettes that fell off the first time I tried them
* Cheap barrettes (alligator clip/poing style)
* Safety pins (various sizes)
* Bobby pins
* Plastic barrettes

Other:
Pieces of field corn (could also use different types of bigger dried beans)
Paper clips, various sizes and colors (and I thought about mini binder clips but didn't need them)
Dime/penny/nickel
Large nut, smaller bolts

I was thought about some sort of pom-pom, but I didn't want to use a homemade one (reference above K-proofing). Same with silk flowers. I didn't look for any, but I think a multi-pack of small erasers in different shapes would be excellent. Some things were included in each bag, some were one-of-a-kind.

So. Window is firmly stitched, list is stitched on, and bag is sewn except for a hole. To make seven bags, I used approximately 23 pounds of rice. My bags are MUCH bigger than Peculiar Momma's - she used about 6x6" bags and 10-20 items depending on size. The size of my bags varied greatly - the round ones are the size of a big dinner plate, the square ones are perhaps 10x10. I used probably 14-16 items per bag. There are a number of different things you could use as filler - Kimberlee used bird seed, I thought about using field corn kernels, dried beans or lentils would be good - just go with something cheap and plentiful! I'd caution that you try to avoid using items for them to find that are too similar in color to the filler . . . unless you're trying to make it more difficult, that is! Actually, I think that multi-colored stuff like bird seed, or perhaps a variety of filler materials would make it more difficult to find things. If you see a peek of yellow among the white rice, for example, it really stands out. But if you have white rice, yellow corn, red and black beans, green lentils, etc - colors aren't going to stand out as much. Hmm . . . I might be opening some of these back up . . . :>)

Peculiar Momma (I think?) used a creamer pitcher to fill her bags, but I really liked using the canning funnel. To keep things spread out, I tried to put in a few scoops of rice, then a couple of items, then a few scoops of rice, couple of items, etc. With the bags, make sure you don't fill it TOO full - I finished filling then pinned the opening (using several pins so it didn't leak!) and then gave it a try and nearly every time, I took out the pins and removed some rice. Hand stitch the opening shut (I used a blanket stitch on a few, since it seems to be the year of the blanket stitch!) and try it out yourself.

If you'd like to see what else I'm making for Christmas, please visit my Handmade Christmas post (provided you're not on my Christmas list!), and for more frugal ideas, visit Life As Mom. This is also linked to Proverbs 31 Living's Handmade Christmas.

Soft Blocks for Baby

With apologies to my sister-in-law who gets my posts via e-mail, this post is about how I made blocks for her little boy for Christmas. (Delete this e-mail now, sister!) (The rest of you can scroll down to see the pictures.)

I bought a piece of 4" thick foam at Hobby Lobby and found a post at eHow.com on how to cut foam. I'll tell you, my hands and wrists were sore from pulling my electric knife through the foam, and I certainly should have put it up on the table instead of the floor because my bunner muscles and thighs were SORE from kneeling, squatting, and otherwise dancing around while cutting. Mercy. Oh, and I put one of my cheap, large cutting boards under the spot where I was cutting with the knife - you will ding it up, and badly.

The foam was about $22 and I used a 40% off coupon - you should be able to see the current one being offered here. It was 22"x22", so I'm thinking of making extra blocks (or two) and selling them in my Etsy shop. Maybe a set for a baby girl?

On my shopping trip to Hobby Lobby, I found the fabric you see - it coincidentally was a print with 4.25" square blocks! I cut it apart so that four blocks were together, and I stitched on a top and a bottom, so to speak. On the advice of both my mother and MIL, I'm using a zig zag stitch for strength. I left two sides open for stuffing the foam in, as I found leaving just one side open made for a very tight squeeze.

Then I hand stitched the remaining two sides shut using more or less a basic whipstitch. I tended to space my stitches too closely together, which I thought was better than too far apart. My mom had encouraged me to try to space them about the same distance as the zig zag stitches from the machine, but my brain kept over-riding that. :>)

I found that even using only the width of my presser foot as my seam allowance, some of the blocks are pretty tight - plus it comes as no surprise that none of my blocks are completely square (nor are my fabric cuts). Were I to do this again with non-block-printed fabric, I'd probably cut at least 4.5" squares and possibly 4.75" squares to make sure there is enough room. On the one hand, you don't want the fabric too loose and the foam sliding around inside, but on the other hand, too tight isn't very pretty.

To make the bag, I figured three rows of three blocks each, which would be 12" by 12", plus 4" on the sides, and I wanted plenty of room for a drawstring at the top. I ended up cutting my fabric 17" across by about 37" long (partly influenced by the size of my piece of fabric). I was completely winging it without a pattern (which seems to be my favorite way to sew!) so I'll just explain what I did.

First, I made the patch with [nephew name]'S BLOCKS. I tried embroidering it and didn't care for the way it turned out. So I pulled that out. I had a number of scraps left over from the blocks, so I made stencil letters on the computer (see how to do that at my ABC Book post) and cut them out. I used two-sided fusible interfacing attached to the print first, then traced the letters on the back side - make sure you trace the letters BACKWARDS so they'll end up the right way - and cut them out, then fused them to the navy piece of fabric. I cut around the edge with pinking shears and stitched it to the light blue fabric for the sack. Note that my webbing is thick, so I did NOT stitch around the outside. I used some of this on my ABC Book referenced above, and ended up breaking my thread several times. Had I used the Wonder Under that I finally found in the storage room this morning, I'd have used a zig zag stitch around the letters.

Looking at it now, I think I should have scooted it down a few inches when I stitched it on, but without the bag sewn and the blocks in it, it looked centered at the time. So, if you try this at home, learn from my mistakes . . .

To make the bag, I folded the fabric at the bottom of the bagand pinned one side. I stitched that side shut and pressed the seam open. I trimmed the corner a bit, snipping off the diagonal, so it would be neater when turned right side out. I think at this point I had intended to fold the top down and sew the slot for the drawstring, but I forgot. I stitched the other side, also all the way up to the top, which kind of came back to bite me later, but I persevered! I then turned the top down and stitched the drawstring slot, but if you're following along in your mind, you'll realize I don't have anywhere for the drawstring to go into or out of - it's completely stitched shut!

Luckily, I thrive on this type of challenge. :>) I stitched back and forth a few times about 3/4" down from the top of the bag along one side seam, and then used a seam ripper to open the side seam stitches between that and the seam that made the bottom of the drawstring slot. Success! For the string, I braided six strands of navy yarn with different colored flecks and knotted each end. I fastened a barrette on one end, and used that to feed the yarn through the slot. (Slot isn't the right word, but I can't think of what the right word would be! Feel free to leave me a comment on that!) I also pressed the fold at the top so it would lay neatly.

Then I stuffed the blocks in and tied the yarn, sat back, and admired my work. :>) You can see more of what I'm doing for Christmas at my Handmade Christmas post, which I'm updating as I make more things. (Unless you're going to be a recipient of said gifts. Then no peeking, you Scrooge!) You can also see more handmade Christmas ideas at Proverbs 31 Living.

For more frugal ideas, visit Life As Mom.

Handmade Christmas, 2009

Here are some of the things I'm working on for Christmas and a few fall birthdays. Most of these come from my reading the whole internet posts or my bookmarks from before I had a blog. I have a favorites folder called "crafty" and several subfolders inside that. As I see things that I think might work to give as gifts or otherwise make or do, I bookmark it in those folders. When a holiday or birthday approaches, I dig through them and see what sounds good. I intend to come back and update with pictures as I get them done.

And if you're one of my sisters-in-law, MOVE ALONG! NOTHING TO SEE HERE! :>) (They both subscribe to my blog, and I'm trying to keep them from inadvertantly being grinches!)

For my nieces (who are ages 10, 6, 5, and 2):
* The oldest three will each get one of these I Spy bags. I picked up random little things at the thrift store to put in them, bargin bin fabric, and I bought a huge bag of rice and 1/2 yard of thick clear plastic like that which your grandmother may have over her tablecloth to protect it from the hooligan grandchildren. :>) You can read more about them at my post here. (and I re-did them about three times to make them not-so-easy. :>))

* The middle girls will each get a homemade camping lantern, mine are shown at left. (with apologies for not realizing that the phone cord was in the picture going up the wall) I ended up hot gluing some ribbon around the bottom to cover the gap between the lid and the waxed paper. For about two minutes, I tried to figure out how to glue the ribbon to the jar. Then I gave up and glued it to the lid, so the open part is up instead of down but at least it lays flat. Whew.

* I made a "quiet family" for the youngest. I liked both the wooden version and the cloth one. I like how they're made without mouths, hence the quiet part. :>) I was able to find the wooden version pretty inexpensively at Hobby Lobby - I think both the bag of "kids" and "adults" were $3 each with several in a package, and the box was around $2. I recruited my dad to trim the bottoms so the mama is shorter than the papa, and, in the case of my nieces, they're four different sizes. (He's the best!)

I ended up not bothering with faces or hair, just glued a piece of fabric around the bodies. Since my box was divided, I decided to make different "rooms" like my brother's new house. I found some clip-art, made it black and white, printed it, cut it out, and glued it to the fabric that I glued in the box. I had brief thoughts of trying to draw a swing set on the back but quickly realized I'm a *terrible* artist and threw that out the window. I think she'll be pleased anyway.

* My youngest niece will get some of this play makeup. I requested makeup and nail polish on freecycle, and I was tickled with how it turned out. I have some for sale in my Etsy shop, if you're interested!


* Youngest niece will also be getting a scrappy flower crown. As you can see from the little hand in the pic on the right, Goose was quite interested. It might get a bit crazy when her cousin opens it up...

* For my middle two nieces, I am planning to put together a craft-a-day kit because last year, the glow of being at Grandma's kind of wore off a few days into the several-day visit. There was a wrench thrown in the works when it was decided that we'll celebrate at my brother's instead, but this will give them something to do during the days they have off from school anyway, and it's kind of "consumable" in that it's not a whole bunch of stuff my sister-in-law has find a place to put. Win-win-win!
*** flubber
*** fruity smelly painting
*** gak
*** oobleck
*** no-sew bags
*** paper marbling
*** marble run
*** (which got me thinking about a domino run)
*** puffy paint (though we won't do ghosts and I'm thinking about a bit of food coloring mixed in here and there - like this post from Chasing Cheerios)

* My oldest niece will be getting some bookmarks, I found lots o' links (here, and here, and another at here, and one more here, the beaded one is here though I made a few changes, and the felt and ribbon one is here.)







For my sisters-in-law:
* As noted earlier in the Reading the Whole Internet Post, I plan to make them each two of these button and wire brooches. I'm using buttons out from a huge bag I got at a rummage sale last year, Hubs brought me some wire. It wasn't quite as easy as I hoped, but I'm got better as I went along. I still need to glue felt on the backs and attach the pins.

I had trouble getting the wire to be very tight in the button holes, especially when there were four holes instead of just two. I also had much better luck (and more straight twists) by holding the wires taught and twisting the button rather than twisting the wire around the other strand of wire. Some of my buttons broke in the process as well, which was a huge bummer. but, they're cute, and hopefully the SILs will get a kick out of wearing them a few times and that's all I can ask. [update - I bought some button magnets and am planning to offer to turn them into magnets instead - I'll let them decide since they're already wrapped. :>)]

* Since they both live in cold places (Colorado and Alaska), I was planning to do hand warming gloves. I thought about instead making a small pocket on the outside of the gloves so that they can remove the rice bag and warm it without warming the whole gloves. Instead, I made little palm-sized warmers that they could tuck either in their palm or on the back of their hand. Of course, I didn't get the idea to embroider their initials until I was done with the first one. I mean, I really tried hard to make them unique! I used some new tan felt I'd found at the thrift shop and three strands of embroidery floss. [Update - looks like I'll be working on a new set of these . . . I have discovered the hard way that they make excellent cat toys. I also ended up making them bigger, so that they cover nearly the entire palm.] [Update 2 - Um, I wrapped them yesterday without taking new pictures. Oops. Guess you'll have to wait to see them until after Christmas.]

I will say that it appears to be the year of the blanket stitch. :>) My mom taught me how to do it and I'm loving it!

* The post that kicked the blanket stitch craze off is Frugal Family Fun Blog's hand warmers. I used pink felt, also found new at the thrift shop, bound with a blanket stitch using three strands of varigated embroidery floss. I kind of based the size off the size of the piece of felt I had, but I thought they were too big - Valerie's are more the size of a deck of cards. I ended up taking the stitches out of one end, cutting off some felt, embroidering their names on their respective warmers, and re-stitching. Valerie also has a more masculine denim version here.

I read in this link on homemade bed warmers that field corn actually holds heat better than rice. Since we have an abundance of that around here, Iactually re-did these and removed the rice - especially since corn from the farm will hold a bit of significance for my sweet sisters-in-law. I also re-did my own rice bag that I use when I'm chilly or achy, and I found that corn needs longer in the microwave than rice did. I made some bed warmers as gifts, too.


For my 9-month-old nephew:
* He has requested a few more pairs of leg warmers, so that's easy enough! Well, except for choosing which ones to give him, that is. :>) (Feel free to visit my Etsy shop if you'd like some leg warmers for your special little one!)

* I made him a crinkly owl, which I thought turned out great! I used fleece instead of felt because I wanted it to be totally washable. I went bigger with the eyes, using a baby food jar lid as my pattern. I gave some thought to doing some sort of claws but thought that might be overkill - he won't care either way. (And please note that the owl is blanket stitched all over the place.)

* Thanks to the suggestions in the comments, I made a set of blocks for the little guy, with a bag to hold them. You can see how I made them at my Soft Blocks for Baby post. They weren't quite stitched up in the picture but they turned out great.

Any other suggestions for a baby boy? Or a toddler boy, since his birthday will be coming up in March - and Chrismas will come around next year?!? Per Sarah's e-mailed comment, I'm looking hard at something like these puzzle blocks from the Land of Nod. I was thinking about painting the blocks then decoupaging on pictures, or maybe even just use patterned scrapbook paper. Then I found an awesome deal on Melissa & Doug puzzle blocks and punted on the idea for now. :>) [edit - if you want to make your own soft blocks or puzzle blocks, check out these posts at Make it and Love it (soft) and Making The World Cuter (puzzle).]

For Hubs:
* He isn't nearly as big on games as I am, but I made Quatro for him anyway. Actually, my dad did the cutting and staining, so I did very little, but I think it came together pretty easily! The problem is that Hubs is surprising me by kicking the soup out of me pretty much every time we play. I did well at first, but he's been handing my rear end to me ever since. The nice thing is that it doesn't take too long to play a game.

For our mothers and my sisters-in-law:
* I like to make calendars that feature a picture of Goose from (approximately) that month the previous year. It's fun to see how she's grown! I make the calendar part in Word - it's basically a "table" the size of the page that's seven columns by five rows, and then adjust the days and numbers as needed. I also put in that side of the family's birthdays and anniversaries, so I end up with two versions of the calendars. I then use Publisher for the picture pages, and I also have had fun including little quotes that I've found - I especially like The Quote Garden.

* The past two years, I've traced Goose's hand and then embroidered it onto a piece of fabric . . . I think of it as a Christmas ornament, I guess. The idea for that came from Plum Pudding, though it's a bit different with only one kiddo. :>) Here is the picture of mine from 2007 and 2008. For this year's, I finally used my sewing machine! I put the right sides together and stitched around the embroidered hand, leaving a gap. I turned it right side out and hand-stitched the gap shut, then used an embroidery needle to poke embroidery floss through to hang it up.

* Last year, I found a package of blank note cards and envelopes in a variety of colors. I also traced Goose's feet and took a thumbprint, and scanned them into my computer. I made it easy on myself and just digitally flipped them so I had right and left without trying to hold a kid still for so long. I used Paint and darkend the outside line, then filled them in with different colors. I ended up with some pretty random stuff, but I'll include them below for your enjoyment. (You'll note I made good use of the "rotate" feature".

















Some things I've made for gifts previously:
fabric and button barrettes with an update, though I don't think the buttons ever stayed on very well. (Mine are here.)

bangle bracelets (mine are here)

sidewalk chalk paint

ribbon dancer (mine is here)

tulle pony tail holders

tutus

silhouette pendants (Mine are here)

super foam-erators

this headband, the ribbon one from here and I didn't make this but I really wanted to! I intended to make some for Christmas, but after checking with her mom, I learned she's kind of growing out of them.

What are you making for Christmas this year? I'd love to see links in the comments!

And for more frugal ideas, visit Life As Mom. For more handmade Christmas ideas, visit Abbi at Proverbs 31 Living!