Homemade Gifts

As usual I planned on making a lot more gifts than I actually did. Overall I did pretty well but there were a few more store bought substitutions than I wanted. Oh well! Here are the things I made...

 

I've wanted to make them a farm play set for awhile. I found the wooden manger at a thrift store and painted it like a barn. The playsilk is actually a stretchy cotton fabric from Joann's and I dyed it with food coloring. We switched to the natural food coloring and it was a perfect project to use the other stuff for. I used this tutorial here and loved it.

 

 

The slingshot was a big hit with my son. I gave him a bag of cotton balls and he is only allowed to use it when my husband and I are around. He loves games where he has to hit a target so he just loves this. The owl stuffie is a replacement for the original which disappeared after we entered it in the fair. My daughter was very happy to get a replacement. She says it is better now that it is pink (of course). I used a combo of my owl purse and owl pillow pattern to make this. It falls in between both of those patterns in size and is perfect to snuggle. You can find both of those pattern in the "crochet pattern" page above.

 

 

I did take a break from making gifts to make myself this scarf. I have never done a drop stitch before and it worked up pretty quick. I love the soft pink color. It seems to snag easily though and a couple strands are pulled out and I can't get them back in. I am not sure if the needles I used were too large? Anyways I love it and it was nice to make something for myself. Hope you all have a Merry Christmas! Did you make any gifts this year?

 



Celebrating Santa Lucia Day and other Christmassy goodness

 

We first found out about Santa Lucia from the Rick Steve's Christmas Special (highly recommend this video!). She is celebrated in various parts of the world on Dec. 13th. I guess it is pretty commonly observed through the Waldorf teachings. We don't "do" Waldorf technically but I love the toys and art supplies etc. so we probably would have eventually found out about it! In fact I hear rumors of a Star Boy who is associated with Santa Lucia who I have yet to learn about. I am pretty happy with the way Lucia turned out and the kids love her to that's all that matters. She now happily adorns our nature table. I am thinking about replacing her with a little Bafana after the 25th.

 

We made the traditional rice pudding which is far more tasty than it looks. Usually we eat it with strawberry jam but we didn't have any on hand. It was still good! An almond is stirred into the porridge and whoever gets the almond gets the....

 

Marzipan pig!! We always get ours at Cost Plus World Market but you can order them online as well. This years winner was the little gal. She was pretty excited and we quickly dissected our pig to split up. She got to choose which piece she wanted (head of course).

 

I'm also in the process of getting some presents done. I happen to be cutting it rather close on some of them. I used my "Oh So Cute Owl Purse" pattern to make my daughter a smaller version of the "Owl Stuffie". Actually I added a round on the circle and added another round to the head. Her original owl mysteriously disappeared after I entered it in the fair. She was upset but informed me she would rather have a pink one anyways so I finished that one up last night, switching from crochet to seed catalog perusing while listening to Racheal Yamagata on Pandora. My kind of night.

 

I was also busy filling and wrapping some Christmas crackers for our "Christmas Around the World" party with a homeschool co-op we belong to. They were filled with TJ's lollipops, mints, and a few stickers. The kids got a kick out of them.

 

The finished product was apparently quite appealing because the kids could not stop asking about them!

 

We have been taking lots of fun seasonal family field trips as well. We always make it to our local zoo for the lights. It was very magical with the snow and I sure hope we will have some again next year. It really made the lights sparkle! My little girl is wearing a hat I made her that is much like the one from my favorite version of The Secret Garden from the 90's. It has a little puff ball on top and she calls it her meatball hat. Hope you and your family are having lots of fun this season too!

Simple Paper Village

It's been a super Christmassy day here. We had a nice snowfall last night which set the mood and then headed downtown today for a winter carnival. After some hot chocolate we decided to cut out this little window village inspired by this village I found on Pinterest.

 

 

Was feeling a bit too lazy to do the cute tree branch and stars so we made some snowflakes from cupcake liners instead (my husband things they look like apocalyptic snowflakes). If you didn't know yet, coffee filters and cupcake liners make the absolute best and easiest snowflakes around.

 

 

 

This simple little village has really help create an even cozier feeling in the house. I think we might just keep it up all through winter!

Christmas Decorating

We did most of our Christmas decorating Friday. I tried not to put too much out, keeping in mind that I have to put it all away in a month.

 

I'm going for a more natural look for the tree this year. I made this birch branch ornament from a toilet paper tube that I painted with some brown lines. It was very easy and it looks really nice. The picture isn't too clear but it's been pretty gloomy here lately.

 

 

Here is a larger view of the tree. I put some of my mushroom ornaments up, some Sugar Gum seed pods and some pine cones. I also stuck in some broom corn here and there. The stuff grew like weeds this year and we didn't go to the Thanksgiving market to sell it so we have A TON. I also strung up cranberries for the first time. I have always wanted to do this but never seem to get around to it. It didn't take too long and I like how it looks. The tree is supposed to be a work in progress during the month of December. We are planning on adding things to it as we find them outside.

 

 

I found some Osage Oranges in front of our local art museum yesterday and brought them home to dry. This is a first for me and they are dehydrating right now. I hope they turn out well as they are also destined for the tree.

 

 

The advent calendar I made a few years ago is still in good shape so I strung it up again. I got the inspiration from Maya. I believe I have blogged about it before? It was very easy to make. I simply sewed the bottom of the roll together on my sewing machine, painted each one and added a number and snowflake.

 

 

I felt inspired to do a more naturally themed decorating this year after we tore up our carpets. We have the most beautiful hardwood floors and they have really changed the feel of the house which made me realize how much I love natural materials. I am also hoping this will lead to a more simpler holiday altogether...we will see!

 

 

Of course I had to put up my Putz village. It doesn't really go with the natural theme but I just love these pastel 50's houses. They remind me of the old claymation Rudolph movie.

 

What kind of decorating are you doing this year? Do you have a blog you are sharing your ideas on? If so, leave a comment below!

 

 

 

 

 



Teacher Gifts

Tomorrow is LM's last day of school before Christmas break.  I put together these little gift bags for his teachers.

I can't for the life of me find the site where I got these labels, but they were a free download.  If I come across them I will give you the link.  Inside the bags are half dipped chocolate covered pretzels with white chocolate and candy cane pieces sprinkled on them.  Why half dipped?  Because I usually break half the pretzels when I try and take them out of the chocolate with tongs.  This was much much easier to do and I got more out of the batch of chocolate :)  Another homemade gift I did was peppermint hot cocoa mix.  I used this Alton Brown recipe, but substituted candy cane pieces for the cayenne.  I just make sure to tell people who have little ones to let the candy pieces dissolve before giving it to them.  I finished another gift for my son that I will try and take a picture of later when he is in bed.  Right now I am going to go make some hot cocoa and sit with the kiddos and enjoy looking at the snow outside :) :) :)

Early Christmas craftiness

If it wouldn't cause so much distress in the house I think I would decorate in early October.  As it is I just like to sneak some early Christmas decorations here and there.  I also bought my copy of Martha's Christmas issue, so I have been doing some things from that.  Here are some acorn ornaments I made for the Little Mans teacher's...

I used some of Martha's glitter, which is super expensive but really does look better then the cheap stuff.  Also I got some pipe cleaners which I haven't used since 2nd grade to make this...

It took me awhile to find off white pipe cleaners.  You can't really see the colors that well in this picture (stupid camera!).  Not sure if this looks too "preschoolerish".  Usually I try and read DH's expression but he was ratherhard to read that day so I guess I won't find out the truth for a couple of years.  Lol!  Also working on Little Lady's present which is knitted, and taking my longer then I hoped due to the fact that I am not a very fast knitter yet!  Hopefully pictures will follow soon!