Thursday, December 2, 2010

Handmade Christmas 2010

SPOILER ALERT!!! If you are a member of my family please find another web page to read. I suggest something like this website for its informative content:)

We are busy busy planning and making our homemade gifts for this holiday season. While my knitting needles are busy with small wooly projects for those near and dear, we are also busy making small gifts that the kids can have a hand in. Here are a few of the projects we are working on.

Evan is planning on making a blank book for his dad. There are some great book making instructions at this website.

We saw these great ornaments on Magic Onions. I also plan on making some of these little seed pod candles as well. We are able to get local beeswax for this project so it will be a completely local craft. How cool is that?

Another project that Evan and I have been working on can be found in Amanda Blake Soule's book The Creative Family. It seems suddenly Evan's art is very representational. Small little trucks and funny little people are appearing on piles of paper. I have traced some of his art work and I am embroidering them. They work up really quickly and they use materials I already have around the house and in my stash. I thought these pictures would be nice gifts for grandparents, aunts and uncles. He has a new boy cousin this year that might receive a picture of all the sorts of trucks he has drawn lately.

We have discovered a great resource in our community for very inexpensive and recycled craft supplies. It is the Everyone's Resource Depot in Farmington. So many of our kid crafts are very inexpensive to make this year.

As for knitting projects..well..in years past I have had a better jump on having small projects. I would start earlier in the year and make at least one item per month designated for a holiday gift. Between the move and my MS exacerbation earlier in the fall I do not anticipate knitting any large projects this year. But I do have a list of small knitting project that are quick to knit, can use yarn from my stash, and will be practical to the person receiving it.

These round hot pads are nice, quick and will be fun to make given the play with color. I can use small bits of yarn for these as well.

I have several requests this year for wool socks and have few pairs finished already.

These fingerless gloves are great winter driving. I have a few friends and family I think will get a lot of use out of these.

I have 2 preschool nieces. I plan to make them a gift they can share this year. My thinking was that I would decorate a box and include items for a Waldorf Nature Table. I can make up a few gnomes in different colors for the seasons. We will put some of our pinecones and seed pod candles. Maybe tie dye some muslin. I would include an insert on the idea of the table so their mom could help them with it.

I think the new babies will receive some wooly booties.

We also plan to bake this year. Our cookie list includes, snickerdoodles, chocolate krinkles, ginger snaps and welsh cookies.

We will also include some photos of the kids with everyone's gifts.

Well this should keep us busy..in a good way:)

How about you? What are you planning to make this holiday season?

1 comment:

Kathy said...

Well, I am once again in a quandarry about what to gift whom .. but we'll get there! Your December sounds ever so much more fun!