this year’s giving list was straight from pinterest. before they came up with the good idea of “secret boards.” my apologies to any family members following my pins. perhaps next year i’ll just send the link out to everyone and tell them to “like” the ones they…. like. anyway, here’s a re-cap of some of the things i made and gave this year:
1. wild olive’s peanut butter & jelly game (i made 3 of these and added my own original packaging idea that incorporates a “snappy” closure and some design inspiration from zaaberry):
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3. delia’s i spy photo books (i made about 8 of these. some with photo prompts and others with text prompts for the nephews who are old enough to read. these are so much fun to make and can easily be built on in future years. plus, they’re fairly inexpensive.)
4. hand-knit cowls. i got on a thick-yarn/fat-needles knitting kick and whipped up 5 different cowls and got pictures of… one of them. most of them were a simple seed-stitch pattern, one was a rib knit and the other was the honey cowl. i really should have taken pictures. in this photo, the cowl is doubled up.
5. Costumes! I sewed these construction vests (and found hats after halloween), plus I also sewed up some pirate vests to go with the pirate hats, and i sewed some chef hats. the older cousins had requested “knight” costumes. amazingly, i found 2 knight helmets in shops and i made 2 felt “tunics” that they can easily pull over their heads for dress-up. sorry, no photos.
6. Probably my favorite handmade kid gift this year was the fort kits. i made three of them (and have supplies to make a fourth for the happy little dude) and screen printed the label onto a pillowcase that then became the carrying bag for the whole kit. you can see the contents in the picture below. the smaller drawstring bag is what everything (except the sheets) got put into. All three were immediately used as soon as they were opened (and explained). The clip-on lights were quite popular. i used the suggestion in the comments to sew channels in the corners and middles of each side of the sheet, then kids can just run their rope or bungee cord through the channel. brilliant!
i also made some button hair pins, a thread catcher, and some birch branch photo holders. it was a very crafty christmas. i love being done with grad school!
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