Bring it on, Holidays!

I love the Holidays. Not because you get to see family, eat tons of food or anything - well, okay, that, too... BUT because of crafting! Now, I'm not some granny that just knits all day long in a rocking chair (though I do love a good knit every now and then) I just love figuring stuff out and putting it together! My hands are itching at crafting. While it is the week of Halloween, I haven't done any Halloween crafting, but there is good reason! CHRISTMAS! I am planning on handmaking a lot of gifts this year. I am going to keep most of them quiet on here, for fear the sisters are looking! However, those who I am sure would never happen to stubble upon my humble blog will surely find a place here.

For starters, I have a pink cashmere argyle sweater, circa 1987. I have been dying to do something crafty with it for YEARS. I discovered it's destiny a few weeks ago. PIG. Yes. An awesome little cashmere stuffed pig. Luckily, there is enough sweater to go around for about 3 little piggies. Here is the how-to from good ol' Martha. I will certainly be sharing photos of the finished product. Because I don't have scanner/printer at the house anymore, one of myfavorite parts of the whole project so far was recreating the pattern! I needed to make it bigger than the 3 inch one they have on the pattern. Yay for MATH! I never liked math before now. Math has been put to good use, finally, after all these years.

I'll share some of my past productions from Christmases passed.
Welcome sign, simple Acrylic paint on wood

This one was a gift to myself - a family tree! It's cardstock cut out in a tree and leaf pattern. Light leaves are women and dark leaves are the men. Left side is my side Dave's is on the right. LOVE!

My big projects from last year were blankets. My littlest sisters are swimmers and needed something that was personalized and fun! I love these blankets. I chose colors and designs that match their personalities. Merry is wild and crazy and enjoys a good neon color or two. Katheryne is mild mannered, wise, and reflective. Sky blue and simple flowers suit her. I hope they loved them, too! I took these two photos while still in the making-of: process. I stitched "Katheryne" with a yellow embroidery thread.



Other items I made last year include but not are limited to:
homemade soaps: Man soap (that was brown and smelled like a yummy outdoorsmen), rose soap, milk, honey and almond soap, tea soap (with variants of mint and chamomile YUM)
bath salts: we made a "citrus", a "soothing" scent and a "fresh." The scents were mixtures of all sorts of scented and enriched oils
sugar scrub: i think there was only one kind to this... possibly two since I think we made two batches.
Table top cornhole: this was Dave's surprise. Luckily he was gone for a week before Christmas, so I was able to get it done in time. Dave was pleased with the gift and they have been a lot of fun ever since! I bought the set and then painted and poly'd myself. No stencil, baby. Just pure talent. Here's a picture to prove it.


purses: for the wee nieces. I also purchased finger puppets from IKEA and I put them in the purses. They were made out of a tan fabric and I threw together some flowers out of pretty fabric, ribbon and buttons and voila!
and more!

A Christmas tradition of ours is Painting Ornaments. While I have painted quite a few ornaments in my day, here is of my favorites:


I'll be posting more about Holiday Handmade! Yah for holidays!