christmas gift projects

We've been very broke this fall.  It's been a constant struggle, month to month, and I owe lots of money to my Dad.  Loan check should be here in next week or so though, and with Saia likely starting public preschool, we should be able to exhale for at least a little bit.  Anyway, it's been the first holiday season that I had to have serious budget planning. In the past, I always thought it totally reasonable to do $40-50 per family member. I mean, what can you really get for less than that these days? crap is what.  Interestingly I read an article that suggested a lot of people just do not spend money on Christmas.  News to me.  But this year I wanted to try to spend $200 on everyone.  That's for eight family members on my side, eight on Jeff's side, and four friends.  Final total $314...

A lot of how I made it stay relatively cheap was making things.  I got ideas from random places I found through google and I got some of the best ideas from Martha Stewart's website (haha).


Handwarmers
from this website. All you do is make 4 inch bean bags with fabric then fill them with ceramic.  Specifically, the instructions were to use ceramic pie weights (something people use to make pies), but that would've made them like $8 a set! No thanks.  You know what else is made of ceramic?  Tiles.  $0.57 foot square tiles, that is.

I made 4 pairs, most for friends.  Pop them in the microwave for 90 seconds or so and you've got something that feels great against your face/hands/wherever when you are out in the cold or come in from it.  My dad and friend Alex have requested I make them some.

Charm bracelet

Momma's love their babies.  And my mom's got her own new collection this last few years.  She's a typical older woman, likes those goofy charm bracelets, "pandora" ones in particular.  But those lousy things are $30 a charm! I don't think so. You can't deny something custom though- with charms that really are unique to your own babies.  This was Martha Stewart's idea.  I couldn't find everything on the supply list though.  So I had to improvise.  And I chose against the sepia photo thing. But I like the bracelet...

Baby-girl-to-come, Isaiah, Me, Julia, Calvin, Jenn

Cardinal hats

This season they have been selling these cute Cardinal hats for kids in the authentic store.  I found them online for $23 but they are probably $30 at the Yum center. The idea looked simple to me I guess.  I originally thought it would be fun to make for Isaiah, but then realized I also needed gifts for Isaiah's cousins.  So I'm making three.  One down, still two to go.

the model from the store

I don't know why I can't get this right side up

I've never made a hat before.  To get an idea of how I'd do this I found a tutorial online on how to make a simple tobaggan kid hat online, which gave me some idea of how templates and sewing work... then I just had to wing it.  I used the picture above to sketch my own template.  I think the hats I made were a bit smaller, but they turned out well proportioned.  Pretty happy with it.


No knit Rosette scarf

My other idea taken from Martha Stewart.  She said to use a tool called a knit-wit, but it would've been $20 online and I couldn't find it in a store.  So this other website told me how to make my own tool.  This No-knit thing looks pretty lame in its traditional usage (70s trend stuff), but Martha recommended using a fancier type of yarn that makes a scarf look "decidedly modern," as she puts it.  Mohair yarn.  I'm liking it! I've got lots of yarn.  I'll probably make a scarf for myself as well.

[No pic right now, will update later.]

String Art name plates

In an old post on art club, I showed a string art project I did of an owl.  Since it was a project I shared with my art club, I had google imaged string art looking for ideas for other clubbers.  One thing I saw was an example of where someone had used string art for words.  I decided to use that idea for my last DIY Christmas gift idea.  It was an ungodly long endeavor for each of the three name plates... First I would come up with what I wanted on the plate using Word, print it out at the right size, affix it, then cut the wood to fit.  Then I sanded the edges and stained the wood. Then with the paper template taped on the wood, I hammered all of the nails down.  Then after removing the paper template, I'd tie on the string.  Vomit.  I won't be doing another one of these until I have a good reason.  I like them.  But probably not enough for the time I put into it.

This is the last one I did.  I knew that fleur de li would turn out good.

I messed up the staining on this one and the one above.  It's not dark enough to keep the text legible :(

Looking for the link to the string art words I linked above, I found some other new examples.  People use bright string.  I just worked with what I already had, which was mostly dull.

While I'm posting about DIY endeavors- Saia's bday party was yesterday and I made my own angry bird cake.  :)

my model

the facial features are all cookies.  Including the ears which are hanging on with toothpicks.