Handmade Christmas

One of the best parts of Christmas is getting to give special gifts to family friends. For me, what makes it special is crafting and creating the perfect handmade gifts for all of my family. Putting the hours in is worth it! This year (2018) my family enjoyed a reunion over Thanksgiving, with a little bit of early Christmas. It was so fun to create presents for all my cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. From the beginning of summer to mid-November, I painted, sketched, sewed, cut, pasted, and framed. Here are the results! Hopefully they're as awesome as planned!

I've never made a calendar before! Really pleased with how it turned out. This was also my first attempt at water colors.

The cutest gifts I made were definitely finger puppets for my youngest cousins. : ) Not nearly as cute as they are, though!

Find instructions for sewing the puppets in the project forum under the category "kids".

My great grandmother was one of the relatives I got to see this past Thanksgiving. I lived in the same town as her and saw her several times a week for almost a decade, before moving to Colorado. Moving away was hard, and I thought I would never see her again, at least on earth. Getting to visit her again was wonderful, bringing up memories of our countless visits in the past. These photos are just a few more memories to leave behind.

Since I seem to like trying new things under pressure, this was also one of my first attempts at embroidery!

These beautiful works of art were actually a joint effort between my me and my younger brother. He does wood working of all kinds, from creating furniture to carving teeny tiny bird houses. If I need to make a cool gift, I can count on him to come up with something beautiful. After nailing, sanding, staining and polishing these frames, he used a wood burning set to free hand the designs. Wow! Even though we talked through the design and I saw each step as he worked on it, the finished product blows me away! All I did was trace some tools and color them....

All were made with love, though, and creating each gift was really fun.