More homemade gifts

We're well into our second year of giving only homemade gifts at our place. Sometimes it feels hard to come up with ideas, but really if is no harder than choosing from the shops. I have a tough time churning out the same things over and over, so my list of things is quite extensive ;).  I'll add in links to patterns etc where possible.  In no particular order - here is the pile of pressies made over the last months (excluding Christmas).


A blackboard painted tin filled with chocolate balls for my step dad.

A crocheted Mario!  (this isn't my one, but the pattern was so good, mine turned out exactly like it)



Birthstone nest necklaces.  For a girlfriend, me and my mum.  The one for mum includes all of her kids birthstones in the nest, and the gradkids beside the nest.

oops - sideways photo!  These are stretchies in an upcycled bag.  Made for a girl's 7th birthday.  She loved these so much, they will be a staple for girls and some boys this year!

A cute heart box from a cereal container.......

Inside which was a crocheted cupcake pincushion with pin sprinkles :)

A retro-ruffled apron for my sister-in-law

A sweet heart as a thank you for having us gift.

More crocheted dishcloths as housewarming gifts.

The leg warmers for my teenage sister's birthday

oops!  forgot to take a photo of the inside gift!  It was a slouchy crocheted beanie with a giant flower and wrapped with a matching mini flower for a girlfriend.

A tangled happy crocheted wand for a 5th birthday.

 

A bath set for a 40th - a homemade soap, some tub tea bags (from homegrown herbs) and a jar of bath salts in a vintage doily decorated jar.

Typically, I failed to take photos of some of the gifts I made, so add to this list:

• A duct tape wallet for a 7 year old boy
• Fabric luggage tags for my father in law
• Felted wool slippers for a grandparents birthday
• A crocheted beanie each for my hubby and my brother

For more of my homemade gifts, check out this post and this one on Christmas presents.

Have you been making homemade gifts?  Would love you to share what you've been making - I'm sure I'll run out of inspiration and ideas eventually :)

Homemade Christmas gifts 2012

Ok, here it is, the long awaited list of gifts I made for family and friends this year. I've split it up so it is easier to refer to if you want to use any ideas, and where I used a tutorial or pattern from the net, I've linked to it for you. There are photos of some things, but not all. Wanna know how to make anything not linked? I'd be happy to help, just ask!

For Men

• Personalised photo coasters
• A mobile phone pouch (custom fitted)
• A crocheted beanie
• An iPod running arm band (from a sock)
• Fire lighter crackers (a wrapped toilet roll filled with a combination of coffee grinds, tea leaves and dried rosemary)
• Crocheted pass the piggies game

For women

• Crocheted bookmark with some secondhand books
• Crocheted bracelet/necklace/garland
• Crocheted beanie
• Crocheted slippers
• Homemade soap with a crocheted dish/wash cloth

For couples/families/unisex gifts

• A hamper with homemade coffee stencils and chocolate shaker, various pickles, Florentines, biscuits, vanilla extract and a crocheted ornament
• A homemade timber box filled with a variety of home brews (one with and one without a set if photo coasters), we dressed the brews as reindeer for fun!
• Homemade soap using herbs from the garden
• Crocheted Christmas ornaments
• Mini gingerbread houses
• Homemade PJs for the family (pants from re-purposed bed linen and the tops are made from sustainable bamboo and personalised with bleach paintings)

Kids- babies, girls and boys

• Crocheted hair clips
• Block bag and wooden blocks
• Crocheted baby head band
• Bibs
• Car caddy with street signs
• Angry birds game complete with sling shot and custom bag.
• Water bottle carrier from repurposed cargo pants and belt*
• Personalised calico sandwich wraps*
• Paratrooper softies*
• Crocheted cat and bat softies (bat was my own adaptation of the cat pattern)*
• Latch hooked rugs made from recycled tshirts (warning- this gift took 100s of hours of work. Make only for your nearest and dearest!)

*these gifts were used as stocking stuffers for our kids

So that's it! There were a few gifts on the to-do list that I ended up not doing, but will shuffle them onto next year's list. In the meantime, I've started hunting for new ideas to make in 2013. Did you make gifts? Would love you to share your ideas!

Homemade Christmas from the kids

As you know, I've been busy for several months making Christmas presents to give to our family and close friends on behalf if the whole family. I finished the very last gift on Tuesday while watching a Christmas movie (ironically, this gift was the first gift to be started this year and also the idea that started this homemade gift frenzy).  The underneath of our Christmas tree is jam packed with wrapped parcels, and we've already delivered quite a few gifts. So I was already feeling very satisfied before yesterdays advent activity, but it just tipped the scales to thrilled!

The calendar said:

"make Christmas presents for your baby cousin and your pets"

Twelve months ago, I think the boys would've groaned at the idea. It was them afterall who were concerned about homemade gifts when we took on the challenge last year.  Back then, they thought homemade meant dodgy gifts. But after a year of giving homemade, this challenge excited then, and when I explained that I would also be teaching them to use my sewing machine, they were delighted.

I have no photos of them sewing - sewing machines, irons, dressmaking scissors and pins are dangerous enough without me zipping off to photograph the event!  But the boys did cut, pin and sew (with my help) beautiful gifts. They each made a bib for the baby, a fabric gift bag to wrap it in and a toy mouse for their cats which involved both machine and hand sewing.  They wrote gift cards and proudly put their quality, homemade gifts under the tree. Then, being 8 year old boys, they nicked all the fabric scraps and tied them to their bodies as armour before running off to play some complicated wrestling game, leaving me to tidy up!

As well as these gifts, they also made each other a present. They had chosen to buy for each other, and they did, but then they had homemade ideas too! J is the bossiest of the twins, and came up with the idea if making his brother a 'permission pass'.  It looks like a backstage pass, but has a few things that L can choose, like what game they are going to play, or permission to borrow a book from J. It's pretty cute (if a tad dominant).  L made a bookmark for his bat and book loving brother that has an origami bat on the top.

It is lovely to see the whole family embracing the homemade idea. We're all exciting to give and recieve homemade presents this year.   The boys have learnt that a gift made by the hands of someone who loves you is so much more than the sum of its parts. It is a token of time spent thinking about the recipient, love and care poured into a useful and thoughtful item. It is an eco-friendly alternative with less travel miles, no packaging, often made with recycled materials and with only a little bit of child labour ;)  It is a gift to be proud of giving and a gift to cherish recieving.  And (most if the time) the giver gets to have fun making it!

I had wondered if I would continue this challenge next year, afterall, it is a lot of work. But with all the benefits of doing it, I couldn't just stop now.  So next year will be another homemade gift year, and then maybe, many more after.

Ginger (or chocolate) bread houses (or sleighs)

Last year's mini houses.

One of the things I love about Christmas in our home is that we adopt traditions from all over the world and make Christmas all about us and what we like.  One of those adopted traditions is the gingerbread house.  Back when my kids were very little and my younger brother and sister were small too, I would have the four kids during the holidays.  It was at this time that my then neighbour gave me my first gingerbread house kit.  We had a ball!  I stuck the house together and the four kids attached a huge amount of lollies to it (and rather a lot in their mouths).  We left it on display and then after Christmas, I let them all dig in and eat it.  One of the best things about gingerbread houses is how pretty they look even if you let the kids do it all without any adult views to symmetry and clever decorating.

Our first gingerbread house was a kit version with people etc.

We've made a gingerbread house each year since then, and last year, I made my own gingerbread for the project.  Can I just say - the kits are great, but gingerbread is easy to make and you can cut it however you like and it tastes awesome when you make it yourself!  Last year we made a collection of small houses, some to give as gifts and some to keep for the kids.  They make lovely gifts, but the only downside is that I have friends who don't like ginger.  So this year, we have made some changes to the recipe and have ginger and chocolate bread houses to give away and a sleigh with reindeer that we will put together next week. 

I thought I'd share the recipes and template ideas with you.  I made a batch of each this year and had enough dough to make four of the small houses, 2 reindeer, a sleigh and a large pile of tree and gingerbread man shaped biscuits.

Gingerbread

125g butter
1/2 cup tightly packed brown sugar
1 egg
3 tablespoons golden syrup
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons of ginger
3/4 teaspoon of bicarb soda
2 1/2 cups plain flour

"Chocolate bread"

125g butter
1/2 cup tightly packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 heaped teaspoons cocoa
3/4 teaspoon of bicarb soda
2 cups plain flour

Directions for both types

With an electric beater, cream the softened butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the egg and beat well.  Add the other wet ingredient and beat well.  In a separate bowl, sift the dry ingredients and mix well.  Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir, and then knead with your hands.  The dough will be relatively crumbly.  Form the dough into 3 mounds.  Roll out (with flour/baking paper/your choice of rolling out method) one mound to about 4-5mm thick.  Use your templates to cut out shapes with a knife and then carefully lift the shapes onto a lined baking tray with an egg slice.  Continue rolling out and cutting shapes until all dough is used.  Bake at 180C for 10-15min until just starting to change colour.  Cool on trays for a few minutes and then transfer to cooling racks to cool completely.

Decorating requires tongue sticking out levels of concentration!

Templates

Use cardboard from a cereal box to draw up your templates.  You can then cut them out, lay them on top of the rolled out dough (printed side of the box down) and use a knife to carefully cut around the shapes.  The templates can then be gently wiped clean and put away for next year. 

To make the mini houses you will need:
2 side walls 5cm x 8cm
2 end walls 5cm square with a 3cm tall triangle on top
2 roof pieces 5cm x 9cm

One of this years complete mini houses.

To make the sleigh, you will need:
2 sleigh side shapes
1 big square for the back
1 smaller square for the front
2 (or more) reindeer/horse shapes

Enlarge this image to fit on an A4 sheet and you should be able to use my templates, or feel free to make your own better ones ;)

This image is of my templates.  The bigger square is 8cmx8cm.  Feel free to copy the image and scale in your own program.

To assemble

Make up a batch of royal icing by gently beating an egg white and then beating in about 1 1/2 cups of icing sugar (I use the mixture, not pure) and a teaspoon of lemon juice.  Spoon into a piping bag (or snap lock back with a corner cut off).

Use the chocolate shapes, ginger shapes or a combination of both depending on your (or your gift recipients) tastes.

A chocolate house assembled and ready for decorating.

For the houses, I assemble on a foil covered coaster.  Run a line of the icing along the front of the coaster and down each side where the walls will stand (test the spacing with your pieces first).  On on of the end wall, pipe a line of icing up the back of the wall edges and place the piece onto the line of piping on the coaster.  Quickly glue the two wall pieces into place to hold it up, then attach the back wall.  Use more icing to attach the two roof pieces and fill in the gap in the top with more icing.  Your icing doesn't need to be neat, you won't notice it when you finish the decorating!

I like to give my house a couple of minutes for the 'concrete' to dry, and then go to town with the lollies!  Use whatever you like in terms of lollies, but we particularly like smarties, mini marshmallows and candy canes and tiny teddy biscuits make nice residents :).  Last year we used small chocolate bars cut on an angle to make chimneys and some fruit/musk sticks, and this year we used some licorice allsorts.  Use your imagination and have fun.

Lots of bright lollies make pretty houses.

To make the sleigh, I will join the four pieces and then stand the horse shapes at the front.  They will have pretzel antlers added and I have lots of decorating ideas.  I'll share a picture when its done.


Have fun!

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas

It is nice to be back!  Back on the internet and all the good things it has to offer after over 2 weeks without it.  You may have heard of the fire in the Warrnambool Telstra Exchange (or maybe not), this fire wiped out all telecommunications in the district and caused some minor chaos.  There was no eftpos, ATMs or online banking; no internet at all which also meant no security cameras in the banks; we couldn't call anyone and the Optus shop sold out of phones (all those who deemed it impossible to live without a mobile phone ran in there to buy one) and there were thousands of teenagers out there without access to facebook ;)

I was fine without it all for a while, but by the end of the first week without a home phone, very sketchy and occasional mobile coverage and no internet, I was beginning to feel a little bit isolated from the world.  We finally got our home phone back after 9 days, and the internet came back after 15 days.  It is quite scary how reliant on telecommunications we are isn't it?

Anyway, I'm back, and life has gone on here and everywhere else.  I have wanted to blog about so many things these last two weeks, and maybe I'll get to some of them, but I'm going to start with a Christmas update.

We always start our Christmassy things on the 1st of December, and this year I made the boys an advent calender.  Each pocket is made from a spray painted, sewn up toilet roll, and they are hung on our kitchen notice board.  Each day, the boys get a random lolly each and a slip of paper gives them a Christmas activity to do.  The first one was a little treasure hunt for a new Christmas book, and since then they've had things like decorate the tree, visit Santa for a photo, watch a Christmas movie, write cards for their friends etc. 

Our tree is up and looking beautiful.  We bought a new tree this year after a very long family discussion about the various environmental impacts of tree choices.  In the end we decided on a new plastic tree.  We completely understand the implications of plastic trees, but we will use it for another 10 years (or more) like our last one, and it will safely hold all of our precious decorations.  Our tree has no Christmas lights this year though as the power to run even LED lights just seems wasteful in a country where it isn't dark until after 9pm at Christmas time.  Our tree still twinkles though with tinsel and decorations that catch the suns rays through the window.

Our tree decorations are a family tradition.  Each year since I was four, I would choose a special decoration and mum would write my name and the year on it.  When I left home, I took all of my decorations with me, and they all hang on our tree.  Stu and I continued this tradition for the two of us until the boys came along, and then we started it for them.  Each year we all hang our own decorations and remember all of the Christmases past, and the boys will be able to take their decorations for their own tree when they move out.  A beautiful tradition.

And we are starting to get a pile of presents under the tree too!  I've been very busy in my own 'Santa's workshop' and have made all the presents to give this year.  I have about 5 to complete and am so proud of the gifts we're giving.  The four of us will also get a few homemade gifts, including all of the 'stocking stuffers' for the boys which I've made too.  I wish I could tell you all the things I've made, but I don't want to spoil the surprises!  But I can tell you my crochet hooks, sewing machine, hammers, kitchen tools and every other crafty tool I have has been very busy making a wide variety of gifts.  I've taken photos of them all, and promise to share after Christmas. (want some of my ideas for this Christmas? head over to my Pinterest page to see some of my inspirations for this year and next). 

There are a few purchased gifts under the tree, some new ones for the kids, but mostly secondhand items.  I took the kids to the opshop to do their Christmas shopping.  They loved it, and so did the opshop staff who helped them shop!  For a grand total of $12, they each bought a gift for me and one for Stu and they are so proud of their choices - I can't wait to see what they bought!

Our December greening challenge is to not use wrapping paper.  All the gifts we're giving are therefore wrapped in re-usable bags sewn from Christmas fabric.  They are very simple rectangular bags in a range of fabrics and sizes.  We'll gather them back from people after they open the gifts (unless they really want them and have a use for them) and use them again for years to come.  This year we've tied them with curling ribbon, just because we still had heaps from previous years, but once that runs out, I'll buy reusable satin ribbon too.  Gift tags are made from recycled Christmas cards and pieces of plastic cut from milk bottles.

Today, I'm working on another sewn Christmas toy gift and some more Christmas baking.  Today's advent calender task is for the boys to decorate a plate of Christmas biscuits and deliver them to a friend/neighbour, so we'll do that this arvo.  And in the midst all those tasks, I'm going to travel around blogland checking out what all my favourite bloggers have been up to!

I hope you're having a very happy December too
xx

Slow living month - September

I know I'm 5 days late with this journal - its been hard to find the time and motivation to get here to blog this week.  We're on school holidays and the boys and I have been having a ball, and the weather has been great, so I've been in the garden a lot.  But I do love these journal type of entries, so here it is, Slow Living Month September.  Do pop over to Slow Living Essentials and see what others have been up to.... that's what I plan to do as soon as I'm done typing this :)

~Nourish~

We celebrated early spring one night by taking our dinner outside.  We cooked our tortillas on the BBQ plate and ate by candlelight.  We realised that early spring is really the only time you can eat outside by candlelight with kids - in summer it is too late by the time it is dark and in winter it is too cold.  It was a lovely, impromptu, weeknight dinner.  I love making our own tortillas, it is one of the few things that Stu and I cook cooperatively and I love it.  We are also now getting plenty of eggs, so there has been a resurgence of egg based meals and pancakes on weekends.

~Grow~

September in the garden has been all about preparing for summer crops.  I continued to plant and nurture seedlings in the cold frame and started planting out.  Unfortunately, snails and slugs are a huge problem here, so I've been fighting them at every step along the way.  I've continued to harvest greens from the garden and the snow peas are finally producing a few crisp pods that never seem to make it to the dinner table.  My son has decided that they are a snacking vegetable, not a dinner vegetable - I tend to agree.  I've loved joining in on the garden journal with Squiggly Rainbow too (and will be back on that when the holidays are over!).

~Prepare~

The coriander that has filled our curries with its colour and flavour through winter has sensed the spring and is bolting to seed, so I have picked huge amounts of it to make frozen coriander ice blocks using this recipe.  They're lovely and will hopefully keep the deliciousness going for us a bit longer.
We also continued to bottle beer and our first batch of alcoholic ginger beer.  The alcohol level is relatively low, but the taste is gooooooood!

 

~Reduce~

Lots of lovely op shop finds this month - clothes and books for the kids, crafty things, clothes and a couple of homewares for me and something special for Stu.  An espresso machine! It's not a super fancy one, but it works really well and Stu is enjoying his morning coffee from it.  He is not enjoying so much the regular requests for 'cinos (strawberry, vanilla, caramel and chai) from the rest of us ;) 
I've also continued to reuse and repurpose a lot of 'junk' through the garden for various jobs.

~Green~

Our challenge for last month was to do 'random acts of greening'.  We built (from recycled materials) a new compost bin; switched to bamboo compostable toothbrushes and discovered new ways to be just a little bit greener.  The kids also took it upon themselves to pick up litter when they go for their walks to check the mail or exercise the dogs - proud of my little greenies.  Our bamboo toothbrushes needed a bit of decoration.  They are all exactly the same, so we decorated the handles of them with nailpolish so we know whose is whose.

~Create~

I'm still working on my jumper that I had hoped to have finished by spring, but keep getting interrupted in its creation to make costumes for dancing, birthday presents etc.  And I have had to write a plan for the next few months of Christmas present making as the sheer quantity on the to do list was overwhelming me.  

Here are a couple of little birthday presents I made this month and was able to gift to the little girls they were for yesterday. They loved them!

A Tangled Happy Wand for a 5 year old friend

A little "spare pocket" handbag with crocheted decals.

We also started on the pizza oven, and are discovering creative masonry :) We built the arch to the base - so proud!  (photos soon)


~Discover~

The library loads have been huge this month and I was also given some vintage pattern books which are gorgeous.  On the reading pile are: Living the Good Life, A Katie Fforde novel, numerous books on building woodfired ovens, a couple of copies of G magazine and a book called A slice of Organic. 

~Enhance~

We had our Spring Hafla at Belly Dance.  I love gathering with the community that we've built with our little belly dance group.  We always have a great atmosphere and fabulous fun.  I was so proud of my own kids and all of the other Belly Kids and adult students who graced the stage with the crazy collection of dances I've been teaching them this year.  It is always such a pleasure to watch a student take to the stage for the first time and to watch the buzz they get from such an achievement.  I had numerous people congratulate me on the diversity and family friendliness of the group, I work hard to make sure that all women and kids, regardless of their abilities or body shape, size age etc are not only welcome, but truly included.  I'm really glad this shows.  I also love that I get to share this with my hubby and kids - special!

Some crazy Shaabi style fun with my intermediate students.  This style is representative of modern 'nightclub' style dancing, hence the casual jeans costume.  All just for fun really :)

~Enjoy~

I've enjoyed the first rays of Spring sunshine.  The first week of holidays with my kids.  Hanging out on screen free Saturday nights with Stu.  Having my stepmum visiting and taking her to meet Clover (and in doing so getting to spend time with my awesome bro and sis-in-law again).  A photoshoot with my little spunky guys before their school disco.  A family day at my mum's place where I felt closer to her and my little brother and sister than I have in a long time.  Dinner and dancing fun with my dancing sisters, including some time where we banned belly dance talk and just connected as friends.  And much more. A good month.

12 months of Greening - March - Recycle, Repurpose, Restore

Time for another back track post about our six months of greening (before this month is over....).

March was the big month of renovating our kitchen, so it seemed apt to set this as our recycling and repurposing month.  Repurposing or upcycling items saves on landfill and also on the energy used to produce brand new materials and items.  It is also a great way to save money and create unique items that have character and charm.  We recycle and repurpose things a lot, and we wanted to set it as a theme in our kitchen.

We had done a lot of research into our kitchen design, and threw out a lot of plans that would need significant work that we couldn't do ourselves, and also designs that were all new.  It had to be recycled and it had to be on a budget, but it also had to be practical and stylish with the following list of must haves - a dishwasher, a comfortable place for the family to sit and eat, a pot rack and a plate rack.  In the end I think less than half of the items in the kitchen were new, and these we built ourselves as much as possible.  The finished results were even better than we could have hoped for.  These are some of the recycled and repurposed things that we included in our kitchen (the photos were taken throughout the renovations).

Our pot rack was made with a broken sash window that we picked up for free

Our blind and the matching rag rug were made using vintage sheets from the op-shop.  And the tiles/splashback in our kitchen we kept, updating them with a coat of tile paint.

This sideboard was an ugly piece I picked up at an opshop for $65.  We painted it, added a new top and these vintage handles that I bought on ebay (you can see it in the kitchen below).

Our island bench was another solid wood op-shop find, $60.  We removed the doors from the cupboard, painted the bare shelf unit and added a timber slab to the top of it.  It is a home for all of my electrical appliances and a great place for family and/or friends to sit.  And the cork board on the wall (which was there before the renovation) was made with leftover cork tiles we found in our shed when we moved in here.

The 1970s spice rack on the wall next to the window was found in the op-shop, complete with jars for $5.  I painted it to match the kitchen and added new labels.

Our pantry was the original pantry in our kitchen, but it was a peach colour and plain flat laminex.  We painted it and added some timber trim and the old handles so it would tie in with the overall look.

We were going to have new lino floor laid, but decided to work with what we had, pulling up the old lino and having our baltic pine floors sanded and varnished (see the beautiful finish above).

We also recycled items that we took out of the kitchen.  The old lino went to my mum and to the kids cubby house and the old kitchen cupboards became shed and laundry cupboards and will also be used in the brew shed and as a potting bench.

In addition, we chose to keep items that were fine in our old kitchen like the oven/hob, the window, fridge, etc - why replace things that don't need replacing?

The work we did on our kitchen was hard, but very satisfying.  I love knowing that many of the items in the kitchen had a life before.  The entire kitchen reno also came in well under our frugal budget and I love the result every day when I'm working in there.

You'll find lots of other recycling projects on my blog, and many more to come.
I'd love to here about your favourite recycling/repurposing projects too.

Six months worth of homemade gifts

This year, I made the commitment to give ONLY homemade gifts for 12 months.  I've tried homemade gifts sporadically over the years with limited success, but this year I made it clear to everyone that I was making all the gifts and have made some really beautiful things and been really happy with the reactions so far.

I decided to make the gifts for a few reasons.  1. it is usually cheaper.  2. it is nearly always greener (particularly when you can use recycled materials) 3. I can get most of the gifts without a trip to the shops and 4. the gifts are more personal

I thought I would share with you what I've made - if you want to know how I made any particular item, let me know, I'm happy to share! :)

(I'll post each one individually as I make them in the future - this post is very pic heavy!)

Gift 1 - Personalised photo coasters for my Father in law

Gift/s 2 - a CD/DVD case and a funky vase for my sister's 14th birthday

Gift 3 - Cotton dishcloths as a housewarming present

Gift 4 - Upcycled woolen cap for my Stepdad's birthday

nice modelling Stu! xo

  

Gift 5 - Rosemary Cedar and Mandarin handscrub with a bamboo washcloth for a friend's birthday

love this photo taken on our rustic kitchen floor before it was polished!

Gift 6 - A cupcake pincushion for a friend (and a framed pincushion for me!)

Gifts 7 (there have been about 4 of these) - presents for boys who have invited my kids to their parties - juggling balls and trinket keepers

Gifts 8 (there's been about 3 of these) - presents for girls whose parties the boys have gone to - girly trinket keepers and crocheted hair clip and headband sets

(oops!  no photos!!)

Gift 9 - upcycled vintage pillowcase showing bags for mother's day

Gift 10 - a recycled magazine bowl for a friend's birthday

this isn't my bowl, but looks a lot like the one I made

Gift 11 - an upcycled tshirt bangle for a friends 16th birthday (delivered with a jar of homemade spicy nut mix)

Gift 12 - a roll up/wall pocket xbox game storage thingamy for my brother's 16th (also delivered with a jar of homemade spicy nut mix)

Gift 13 - a crocheted mohair cowl for my mother in law's birthday

Gift 14 - a sewn clutch/handbag for a friends birthday

Gift 15 - a nappy stacker (full of our hand me down pocket nappies) for my brother Sister in law's  unborn baby

(gah!  no pics for any of those!)

I think that is it so far!  My hubby and kids got in on the theme for my birthday too and put together a homemade foot spa for me - love 'em!

 

Do you make gifts?  What do you make?  Would love some new ideas!!