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!

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.

What a yummy weekend

The weather here is currently made for snuggly inside activities (ie. We're surrounded by rain and mud and it is generally cold and horrible).  We have made the most of it.
Yesterday my stepmum visited. We drank lots of tea, ate toast and fresh biccies and caught up on all the news and gave her her birthday present - an amigarumi bear and a pretty crocheted dishcloth - and the one for her partner - some warm crocheted handwarmers.  (my crochet hooks have been very busy laely!)

My brother and sister-in-law came in the afternoon (with my unborn niece or nephew who kicked me this visit! - naw, love him/her already).  More visitors called for more tea, more eating and more chatting. I cooked Dal Kofta from this recipe at veggienumnum - its my favourite dinner recipe at the moment - and teamed it with a simple chicken curry, rice and homemade naan. It was delicious. Not to be outcooked, my SIL cooked a fabulous sour cream and berry cake for dessert ..... Oh boy, too much yumminess! (and enough leftovers for tonight's dinner, yay!)


This isn't mine, but the recipe is so good that mine looked just the same
Love veggienumnum

The kids had school reports and work to share, including their fantastic chapter books that they wrote inspired by their favourite books - beast quest.  My talented brother drew pictures of their own imagined beasts for them to colour in.

Today its been just us, I've read some magazines that were left for me yesterday, baked bread, cleaned the washing machine and made what I'm calling my 'lunch break scarflet' (it took me an hour to make - nice) based on this pattern.

Stu watched footy and did the end of year books and the boys have loved a day of undisturbed play.
A simple, but lovely weekend.


Starting this week, i think I'm going to try some structured blogging... I love a bit of organisation.

Monday: crafting (and a few tutorials)
Tuesday: out in the garden
Wednesday: in the kitchen (recipes)
Thursday: greening
Friday: belly dance
Sunday: simply family life

I hope you had a lovely weekend too - whatever you got up to.

Guilt free shopping

Welcome Down to Earth-ers!

Hello!  Welcome to everyone popping over from Rhonda's blog!  I love Rhonda's "Weekend reading" posts, so feel very honoured to be a part of one.  I've filled up the tea-pot, so help yourself to a cup and have a look around.  Then come back often - I love visitors! :)

~~~

I have two big bad addictions - chocolate and shopping.  The first is fairly self explanatory, and we won't go into that, but shopping is a problem for someone who chooses to live on a tight budget and in a small home.  Not that I've ever been an extravagant shopper, but I am a sucker for the clearance racks and catalogues full of "bargains".  I'm reminded of this a lot this month as it is Toy Sale month.  Usually, in June, I've been around collecting all of the big shop toy catalogues and am busily browsing them with the kids and then buying "bargains" for birthdays and Christmas (that more often than not are not really wanted in 6 months....).  But not this year..... I have changed my ways!

image from http://theramblingsofamummy.blogspot.com.au/

Back in January, I made myself not buy anything for a month (other than groceries).  I didn't go to the shopping centres or down the street for a browse and I didn't go into opshops (thrift/charity stores) either.  I did really well and at the end of the month had a short list of 3 items that we needed to buy.  I think of all the things I probably would have bought and that I then saved on by not going, and I'm very pleased!

I'm allowed to shop again now, but I've gone right off the regular stores, and instead spend my shopping time (and dollars) in the local opshops.  Mum used to take us opshopping as kids, my best friend and I opshopped as teens, and as a mum of babies, I loved the opshop for toys and baby clothes.  Now I browse the opshop for craft items, household items, books and puzzles for the kids and clothes to wear or for repurposing/upcycling.  I still try to stick to the "needs" and less of the "wants", but at least with opshops, I don't feel so bad.

Opshops are great for so many reasons....

• By spending there you are usually helping a charity.
• You spend a very small amount of money to get your shopping fix items for your home
• You are recycling items that were no longer any use to someone else
• You never know what you'll find and the items are changing all the time
• You often find fabulous vintage/retro/antique items for a fraction of the price they are sold elsewhere.
• And if you buy to much (!) you can always donate the excess back and feel good for just making a financial donation :P

I wanted to share a few of my recently thrifted items with you now.

a sweet (and shiny - sorry) little teapot ($1)

no - not the dogs!  The sheets I used to crochet this rag rug for the kitchen (I used two at $2ea)
(but how cute are the dogs - Buddy and Hurley, they felt the need for some blog stardom)

In this photo you can see my roman blind, made from a vintage opshop sheet ($2), another sweet teapot hanging on the pot rack ($1) and my spice rack on the wall which I bought still in the 1970's box and complete with all the bottles and stickers ($5)

A beautiful and practical cast iron meat grinder ($8)

 

An antique sewing machine table/cupboard ($60).  It also came with a vintage sewing machine (not the original) but it wasn't in working order, so I have taken it out and will pass it on to my brother to "play" with.

There have been many more items lately, some not from opshops, but from vintage shops, garage sales and markets too.  I love buying second hand......

Do you opshop?  I'd love to see some of your favourite opshop purchases.  If you write a blog, perhaps you could write your own post on them (and link back here, I don't know how to do a proper bloggy party yet, but that'll work!)

Thanks so much for visiting! :D

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!!