A Completely Crafted Christmas!: Part 1

Well, my idea to completely make all of my Christmas presents was a success!  I will just put it out there that part of my boyfriends gift was store bought and part of a girlfriends gift was also store bought (but both of those gifts also had a homemade component to them).

The goal of my personal challenge was not specifically set out for me to save money.  I am always thrifty when it comes to searching for materials to craft with, but I wouldn’t necessarily say that I spent any less on Christmas gifts this year, than I would have if I had of store bought.   My goal for this challenge was to simply see if I could hand make all of my gifts.

First of all, if you are planning on doing this in the future, I highly recommend starting early!  In fact, truth be told I already know one of the gifts I am making for someone for next year!  The great thing about crafting all of these gifts, was that it gave me a chance to try out so many different crafting techniques.

So here are some of the things I made.  Over the next week I will be adding pictures of the other gifts, but to start with.......

Steven (my boyfriend) and I had decided to get his niece the book ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ by Eric Carle, so I found this cool ‘Vintage Simplicity ‘ pattern at Fabric land for making fabric yo-yo stuffed toys.  I changed the face of the pattern to make it look more like the caterpillar from the book.  The cool thing is, the fabric yo-yo’s are strung onto an elastic, so he moves like a caterpillar!  I had fun 'bugging' (ha!) my brother with him before we gave it to Steven’s niece. J

              

For both of my brothers, I made flannel PJ pants (and fudge and caramel corn).  They turned out really well, and were super easy to make!  I have some really cool snowman print flannel that I bought, and I’m planning on using the same pattern to make myself a pair.  OH!  And I got to test out the 'button hole' function on my sewing machine! Sew cool ;)

For my sister in law, I did some knitten’, and made some mittens!  I’m not much of a knitter, so I used a pattern for a pair of mittens that you only needed to use two needles for, and then you sew up the seams with a needle.  I Youtubed so much for this craft!  Several years ago I tried this pattern out, and gave up after restarting the mittens THREE TIMES!  My problem was that I thought the symbol “m1” meant to “miss one stitch”, when in fact it meant to “make one stitch”.  You can see how I messed the mittens up.  Not this time though.  Thank you Youtube!  I also braided some yarn together so the mittens could be attached through a coat.  Along with the mittens came a cute little set up quilted coasters J

                                        
Some other gifts that were in the mix included a reversible apron, homemade cards and some cupcake pincushions!

For my dad, I made a snuggie.... or as Simplicity patterns calls it: A Lounge Blanket.  I thought I was SO WITTY when I attached a card that said “FLEECE NAVI-‘DAD’”. Ha ha ha. 

For my mom I made a quilt!  It was all machine quilted, except for the binding done by hand.  I made the pattern up myself, but the idea for the blocks that have the uneven 9 patches in them came from a book.  In the book the pattern was for a small pillow, so I just adjusted the sizing!  The finished quilt is about 5 feet wide by 6 feet tall! 

Overall... a fun and successful crafty Christmas!  There are still a few more things to come soon!

~Becca