Now that Christmas is over...

For some reason, the Christmas spirit creates a crafty itch in my fingers. For me Christmas means bringing on the glue gun and sewing machine. I love making Christmas gifts and crafts. This is a good thing because in most cases it ends up saving us money on gifts. However, it's also a bad thing, because once I start a project I get stressed because there's a Christmas day deadline...or in this year's case our flight to Utah was the deadline - a whole week before Christmas. For instance, last year for Christmas I made Kyle, Janelle, and Spencer quilts - something I had never done before. And if I recall correctly my mom and I were madly tying those darn quilts right up until Christmas Eve. Fortunately they have had a lot of use this year, so it was worth the Christmas rush! This year, I didn't take on anything quite so large-scale, but did a few small things here and there for gifts. Now that presents have been exchanged I can show you why most of you didn't hear from me very much during the first half of December. :)

For my two baby nieces I made them bibs and bows. Of course I forgot to take a picture of the finished bibs I actually made, but here is a picture of the bib that I used as my inspiration. One of my mother-in-law's friends made this bib for Spencer and it is my absolute favorite one because it's hard for him to get off and it actually absorbs spilled stuff (the back is terry cloth). So just imagine this bib but one in pink and one in brown and turquoise. I have to say, I'm a little proud of myself. I've done quite a bit of sewing this past year, and I'm happy to report that I am finally comfortable with a sewing machine!

Here are the bows I made...inspired by my friend, Ashley. She's made Janelle some adorable bows, and I kept thinking to myself, how hard could it be? So I finally sat down one evening and studied bow after bow and finally came up with some cute ones. I admit, some of them did not turn out so cute, but after a few trials and errors I'd come up with enough good ones to give away as gifts.

For my co-op preschool moms, I wanted to give them something cute but preschool-related, and I came up with a little picture ornament. I made the ornament on the left in first grade, and decided to do the same thing with my preschool kids. I took their pictures the first day I had them, then printed them out and glued them to the wreaths then added a little ribbon at the top for a "hook." I looked everywhere for a little wreathe like mine was in, but I couldn't find them anywhere so finally I found these little "candle rings" and figured they'd work out just as well. I thought they turned out cute.

Along with Kyle's famous marshmallows, I made these ribboned glass ornaments to give to our neighbors and friends. I saw the idea in Family Circle magazine, and they were incredibly easy. All you need is a few different types of ribbon, clear glass balls, and double sided tape. They were the perfect project while enjoying "While You Were Sleeping."

This pillow I made for myself. For an Enrichment night we had a class on how to make cute little pillows out of place mats. My friend, Erin came up with the idea and also taught the class. Of course I was majorly scatterbrained the night of the class and completely forgot to go even after I'd paid for the materials, but Erin gave me the stuff and she'd put instructions on her blog, so it was easy enough for me to finish on my own. Basically you just buy a place mat (easily $3-$5), carefully cut open a small section of the seam, stuff it with pillow filling, restitch the seam, and oila! A majorly cute accent pillow!

This idea came from a Pottery Barn magazine. They had three frames that each contained the letters "B" "O" "O" (for Halloween). I can't remember how much it was, but the three frames with the letters were ridiculously expensive. The it dawned on me, I could easily do that! I already had the frames and needed some kind of Thanksgiving themed decoration, so I came up with this. I just made the letters on the computer and printed them out to be the size of the frames. I'm going to change it out soon to spell out "LOVE" for Valentine's day.

My amazingly crafty friend, Erin, also came up with this idea: cute boxes. She had the template on her blog for a square box, I needed a little bigger sized boxes, so I just printed out the template and played around with it 'til I got it the right size. They were fun to make and another great craft to do while watching a movie!

I made this one for my sister - it contained bows and an iTunes gift card.

This one was a birthday box for my niece, Celeste. It contained bows and a baby bracelet.