A Very Crafty Christmas! (in review)

Posted by Ethne~

Ok, it’s New Year’s Eve, and dinner is cooking, so I’m a little late on the Monday post, but I promised Lori I’d post today since she and Steve are prepping for their New Year’s party.  We’re not heading to little city, ND, for it and I’ve been moping.  She’ll tell you about it sometime this week.

Before the holidays get too far away from us, though, I wanted to give you a run-down of my crafty Christmas gifts, sans a couple of them which haven’t been given away yet.  That’ll have to be an update.

For Dad & Connie and Mom D & Dad D, Shaun and I made napkin rings out of forks a la this inspiration from a blog Lori often reads (Renovating a Brooklyn Limestone) here.  She’s pretty creative and loves Halloween.  If you’re into baby stuff, she had a baby, yesterday, so she just decorated a funky nursery.  I also made homemade cloth napkins with the hem stitch on Thrifty Nana’s (my mom) serger sewing machine.  So slick.  The forks were $.25 apiece from Salvation Army and the fabric was from my stash.

These are hers from Brooklyn Limestone; mine don't say 'eat' on them.

I used the serger hem stitch today to make little baby butt wipes for the girls' baby dolls - same principle for cloth napkins, they are just about 14"x14" or 16"x16", depending on what size you're aiming for.  FYI, the baby butt wipes are 3"x5" and they're adorable.

For all the gals, I crocheted scarves.  Mostly in the infinity patterns I found either on allfreecrochet.come or Pinterest like this one.  I did make up my own pattern and I plan to post that in January for you guys.  The yarn was all from Michael’s and JoAnn’s, with my coupons.

Scarf I made for Thrifty Nana

For Rich and Mel, we do Pinterest Challenge gifts for each other, but we haven’t gotten together, so those RAD gifts will be the update.  We can do multiple gifts for each other but can’t spend more than $10 apiece, besides the basic crafting supplies which we can use for other stuff like glue or Mod Podge.

I like the girls to give everyone an ornament, so this year Shaun saved up some beer bottle caps and we painted the insides of them white and then with a black felt-tip pen, some orange felt, Christmas-y ribbon and the glue gun, we created snowman ornaments.  I had everything except for the white acrylic paint, which, with my Michael’s phone app coupon, cost less than $2.

I also made a Santa key since our house doesn't have a fireplace.  All this was from the stash and I gave it to the girls on Christmas Eve to hang on our door.

I was jonesing to try the sharpie baked onto mugs/plates/etc. technique so I had the girls sign their names onto plain white coffee mugs I found at Good Will for less than $1 apiece – they were stoneware, so I knew they would hold up in the oven.  You write on the mug – if you mess up, you can remove it with rubbing alcohol – let it dry overnight, then bake it for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.  It’s supposed to be totally permanent, though I didn’t test the dishwasher.  We made one of these for Grandpa Paul (my dad) and Shaun’s brother, Scott (and to his we secretly had his future step-daughter, Ava, sign too).

This is from Pinterest - I totally didn't do the fingerprint thing.  We needed room for the 5-year-old Sharpie signatures.

Sorry I didn’t take pictures of all of these things.  If possible, I’ve provided links instead.  It was pretty much a gift-crafting sweatshop around this place, so I didn’t always think to have the camera at hand.

Last but not least, I did put the kids to work making a holiday decoration for our house: button Christmas trees.  Thrifty Nana gave me a big jar of old buttons, many of which I’ve used for the scarves; I’ve seen a lot of crafts with buttons on Pinterest, so what’s better than let the kids decorate a felt Christmas tree with glue and buttons?  Nothin’, that’s what.  Kept them busy for a good hour.  I sewed a metal keyring on the back with some green thread and then hung it onto the door via a small 3M hook.

I'd recommend Elmer's glue with wax paper beneath.

So that’s the Crafty Christmas!  It was a lot of fun.  Shaun and the kids got involved.  For his part, beating some forks into submission (17 to be exact), was a project Shaun could sign on for.

Happy New Year’s Eve, Friends!  Stay safe tonight!