Homemade gifts are best in my opinion. I love giving a piece of myself by making gifts. I enjoy all types of crafts but particularly love a little fabric therapy by sewing and quilting.
Last year, Libby and I started a new tradition - an annual crafting day on the Friday after Thanksgiving. We thought it would be a great way to spend time with friends and family and get started on some Christmas projects...AND avoid that crazy shopping called Black Friday!!
This year I decided that we would make some stackable gift boxes. I downloaded the pattern from Northern Girl Stamper. The pattern is from her 20 Days of Christmas Gift Giving Book. There are some great projects in this and I will be making many more of them.
Libby and I invited several friends and family and had a great day!!!
Here's Jessica searching for just the right bling for her box!!
Libby looks deep in thought about where she is going to put the tape!
Jessica's Nana, Jackie, my Mom and Jessica's sister, Jenna all look very serious about their crafts!
Jessica's Mom, Kim making sure she gets the direction right before cutting.
The Tiffany table - friend Tiffany and cousin Tiffany!!
Everyone was hard at work creating some beautiful boxes and here is what they came up with...
Mom is going to fill her boxes with waffle cookies - Can't wait!!! I think we need a bigger box though!
Jenna made these beautiful snowflake boxes that everyone loved!
Kim made a great set with red and black and snowflakes - beautiful - my favorite colors!!
Tiffany made personalized boxes for gifts - love 'em. I am going to copy this idea for the great nieces and nephews!!
My beautiful daughter in law with her set including swirls and bling!! Did you notice the chocolate bar on top???
Nana made a great set in black, white, and red and a little bling!!
Libby with just one of the cute sets she made. Shhh, the others are a secret!!
Both Tiffany's showing off cousin Tiffany's finished set. This was a group effort because baby Emmalyn wanted some attention too!!
We had such a wonderful time and look forward to next year when we can get friends and family together again!!!! Here are all the boxes.....
Jenna
Jessica
Jessica side view
Kim
Tiffany Smith
Tiffany again!!
Nana Jackie
Nana Jackie again!
Libby Lou
Cousin Tiffany - don't you love the bling snowflake on top??
Looks like Tiffany has all her Christmas shopping done!!!
One of my favorite things to make is baby gifts. I love creating burp rags, bibs, blankets and especially quilts. Our friends recently welcomed their beautiful baby girl Annalyn to the world and I just had to make her a special quilt with her name on it.
I used a pattern that I bought several years ago and modified the center block so I could add her name. The pattern is called Lucky Stars by Atkinson Designs.
Here is the finished quilt. I just love the colors that the Mom picked out!!
I used super soft minky on the back. I just love how the minky fabric feels. The quilting showed up well on the back showcasing the star design.
Happy Birthday Annalyn!!! Hope you love snuggling under your quilt for many years.
I have started a new tradition of making favors for my beautiful daughter-in-law to give to her students on the holidays. For Thanksgiving I found this adorable turkey box on MyScrapChick.com.
Here is the process for making a flock of turkeys -
First I cut out the pattern from white cardstock so I would have a template for where to place the colored card stock.
Then I cut the colors in the size needed. I discovered afterwards that I probably cut them a little big because I was having them right next to each other. As I got to the end I cut them smaller to save paper. You live and you learn right?
Here is a sample of the cricut mat with all the colors laid out.
I cut out all twenty of the turkeys and kept them together in stacks so that I could assemble them individually.
Here are all of the turkeys complete.
Each of the turkeys was attached to a small box perfect for adding treats. Part way through cutting out the boxes, my mat decided not to be sticky any more. After I started with the new mat, I had to deal with this --
the paper rolled up because it was so hard to get off the sticky mat. No problem though, I was able to get them flattened out. Here is a stack of the completed boxes.
And here are the completed treat boxes - a flock of turkeys.
MyScrapChick.com has such cute patterns. I know I will be using more from them in the future to spoil Jessica's students.
I am sure at some point triplets would be fun, but I can't imagine having three babies at once. Robby's cousin Tiffany has a friend who recently had triplets so she asked me to make some burp rags for her to give them. I sure had fun making matching burp clothes for them but I', really glad that I'm not the one having to get up in the middle of the night!!
I wanted the first ones to match but not be exactly the same. They are all pink and brown but with different ribbons.
Then I made another set using the same embroidery file but different colors. These do match.
I just love these stacked monograms. Years ago, I received an embroidered burp cloth when Libby was born. It was my favorite burp cloth and I have been making them as gifts ever since I got my embroidery machine. Hope this new mom loves hers as much as I did mine.
This next design is one of my favorites to make - A baby face (from Nobbie Neez) and the baby's name. I used a different color for the bow and name to make each one a little different.
I used the Curlz font on all of these burp cloths - it is one of my favorites for little girls. I just found a new site to purchase embroidery fonts and designs called "Five Star Fonts." They have some really cute fonts and designs.
Best wishes to the sleepless parents on raising three beautiful girls!!
Not long ago, Libby, Jessica and I were working on some crafts. We cut out some circles to use on goodie bags and then decided not to use them. As I was messing with the circles, I thought they really looked like eyeballs. Jessica and I had seen some treat boxes in the "Scrapbooks, etc." magazine so we made cards from their designs.
Here's the first one we made - Mr. Pumpkin -
Then our favorites - The Mummy family -
I think we are going to add a bow to this pink one especially for my niece Kadence!!!
And finally, Frankie -
Here's the whole gang looking at you - My son Nathan thinks they look like the Geico money - Ha!!
Our plan is to make some treat bags and staple them under the cards. I will make another post when we get those done.
