Christmas Gifts

So I'm finally getting around to telling about my Christmas crafting. I don't know why it has taken me so long. But I promise I will try to be more diligent about posting. :)

I was pretty much broke this year for Christmas and so everyone got things that didn't take a lot of money. At first I was going to give everyone on my list handmade gifts, but that didn't end up happening. Let's just say my Christmas spirit was a little on the lazy side. But I did make some pretty cute things.

To start off with, this was my kiddo's first Christmas! So he had to have all the baby's first Christmas ornaments and jammies and outfits of course. He also needed a stocking. Everyone in my family (extended family included) has matching stockings that someone made for us. But I haven't requested one for Baby Z yet so I got creative. We had an extra stocking laying around so I decorated it for him.

 I just used glue and glitter for the name. I hot glued every green button I could find to make the tree. And then the star and the present are construction paper. I painted the red ribbon on the present. I think it turned out pretty cute. Except in the end it was a pretty small stocking and all of his gifts in it kind of got stuck at the top. Still cute though!

The next thing I made was a headband for my sister. I forgot to take a picture of the finished product (boo!) but it turned out pretty cute. And I actually used the sewing machine for it! haha. It pretty much confirmed the fact that I do not sew well at all. Even in inch long straight lines. I got the idea from this post at Make It & Love it. Here are the ones she made:

 I used an old t-shirt that I had tried to cut up for an off the shoulder shirt but it didn't turn out well so it was just sitting around waiting to be cut up some more. It was yellow which is my sister's favorite color so it worked perfectly. This was really easy and turned out pretty cute. I was going to make another one with some pink t-shirt scraps I had, but I ended up only having the sleeves and some really small pieces of it so it wasn't enough. But I plan on making more of these sometime because they are really cute! And I will definitely take pictures next time!

For my other sister I made a crocheted bracelet that also turned out pretty cute!

 It's just a cuff style bracelet about two inches wide. I used white yarn that I had at home and found a really cute large red (maroon ish?) button from our giant box of buttons. And it does button and unbutton.

I just stitched about 5 or so across and then double crocheted until it got to the right length. The button hole was done by double crochet in the first stitch then single chain 3 or 4 then double crochet the remaining stitches. Then I did one more double crochet row on top of that. Also, I'm not really brushed up on my technical crochet terms. I just wing it (what a surprise!) It was super easy and fast to make. I will probably end up having to make one of these for myself as well.

The last thing I made was a scarf for my grandmother. She actually requested that gift for herself because she had seen another scarf I had made. She bought the yarn for me so she could pick out the color and type she wanted. And then I got to work. This seriously took me so long to do and I'm not sure why. I just didn't work on it every day. It also turned out curly. I'm not sure how else to explain it. I was trying to go for just a straight plain scarf. I think what happened was that I crocheted it horizontally because I wanted the lines to be running the length of the scarf. And since I'm a little rusty on my crocheting, I added an extra stitch at the end of each row (I think). So I ended up with each row being a little longer than the last, which made it curl up. But I'm going to pretend that I meant for it to be that way, because it kind of looks that way.

Here it is laid out so you can see the width, and the fringe. She requested that it be long and wide so she could wrap it around her neck and chin to keep warm with.

And here I am modeling it. You can see the curly-ness here. But I kind of like it that way. Gives it character, right? 

So that was my creative output for the holidays. I actually enjoyed it. It inspired me to be even craftier next year! (But hopefully I will have some more funds available and I can be a little more generous.) All-in-all it was a pretty good holiday, even though my grandmother was in the hospital recovering from back surgery. We got to visit her pretty much every day, and she was recovering well. She's since been able to come home, praise the Lord! So here's to a new year and new craft adventures!

Oh, the weather outside is HOT

It's the first of December today! As I wrote yesterday, I'm starting a new photo-a-day challenge this month thanks to Fat Mum Slim. Today's prompt was "8 o' clock." At 8 o' clock this morning, I had just got done feeding the baby and was putting him back to bed for a couple more hours of sleep. I was lazily laying in bed. (Anything to sleep just a little while longer!) So the resulting photo was:

Staring at the window, wishing the sun wasn't up yet! Since we just moved into this house in September, we are slowly getting things the way we want them. All the blinds on all the windows are SUPER cheap and do pretty much nothing to keep the sun out. And of course my bedroom window faces East. Eventually I'll get around to getting some curtains or some room-darkening blinds (I hope).

The other event on today's agenda was going to Christmas on the Square, a kind of street fair kicking off the season in Historic Downtown Weatherford. Downtown has a TON of really cute shops and restaurants. I did pretty much all my Christmas shopping there last year. The event today was filled with food, craft booths, music, and fun. The high today according to the Weather Channel was a brisk 80 degrees, and at one point the car thermometer said 83. Whew! It's December and it feels more like summer outside. So we loaded up in our tank tops, t-shirts, and shorts and headed downtown.

It was hot and sunny. Everyone thought Zachary's sunglasses were so cute though! Part of our church's booth was supposed to be to serve wassail, and instead of serving it hot, they ended up serving it over ice. There was an ice sculpture contest earlier in the day, but by the time we got there, Mr. Nutcracker was looking a little droopy.

Even though it was hot, we still had a fun time. Zachary got to take his very first picture with Santa! In his shorts, and T shirt no less. And we ended up coming home with 2 different types of local salsas, and 3 different scents of wax cubes for a candle warmer that are also made locally. I got an idea for my next crafting project too. A booth had a really cute "Welcome" metal door hanger with snowmen on it that my mom really liked, but part of it was bent really badly. So I promised her I would make something to hang on the front door (what have I gotten myself into?) All in all, it was a good time, and a good way to really kick off the Christmas season (I just can't get into Christmas before Thanksgiving is over, sorry). Now if only the weather will cooperate then it might actually feel like Christmas! :)