It was a Very Crafty Christmas

Now that all our Christmas gifts have been delivered and distributed, it's safe to post some pictures. With a tight budget and a few creative ideas, we chose to hand-make many of the gifts we gave to our family this year, including our kids.

I use the word we loosely, as I think you know who did the crafting here. But John was supportive and appreciative and admired both the finished product and, let's be honest, the savings.

For my nieces, I made matching t-shirts with their initials, using some cute fabric and the genius of Wonder Under.
I loved these pink and red ladybugs!

And not to leave my sisters-in-law out of the personalization, they all got hand-painted tote bags. I used fabric paint, a sponge brush, and paper doilies for this craft, but I have to give props to Women's Day magazine for the idea.

My favorite project was for the babies in our family. Every baby loves tags, but 'Taggie' blankets are so pricey, so I winged it to make my own. These 18-inch square blankies are silky on one side and fuzzy on the other, with lots of tags. They aren't perfect, but they are certainly made with love and are each one-of-a-kind. My 6-month-old niece got this chocolate and pink one:
And Adam got chocolate and cream. With monkeys!
(It instantly became his favorite -- hooray!)

Adam also got a fleece tie blanket to match the ones I've made for both my other kids as babies. Lucy's is pink with leopard print, Josiah's is blue with black and white paw prints, so it seemed appropriate to make Adam's green with brown and cream zebra print. So cozy!

Lucy also got a fleecey gift. This was probably my easiest project. I made matching shawls for her and her American Girl doll. Scissor-cut fringe and zig-zag edge-stitching made them look nicely finished.

And a few of our gifts were what I wouldn't necessarily consider "hand-made," but they did require some assembly, so I'm including them, too.

We loved that this frame says "Papa" because that is what the kids call one of their grandpas.

Both Grandma and Nana got "brag bags." This one is Nana's, as our kids are her only grandchildren, but Grandma's included my two nieces, too. (How perfect that this bag had five frames for that reason!)

And one of my favorite ideas this Christmas has been a BIG hit in the house: Josiah's Bean Box. An under-bed storage box filled with Costco's 25 lb. bag of dried pinto beans and some pint-sized construction vehicles have made for hours of post-Christmas fun! It's like an indoor sandbox for the cold weather, minus the messiness of the sand, of course.

I had lots of fun this year coming up with ideas, creating them, and watching others enjoy them. For me, the real bonus to making gifts is the time I put into them, not only as a creative outlet, but also that I spend those moments thinking about the person who will receive the gift and getting to pray for them as I put it together.