Handmade Christmas Gifts

Christmas is a week away.  Can you believe it?  Here's a little peek at some of the gifts I have made.

For my nieces, I used this pattern to make little dolls.  I used vintage sheets for their dresses and various patterned fabrics to match their hair.  One of these shown here is going to be for my little girl and a blond one is on her way to Kansas :)

For my mom, I made her this embroidery piece.  In case you can't see it well, it says, "The best moms get promoted to grandma."  I had seen this phrase before on something and thought it was so cute.

What gifts have you been working on?

Christmas Tree Memory Ornaments

Hi Everyone!  Today I have a quick craft you can do to commemorate your Christmas trees.  If you get a real tree, most places will cut a slice off of the bottom for you.  Save this piece and you can turn it into a memorable decoration.

Start with your plain Christmas tree slice.  Clean it off the best you can and sand any rough spots.

Use a wood-burner to add the year and any other decoration or message you want.  I added simple little illustrations on mine.

Next, use acrylic paint to fill in any illustrations that you would like. 

Finally, screw and eye-screw into the top and add a ribbon.  We had to pre-drill holes to get the screw into the wood.

Now you can start your own Christmas tree collection!  Hang them on your tree if they are small enough of if you are like us and keep buying super chunky trees, hang them on the wall!

Finished Embroidery Piece

Christmas is over but I finally finished my embroidery piece.  It's not perfect but it makes me smile :)

Blogging Business Artisans Secret Santa

This Christmas, I participated in a secret Santa exchange with an etsy team I'm on, Blogging Business Artisans.   I received some really awesome gifts from Edi of Memories for Life Scrapbooks.

First is this really sweet ornament featuring a photo of my husband and I.  It's from our wedding day so it really makes me smile to see it on our tree.

Second, she sent these lovely coasters engraved with our last name.  Awesome, right?

IC#52- Bling

Since I was out of town and sick for most of this week, my Iron Craft project is a completion of last week's project.  Our theme this week is Bling.  Since I made glitter animals last week, I finished up my glitter giraffe for this week.

That's it!  An entire year of Iron Craft done!  But don't worry, another year of Iron Craft will be happening in 2012.

Want to see more Iron Craft pieces?  Check out the flickr group here.  Want to join in the fun?  Check out the blog here.

IC#51- Glittery Elephant Ornament

Our theme this week on Iron Craft was mulligan.  This means we could re-do any of the challenges from the past year.  I chose to do one that I hadn't done before; since I joined Iron Craft in week 9, there are 8 challenges I didn't do!  I chose week one, Lighting the Winter Gloom. 

I had been wanting to make a glitter animal ornament for awhile after seeing this project on curbly.  Plus Target had some great plastic animals in their dollar section.

So far I have made the elephant and I have a blue giraffe in the works.  I leave for KS today so the giraffe might get finished after Christmas :)

Want to see more Iron Craft pieces?  Check out the flickr group here.  Want to join in the fun?  Check out the blog here.

Christmas Paper Crafts

Last year I found a fun pack of Christmas paper crafts at an after Christmas sale.  It's been a whole year but it's time to break it out.

It's contains several bags, gift boxes, and tags.  There is also a page of decorative accents to add on.

So far I have made a paper gift bag and a matchbook gift box.  I'm not sure what I will put in them, but they are pretty cute.

The other thing I made was a little banner for the mantle.  This didn't require much work; I strung a string through it.  But it adds a nice touch :)