Handmade Christmas

For the past several years, I've tried my hardest (between pregnancies and December & January babies!) to make and give handmade Christmas gifts to family and friends. Nothing extravagant, just gifts from the heart. I'm sure some people think it's a little hokey, but I prefer it to mindlessly picking up some commercial item. I can't post everything just yet (don't want to ruin the surprise), but I'll be adding photos here and there.

These are from a Ravelry pattern called Alice's Fingerless Gloves, apparently a nod to Alice from the Twilight Saga. I've not read the books nor seen the movies, but I thought the gloves would make a fun gift for my SIL. Last year, I knitted up some dishcloths and added them to a variety of homemade jams, mustard, & baking mixes as part of a kitchen basket. She apparently thought they were oven mitts (!!!) and kept burning herself, so gave the cloths to her cat. Anyhoo, these will be wrapped along with a little note saying NOT oven mitts!

The pattern is simple, and works up quickly, although I think you need a (free) Ravelry account to access the file.

Please ignore the awkward photos. For those of you who know me, I'm 'blessed' with short arms. No matter how much I stretched, I couldn't get the camera far enough away for a decent shot at any angle beyond this one.

Onward.

This little photo frame was one of the unfinished ones you can pick up at Michael's, painted with craft paint and then stamped to embellish. It didn't turn out quite the way I imagined, but I'm sure it will be fine with an appropriate snowy photo. I intended to give this to a friend, but since it 'didn't turn out', I may be gifting it to myself  (=

I used a VersaMark pad, a foam stamp, and embossing powder to create the tree. It still felt a little empty, so I grabbed the VersaMark pad (sort of a slow-drying glue/ink stuff -- surely that's the technical term) and used it to create an all-over pattern with a larger hearts and swirls pattern stamp. I considered embossing that, too, but I didn't ink my stamp well enough and had to go over the frame a few times. My goof is fairly hidden when the VersaMark ink is left as is, but I think it'd really show up covered in sparkly embossing powder!

Last item is this Little Cook's set I made for one of my playgroup's fundraising auctions: chef hat, oven mitts, felt bacon & eggs. I've made several of these items individually, and they've always been a hit, so I'm hoping someone will buy them as a gift and help out the playgroup.

Linked to:

Tatertots & Jello Weekend Wrapup