Handmade Christmas Gifts

I wanted to share a couple of things I made for Christmas gifts this year.  First, I sewed a Christmas pillow for a friend.  I appliqued the trees, did a little stitching, and added ric rac.

I kept an opening on the back so a pillow form could be used inside.  I like to buy my pillow forms at IKEA and cut and sew it down to the size I want.

I couldn't wait to share the next gifts I made, these adorable Raggedy Ann dolls.  I bought the patterns from Raggedy Old Annies.  I've always have loved her dolls and I've admired them for years, so finally I bought the patterns to make some myself.  Aren't they adorable?  I thought a few of my little nieces might enjoy them.

I'm keeping the littlest one (above).  Well, I couldn't give them all away!  She is really little, less than a foot tall.  I love her shoes!

The next smallest one.  They also have cute little bloomers under their dress that I didn't take a picture of.

These last two are the largest dolls I made.  I love their heart lips!

I had so much fun picking out the fabrics for their dresses.  These were so much fun to make, I just might have to make more for my Etsy shop.

Merry Belated Christmas

I hope you had a great Christmas!  We enjoyed some of our tradional holiday activities that we do as a family.  One thing we like to do is go downtown Portland and visit Santa at the Macy's.

(Spencer wasn't feeling well, so he didn't want his picture taken)

We also did some crafting and holiday baking with cousins.

The kids made snowman ornaments using socks.

The kids decorated sugar cookies.

We also like to go to the Old Spaghetti Factory with the river view and watch the Christmas boat parade.  This year we didn't see any boats, but hopefully we will next year.

The Stockings Are Hung

I finally did it!  I made stockings that I'm happy with and so is everyone else in the family.  The first stockings I made for us was about 7 years ago, and they were just okay, so I've been wanting to make new ones that are a bit more fun.  Last year I saw really cute quilted stockings in Blogland, so I started making some for this Christmas.  Well, not everyone in our family liked them, ahem Jason, so I was determined to make some this year that we all mostly liked.  (By the way there are still three two quilted stockings left in my Etsy Shop).

Here is the fabric I chose from fabric.com, they are Premier Prints.

Now presenting our new stockings...

Jason's is a bit boring because that's they way he likes it.

I added a ruffle to mine for a little femininity.

Spencer and Tanner wanted heel and toes on their stockings.

Logan loved this print!

And finally Preston's cute dotted stocking.

My amazing sister Caron embroidered all the names for us, thanks Caron.  I just love them!!!

Christmas Advent Lollipop Tree

First, here is my inspiration picture for my recent project, a Lollipop Advent Tree.  I really loved this picture and thought it would be fun and cute.  This can be moderately easy project if you have a power miter saw and the right size drill bits.  It was a little frustrating trying to get everything to fit, but eventually it worked.

I used brighter colors on this one.  I stamped the number of days on the ends of the sticks.

Here is another one I made, using a little more traditional Christmas colors.

I used 5" x 5" pinked fabric pieces to give some fun color to the tree.  I wish I had bakers twine to tie around the lollipops, but yarn works for now.

Now the kids are even more excited to count the days 'til Christmas!

Pretty Paper Christmas Trees

Here is an easy fun Chrismas craft tutorial, Pretty Paper Christmas Trees. 

What you will need: double-sided paper of your choice.  You want the paper double-sided because when you loop the paper you will be able to see inside the loop.  You will need straight pins and styrafoam cones.  Styrafoam cones can be spendy, I bought the 7" cone from The Dollar Tree and the 9" cone from Hancocks Fabric on sale, just shop around or use coupons.

9” Paper Christmas Tree

You will need to cut strips of paper from coordinating paper, I used a different pattern for each layer, but you can repeat a pattern if you wish. Then you will loop the strip and use two straight pins to attach paper to cone. Pin at the corners. The next layer up should be placed between the two strips in the layer below to hide the pins. You will use about 194 pins.

*You may need to trim the width a little on some strips to fit around better.

1st Four Layers (Starting with the bottom layers):

12 strips, 11 strips, 10 strips, 9 strips of 1” wide x 3” long

5th and 6th Layer:

9 strips, 8 strips of 7/8” wide x 3” long

7th Layer:

9 strips of 3/4” wide x 3” long

8th Layer:

7 strips of 3/4" wide x 2.5” long

9th and 10th Layers:

8 strips, 7 strips of 5/8” wide x 2” long

11th Layer:

7 strips of 1/2” wide x 2” long

Finish:

Make a cone for the top by cutting out a half circle and gluing it to the top. If you want, embellish along the edge of cone.

7” Paper Christmas Tree

You will need to cut strips of paper from coordinating paper, I used a different pattern for each layer, but you can repeat a pattern if you wish. Then you will loop the strip and use two straight pins to attach paper to cone. Pin at the corners. The next layer up should be placed between the two strips in the layer below to hide the pins. You will use about 184 pins.

*You may need to trim the width a little on some strips to fit around better.

1st Four Layers (Starting with the bottom layers):

12 strips, 11 strips, 10 strips, 9 strips of 3/4” wide x 2.5” long

5th Layer:

10 strips of 5/8” wide x 2.25” long

6th, 7th , 8th, 9th , and 10th Layers:

10 strips, 9 strips, 8 strips, 7 strips, 6 strips of 5/8” wide x 2” long

Finish:

Make a cone for the top by cutting out a half circle and gluing it to the top. If you want, embellish along the edge of cone.

This is a great craft to do with friends!  Have Fun!!!

Etsy Christmas Stockings

Just Listed

in my Etsy Shop

I just finished making a set of 6 Christmas Stockings, which are now in my Etsy shop.  Each stocking has it's own design and unique look.  I used mostly Michael Miller's Funky Christmas fabric.

Dots

Checkered with Chenille

Argyle

Christmas Animals 

Pinwheel

Zig Zag



All the backs have green ticking fabric.  I hope they will find a good home!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Surprise Disney Vacation

Our kids woke up to the smell of pancakes.  When it was time to eat they saw the Mickey Mouse pancakes, and one boy asked, "Are we going to Disneyland?".  Yes we are, we leave today!  We had our things packed up and ready to go.  We drove!  A long drive, but we were able to see friends and family and play a little in California.

Off we go!  Gotta love Redbox.  Pick-up the movies almost anywhere and drop them off just about anywhere too.  It sure was nice having the DVD player and headphones.  During that time Jason and I had peace and quiet.

It seemed unreal to the kids that we were actually at Disneyland.  Even for me, I was 16 years old the last time I was there.  It was Jason's first time.

Here we are in line for our first ride, Star Tours, one of our favorite rides.  We played at Disneyland for two days and did this ride 3 times.  We didn't have to wait usually more than 15 minutes in line for most of the rides because we went during the slower time at Disneyland.  But a downside to that was a couple rides weren't operating, like Pirates of the Carribean.

Another favorite was Splash Mountain!  In the picture above, my hand is right over the face of another kid that got stuck with our family, the picture worked out for us.

The weather was PERFECT, sunny and in the 70's.

California Adventure was not a favorite of ours, mostly because there was a lot of construction going on, so we spent the majority of the time at Disneyland.

Mark Twain Steamboat ride.

I can't believe I went on this ride.  It was the first and last time, Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.  It was a little freaky.  Tanner and Logan were the bravest!

I'll miss you Disneyland, if I have it my way we'll be back again soon.

We played at the beach.  We are from Washington so even though it wasn't very warm, it was what you would expect here in the summertime.

Santa Monica, we ate at Bubba Gump.

We went through the Redwood Forest after visiting family in Northern California and visited Paul Bunyan on the way home.

We made some good memories!

Good times...good times!