(If you’re looking for my giveaway post, click here)

Here are some of the Christmas gifts I finished last week. My cousin has four daughters, ages 4-11, and my sister has a 6-year-old daughter,  so I’m always looking for cute but inexpensive gifts for them. (though I would wear these myself if I had any leftovers!) These were so easy. The jewelry is made from polymer clay using a few silicone molds from Mold Muse, and I made the little purse/box and the tags using my Silhouette machine.

If you like the bobby pins and earrings, see my giveaway post for a chance to win a set!

I’ve also started posting more handmade gifts on my “hidden” holiday blog,  so if you need that link, leave me a comment or send me a note.

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED
 

I’m so glad Sew, Mama, Sew!’s Giveaway Day starts today, and not last week, when I was home all week furiously (almost) finishing all my handmade Christmas gifts. I wouldn’t have gotten nearly as much done with all the distraction!

I’m offering this little snappy coin purse (made using this tutorial by Rashida Coleman-Hale) and a set of hair pins and earrings I made out of polymer clay. I made a ton of these to give to my niece and my cousin’s four daughters for Christmas. This set would be a great stocking stuffer!

Just leave me a comment below for a chance to win. If you feel chatty, tell me about a favorite holiday tradition.

Good luck! And come back later in the week when I’ll be showing off some of the 20 or so gifts I made last week!

Don’t forget to check out all the great giveaways!

This little bib/apron (or “bapron”) was so easy to make, I wish I had more babies to make gifts for. This one is headed to a friend of my husband’s, who is having a baby next month.

The free pattern and tutorial are from Craftiness is Not Optional. For some reason, mine looks smaller than the original, especially the arm holes. In fact, I couldn’t really lay mine out to take a picture of it the way it’s shown on the original site. Maybe I cut my bias tape the wrong size? I think it’s OK though, it might just work for a smaller infant, which is fine. Or maybe I screwed up and it really wasn’t such an easy project after all!

I unexpectedly have next week off from work because we have to use up all our vacation by the end of the year instead of carrying it over… so I need to come up with my Christmas sewing/crafting master plan!

My mother’s birthday was last week, but this year I’m getting her something for her birthday and Christmas combined, so she’ll have to wait a few more weeks. I wanted to give her a little something on her birthday, though, so I made her a little 5X7″ photobook by pairing Christmas pictures of her three grandchildren with lyrics from Christmas songs. (She took almost all of the pictures… she is a great photographer and had her own business for a while!) I used a bunch of different digital scrapbooking supplies from the vast collection I amassed back when that was my main hobby.

I made a double-page spread for each year since 2004, and printed the book through Snapfish.

I also had 4X6″ prints made (a lot cheaper than the photobooks) and just put them in an album I already had to keep for myself. It was only AFTER I had given my mother her book that Parker and I were singing some of the songs (he has been asking to go caroling in our neighborhood and I am desperately trying to talk him out of it. We sing badly, both of us) that we noticed a typo. (That’s what I get for copying and pasting from the Internet… I thought I had proofread the songs, but not well enough.)

So… in the song “Winter Wonderland” we got to the verse that starts:

In the meadow we can build a snowman,

And pretend that he’s a circus clown,

We’ll have lots of fun with Mr. Snowman,

Until the alligators knock him down.

ALLIGATORS! I was mortified, but Parker thought it was hilarious. And when I told him the real lyrics say “all the kiddies,” he thought I said “kitties,” and he’s so crazy about cats, that’s how he wants to sing it.

I’m tempted to make a little sticker to correct my mother’s book (and the one I made for my sister’s kids), but it might be just funny to leave it alone and see if they notice.

In other news, my husband was on the Martha Stewart Show today! (I missed it, though, because I was at work). She had him on to talk about the creative lunches he packs for Parker every day. (This morning, I was told I could have a few of the mini quiches he was making for breakfast/lunch, but “not the pretty ones” because those had to be photographed for his blog.)

Speaking of his blog, he’s running a contest now. Suggest a lunch for Parker, and you could win Matthew Mead’s new Holiday magazine. Check it out HERE. 

Thanks for all the advice re: what color pillows I should use for my sofa. For now, I’m going to go with red, because I happened to find some great, ridiculously cheap fabric. My college roommate was visiting last weekend, so we went shopping at the outlet stores in Kittery, Maine, where we found this 58″ wide Marimekko fabric (the design is called “Madison WI”) for $3.95/yard at the Crate & Barrel Outlet (regularly $35.95!) So I snatched up a yard each of several different colors, plus some extra of the red.

I love that it has a variety of tones, and the design has wide stripes… so I’m going to make just simple pillow covers instead of the more elaborate patchwork designs I had been envisioning. The fabric is a nice, heavy cotton, maybe a sateen? Anyway, it was cheap enough that if I don’t love the pillows, I can always change them. And maybe I’ll do the yellow for summer.

In the meantime, my friend and I made some purses. This is an enlarged version of the Buttercup Bag at Made-by-Rae. I wish I had made the top opening a bit wider, it seems a little cramped. We didn’t use any interfacing, but used leftover gray fabric from my slipcover as the lining, which makes it pretty sturdy.

Or, at least ready to curl up on the (newly slipcovered!) sofa and hide when I get overwhelmed with everything I want to do before the holidays. I finally finished this quilt that I started in January. The quilt top was done in January, then I waited until summer to baste it and quilt it. The binding finally went on last weekend. I consider finishing it before December a major success.

These photos aren’t great, it was a little too sunny. And I forgot to take a picture of the back, which is a coordinating flannel print, which will make it extra snuggly. And since I made my quilt square instead of the larger rectangle called for in the original tutorial, I have a lot of patchwork strips leftover that I’m going to use to make either placemats or maybe even a small quilt for someone else.

It’s been almost a year since we painted our living room, and I just now finished the slipcover for the couch. I bought the fabric in January, and I think I started working on it in June. There was nothing enjoyable about this project, though I am quite happy with the results. My co-worker lent me an old book (Simplicity’s “Simply the Best Home Decorating Book) that includes pretty detailed instructions on making a slipcover, so it wasn’t confusing, just cumbersome to deal with so much heavy fabric. I ended up using clothesline from Home Depot to make the piping since it was cheaper than buying piping cord at the fabric store, and I’m really glad I did. The extra-thick piping looks really nice, much better than the pre-made stuff, although it took quite a while to make what seemed like miles of piping. I had great plans to finish all the seams with my serger, until about half-way through when the serger came unthreaded and then after days fiddling with it to get it threaded again, the needle broke and I had to order more. By the time that arrived, I had moved on.

I still have to make covers for a large “chair-and-a-half” and a smaller chair, though I’m not sure whether I will do one of them the same as the sofa and the other blue with gray piping.

For now, I need some advice! What color/colors would you use for accent pillows? I had wanted the room to be a pale blueish gray, but it ended up being much more BLUE than I thought it would. The curtains are silver/gray and white (cheap curtains from Overstock.com… I bought white and silver, and then cut them apart and sewed them back together to make the stripes). The other furniture in the room is a a gray-ish wood tone (IKEA bookcase and coffee table). I do like yellow and gray, but I’m also thinking red or orange. Or would you keep it neutral? Any fabric recommendations?

Here’s what the room used to look like. Very cheerful, but a bit more country than I prefer now. I wouldn’t say I want a totally modern room, but something in between.

After all that, we FORGOT to bring Parker’s mummy hood/hat with us when we went trick-or-treating in a friend’s neighborhood tonight (he did have the full costume for his school parade and our FIRST trick-or-treat outing Friday night, when the downtown shops welcome kids). But, I offered him my black neck warmer and my husband’s black hat, and PRESTO! “Half ninja/Half mummy!” and he was fine. Whew.

Despite the EIGHTEEN INCHES OF SNOW we got on Saturday night, it was surprisingly warm tonight for trick-or-treating. But it looks so much like Christmas outside that I’m feeling stressed, like I need to finish all my Christmas crafts this weekend.

We seemed to be in a bit of a downward spiral last weekend as I worked to finish Parker’s Halloween costume. After telling me he wanted to be a mummy, he started saying he didn’t want to wear his costume to his school party because everyone would laugh at him “and think it was toilet paper.” When I asked him to try on part of his costume, he said, “Maybe you can cut off the loose bits and I can be a white Ninja instead.” So I was not in a particularly good mood as I spent a few more hours sewing the strips of fabric onto his sweatshirt, and I’d really had it by the time I finished and he balked at putting it on to take a picture.

BUT, when I said “You’re lucky I’m not making you go to the cemetery to take pictures,” he turned right around. He wanted to go to the cemetery! And immediately put on his costume and started walking around with his arms out, moaning in what I guess he thought a mummy would sound like. Crisis averted! Happy mummy and Mommy!

I knew I couldn’t just wrap him in guaze or strips of fabric because he needed a costume he could get on and off at school and again for trick-or-treating. I followed a very similar process as the tutorial here by Melissa at The Polka Dot Chair, except I ripped my fabric (muslin) into strips first, and then tea-dyed it.

I had to get more fabric after running out, so I had two batches of fabric. I couldn’t tell the difference at all inside, but as soon as we went outside it was very clear that some strips were a totally different color. Oh well.

He really wanted his face to be mostly covered, but I wanted to make sure he could talk/eat, so I made a hood/Balaclava-type thing using this free pattern. I used an old white t-shirt, and covered the finished hood with strips of muslin. There are two strips that go across the lower part of his face. Those are sewn on one side, and held in place with a strip of velcro on the other side, so he can un-do that flap/mask to eat or talk.

Overall, I’m happy with it, and HE’S happy with it, though it did take a lot longer than I thought it would to sew all those strips in place. (I added a few more strips around the waist after taking these pictures, after noticing that a few inches of gray sweatpants were still showing). This is what he told me to write about our photo session:

“Mummy Haunts Local Cemetery. AP Reporter Stunned by Sight.”

Now that it’s been a year since we took in our black cat, Herbie, we definitely believe black cats are GOOD luck. He is so sweet and affectionate, and silly. (He likes jump in the tub when we’re filling it up to drink the water, and will stay in there until the water gets all the way up to his belly if we let him). So in honor of Herbie and Halloween, here are two black cat craft projects:

First, I tried these “Halloween Hang-ups” from Martha Stewart’s website. I knew from past experience that I’m horrible at making accordion folds evenly, so this time, I used my Silhouette machine to score the paper. It worked great! I just used the Silhouette software to make a cutting file of evenly spaced lines, and then set it on a very shallow cutting setting (I think I used the copy paper setting). So when I put the cardstock through the machine, it didn’t cut all the way through. From putting the paper in the machine to having a completely folded sheet took under 3 minutes per sheet.

That said, putting the actual circles together was a bit tricky. The smaller, pumpkin design uses 3 sheets of paper. (you’re supposed to fold them in half after accordion folding them, but my cardstock was thick and it didn’t look good, so I just cut the pages in half). The cat design uses six sheets of paper. It is almost 18″ across and that’s the MEDIUM size. I didn’t make the large size, which uses 11 sheets of paper. Getting the connected papers into a circle shape wasn’t hard, but I had to glue cardstock rounds in the center to keep it together in the center. Which involved trying to hold it together with one hand and applying hot glue with the other.

I had to buy several packs of cardstock with a bunch of other colors to get enough orange sheets, but the packs were on sale at Jo-Ann’s for $1.99 for 50 sheets. I used the Silhouette to cut out the cat and pumpkin faces as well. I think these would look great as party decorations… they look a little odd just hanging out in my kitchen. But now I’m trying to think of other accordion fold paper projects to do now that I know it is so easy with the Silhouette!

My other black cat project was a gift for my co-worker’s daughter, who just turned four and is going to be a cat for Halloween. She probably already has a costume, but just in case it is really cold (as it often is), she might like this hat for trick-or-treating. This hat actually started out as a stenciled t-shirt. Really! I picked up some orange t-shirts thinking I would make her a little Halloween-themed shirt with her name on it, but I made the mistake of buying an extra one for Parker. And then I accidentally stenciled HIS name on her shirt. I tried to salvage it by cutting off the bottom of the shirt (with the name on it) and attaching more fabric to make a little dress, but it looked strange. So then I decided to make this hat, which was quite easy. Except for when I sewed one of the ears on backwards. Sigh. So much for quick, handmade gifts.