greetingarts

handmade for teachers

At the beginning of the year, I envisioned stacks of cloths, Snowbabies and Santas, maybe a few Christmas Stories, too, piling up and resulting in easy gift giving for the end of the year.  Well, I managed to make... nine.

Paired up with little Mary Engelbreit soaps I've collected, and packaged in decorated cellophane bags with pretty ribbon and tags, Rebecca's teachers, principal, administrators and librarian were all taken care of.

 I used another of KrisKnit's patterns, Christmas Cloths Set 2, for some of the gifts.  They were small and simpler to knit quickly when I was down to the wire.

And then Jessie's preschool teachers got little sequin and felt ornaments I made, wrapped up all pretty in Mary Engelbreit boxes.

I might have to keep this one in mind for next year, they came out nicely and are good gifts.  Meaningful and thoughtful, but not over the top, where the recipient feels like it's too much.

There's more handmade to come, but for now... here's hoping 2010 will be good to all of us, and that you're ready to put 2009 behind.  Happy new year!

neat and tidy Christmas

My little one systematically rearranges all the Christmas ornaments so that, instead of having similar ones sprinkled evenly throughout the tree, they are all lined up together with like ornaments placed right next to one another.  They want to be with their family, that's what she says.  So here's hoping your celebrations are with family as well, and that you're liking it!

Merry Christmas, may your days be merry and bright.

'twas the night before the classroom party

...when all through the house

the crafter was crafting,

ignoring the snores of her spouse.

Just kidding, actually I got everything finished before midnight, and my husband kept me company the whole time.  Wanna know how I made them?  You probably won't have time to do this in time for Christmas this year, but you can hold onto the idea for other holidays or Christmases to come, right?  Thought I should put the instructions and little tutorial together now, while I remember. 

Can you guess what the packages are made out of?

Yup.  Empty toilet paper roll.  So useful, those things!  So, collect yourself some paper tubes, and gather your supplies.  You'll need the tubes (one tube makes one package), some gift wrap (preferably 24" in length so you won't have any scraps at all - love the way that works out), something to measure with (I used my Omnigrid), something to cut with (I had an Xacto knife), double-stick tape, glue stick, and a paper crimper.  Oh, and small little things to put inside, of course.  You could use scrapbooking paper, too, but I think the gift wrap is a little thinner (which is good, because the toilet paper tubes are pretty thick), and probably works out to be a *lot* cheaper, especially if you're making quite a few.  I had 24 of these done in about an hour.

Cut your wrapping paper into 4.5" x 6", use glue stick or tape to wrap your paper tube with the cute gift wrap, then put a strip of double stick tape on the inside edge of one end.  Run it through the paper crimper, turning the handle about three times.  You're crimping about an inch.  Incidentally, Cindy has a great tutorial for this, too, only she made hers entirely out of cardstock. 

Insert your goodies (remembering that you'll lose about another inch again when you close it up), and flatten the other end, making sure it's perpendicular to the first edge (whoa, what's that *math* word doing on my blog?!).  I think you'll get it if you just look at the photo.  I used a screw punch to make holes in the corners where we attached little "From Rebecca" tags.  Turned out cute, but I hope the kids don't care that there's only stickers, mini erasers and peppermints inside.

I even got all the teacher gifts made and wrapped up, but I'll save that for another post.  Did you notice the wrapping paper I used?  How it says "Randolph" right next to the reindeer?  Do you think that's a crazy, glaring typo?  Is there a Randolph Reindeer legend I don't know about?

handprint Santa

Oooh, hands down, one of my favorite ornaments on our tree.  Hee hee!

I blame Harry Potter

This is what happens when I try to read and knit at the same time.  Dang it!  It was an easy pattern, too... or so I thought.  Why didn't I wait to start this book after Christmas was over?  And, can I just say, if ever there was a book that needed to be put in Kindle format, it's this one!

for Buffalo, NY

The earliest recollections I have are of my life in Buffalo, NY.  I know my parents couldn't wait to get out of there, and I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for my mom, caring for two little ones by herself during the day with no car, not speaking English very well, no Chinese supermarkets, in the middle of winter blizzards and no school Snow Days.  Not fun.  But I have great memories of our house with a checkered tiled basement, attic bedroom, backyard with a climbing tree, pussy willows and a sun room.

Well, anyway, all this is to say that when Lynne asks for something for the people of Buffalo, I feel compelled to help in any way I can.  For the last three (wow!  You don't realize how time passes until you go back and look!) years my knitting guild and I have contributed mittens to her Hearts to Hands project, and this year her call was for drawstring bags for a women and children's shelter.  I finally managed to find some yardage (I have a lot of fabric, but I guess I'm usually a half or one yard type of gal), and made these three bags in half an afternoon, using Lynne's simple tutorial.

The bags went off in the mail this morning, and my baby hats and the scarf I made for a local women's shelter were dropped off at my knitting guild to be distributed last week, and now I can concentrate on knitting, crocheting, sewing and embroidering for family and friends.  I do so love this time of year.  A tad overwhelming, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

The drawstring bags (of all different sizes) would be great for gift giving.  I'm not going to buy any more wrapping paper from now on.  Actually, I don't think I've purchased any for a few years now.  I still have a few rolls left (Santa has to wrap stuff, I guess), but when those are done I'll just wrap with fabric or reusable bags.  I might even make the recipients give them back to me before they leave the house, ha!  I hadn't realized how big 18" x 24" was...  Jessie could almost be stored inside one of those bags, don't you think?  

singing all day long

I can't get this to look right when I load it in my sidebar, so I'm just going to post my current Christmas playlist here.

 

Am I missing anything?  What are your favorite Christmas songs?