Handmade Holiday (kinda)

This post is coming super late, but I wanted to document the fact that I did make a lot of the gifts I gave this year, which was fun and stressful at the same time. I also tried to shop either on Etsy or locally for any presents that I did buy, so in the end I only ended up buying a few "from the mall" gifts, which is good.

So here we go, a short list of what I made:

I made 2 necklace and earring sets for my friends Heather and Anna this year, this is a shot of Heather's (I didn't take a photo of Anna's, maybe she'll have to take one for me...hint hint) ;)

Aside: Jewelry making is HARD! From choosing the design and getting the supplies to actually doing it, I now have a new appreciation for why people charge 'so much' on their Etsys for necklaces and stuff!

I (with lots of help from my mom and grand mama again) made this baby blanket for my friend Sara (who had her little son Eli this past Wednesday, yay!) I got the fabric off Etsy back in June and then used leftover scraps my mom had and some locally bought fabric for the backing/binding. I still have tons of the fabric left, I think I may make something for my little bébé with the rest :)


I didn't do a lot of baking over the holiday (besides a turkey dinner I made for Dan and I), but I did manage to make Dan's mother the Candied citrus peels and Winter bark I read about in the Dec. '06 Martha Stewart magazine...they were both delicious, I'll definitely be making them again next year (for myself!) The peels were so easy and tasted just like orange Jujubes!

For my sister in law I got her a personalized print of her 2 boys Noah and Jonas from lepapierstudios on Etsy. (Hers had a picture of smaller boys and was chocolate brown.) I'll probably get one of my own once I have my 2 kids in a couple of years...

This isn't handmade but I wanted to talk about it anyway. I bought this book for my sister and her hubby, it's all about raising your own animals and having a garden and living more like they did 'back in the olden days', which they are all about ever since they bought their house in the country last summer. It's a really awesome book, I hope that it'll come in handy for her this spring when she plants her gardens and gets some chickens (so excited for that!!) I also got her 4-5 other gardening type books from a thrift store, so she has plenty of info to help her along!


For my newest little nephew (who isn't born yet, due in March), Dan and I made this Rockabye Baby mix CD with the songs that we enjoyed the most from a few of the different groups. I'll be using this mix as well when our little one arrives, I love it and it's so soothing (might put me to sleep instead of him!)

Hmm, I think that might be it, there's probably something I'm forgetting. I made my father in law a photo album of all his grandchildren (not handmade or local, but I still put it together), bought my 2 little nephews in Cali a gift certificate to a local independent bookstore in their neighbourhood, bought my other 2 little nephews a world map from a local map store, my mom some stamping supplies from a local art supplies store, and I did my best at wrapping everything with materials I had at home (I did not buy a single piece of wrapping paper, I'm proud to say.) There's one project I didn't get done though (a mini for a friend), but I'm hoping to get it done before I have the baby, we'll see...

So overall, not too bad! I think the key was to the keep it simple and keep it small, 'cause if I had of tried huge, time-consuming projects doing things that I didn't already know how to do (like knitting), then maybe everything wouldn't have gotten done, but these were manageable, even in my frenzied preggo state. I'm excited to try the same thing next year :)

How did you handmade holiday go? If you did a post on it link me up, I'd love to hear!

Happy Sunday to you,
G.