Well, it’s been quite the holiday season around here – we stretched Christmas celebrations all the way out to January 3rd! Now that the merry making is over and everyone has received their gifts I thought I’d share with you what our handmade gifts were this year. We are accumulating quite the collection, don’t you think?
I don’t have photos of the first two, I thought I took some but can’t find them so I guess I didn’t. I’ll have to get photos next time I go visit relatives ;-). Benjamin made some really funny framed comic strips for each family. He used family photos and created super hero stories for each family. It was pretty creative. And Phoebe decided to paint quotes onto pieces of wood and put ribbon on them for hanging. I love the quotes she chose for each person as they were very encouraging.
Esther started her gifts in July when Carl brought home a bucket of gourds he found growing wild. She sanded them and decided on a design and he cut the design out and helped her spray paint them. I think they turned out quite nice.
Gabriel started pretty early also. He couldn’t decide whether to make a three person chess game or a mancala game for each family. After making a trial chess game, mancala won out. He’a already decided on a project for next year but is keeping it under wraps.
Josiah chose to make a game also….Aggravation. Apparently, back in the day Aggravation used to have a wooden game board. Carl’s mom had made them a game when Carl was a kid and Josiah used that as inspiration.
Carl and I made spa sets for all the adults in our families. I decided to go with peppermint for everyone since we couldn’t decide on what scents each person would like.
And, of course I made matching cousin pajamas again this year. My older children no longer appreciate matching pajamas so they don’t get any. But Esther, the nieces, nephews and grandson still appreciate them, so I gladly make pajamas for them. (I’m totally okay that my older children don’t want matching pajamas, just in case you didn’t read the sarcasm in there.)
I plan on doing tutorials for most of these projects over the next couple of months, so be on the lookout for those. And we are already thinking towards next year.
You can find more handmade inspiration on our Handmade Christmas page.
Did you make or receive handmade gifts this year? I’d love to hear about them in the comments or see them on our facebook page.