Made with.......love?

This is starting to get ridiculous. I really love crafting and making handmade gifts, but when it becomes a chore, something that I spend every spare minute doing, then it's not so fun any more. I'm not complaining, I do it because I love it, and I think everyone should give handmade if they can. But just when I think I am nearing the end of my list of gifts to make, Little princess gets invited to another birthday party, or someone asks me to make something for someone, or we remember someone else who needs a gift. I completely forgot about a whole branch of my family that we always catch up with around Xmas time, so now I have to think of more gifts to make. But I am making progress, I think.

 This is a gift for another 5th birthday party we have been invited to this weekend. I made a cooking/baking set, because I already had the chef's hat (was supposed to be for Little princess, but I have promised to make her another one), someone gave me the idea for the apron the other day, and the glove was easy to make. Then I went and collected some baking essentials from dollar stores to add to the sewn stuff. Then I had to go further and make a menu board, because I had some chalkboard paint left over. I painted an old place mat with the chalkboard paint, added some scrap booking letters to spell MENU and mod podged over the letters to protect them. I included a little wooden easel to hold the menu board, plus some chalk and a duster. And the last edition was the recipe cards, created and printed from here, with recipes for cupcakes, cookie dough, butter cream icing and cookie icing, plus a couple of blank ones for her to add her favourite recipes.

For our big family gathering every other year, instead of buying meaningless gifts for everyone, we each bring one $10 gift and play that game where you choose a number and go around in order choosing a gift when it's your turn or you can steal from someone else. It's a fun way to do it, and everyone gets something. So this year I have, of course, made our gifts. This one is a set of chalkboard wine glasses, with chalk of course. When I saw this on pinterest, I thought it would be perfect for one of the gifts, and when I found this set of wine glasses on special for $9, it was perfect.

 The second gift took a bit more time and effort, and is still not quite finished (I still have to tie ribbons on the tags, which I am doing tonight). I made a set of six cards in a folder, and a set of 24 tags in a wallet. Both of these ideas are from SplitCoast Stampers, but for decorating the cards and tags I got inspiration from Pinterest..

 For the two craft groups I go to, we had to bring a $5 gift to swap. For one of them I made a framed pincushion, and bought a cool birdcage cross stitch design to go with it. If you look closely you will see some jewelled pins in the pincushion, which I also made a while ago.

Can you tell I love this fabric? I bought a fat quarter of it, and I've used it to make quite a few little things now, and I've just about run out. For the other gift I made a magnetic note board, using a weird metal thing I found at funky junk, and some repurposed buttons, jewellery and bits to make the magnets.

This is not a gift, but I still had to share it. This is the outfit I have put together for little man to wear for Christmas. I sewed the "tie" onto a plain white t-shirt. The hat was a robin hood hat out of the dress up box, I sewed a circle of red felt over the robin hood picture on the front, and attached a couple of mini candy cane ornaments, and put a bell on the top. The pants he already had. Isn't it cute?? Chances are he will get the shirt dirty straight away, and we'll never be able to keep the hat on his head, but it's the thought that counts, right?