Homemade Christmas

I'm the worst at taking photos of crafts that I make for other people.  Unless my husband volunteers a photo shoot it probably won't happen.  I'll tell you what I made for people and you can imagine how adorable everything was.

1.  For a friend I made her nieces hats.  I crocheted a 3mo and 3-year-old coordinating pink and turquoise hats.
2.  I knitted hats on a loom for all of the men and boys in my life along with button in crochet beards.  (The count in case you were wondering 4 men hats, 3 boy hats)
3.  I made custom necklaces for my favorite ladies that had their favorite boy's name in Morse code.
4.  I made a neck/upper back rice heating pad.
5.  I made hot chocolate on a stick.

Here are the homemade gifts I received though.
(disclaimer, I received some awesome homemade ornaments, that are already in storage.)

I received these awesome edible gifts...a favorite of mine.  Homemade vanilla. (already been used a few times.  Cowboy cookies in a jar.  Peach Rosemary Jam!

I received a lot of amazing bracelets this Christmas!  I was pumped!  How awesome are all of these from my sister.  

My sister-in-law made me these!  I like to mix all my bracelets up.

This is a pic of all the bracelets I received for Christmas just for kicks.

My hubbie made me this!  It's a beautiful vintage Samsonite suitcase with some goodies inside.  Everything I need for a picnic!  He bought vintage dishes, silverware, and even a vase.

It turns into a table!  How cute is this?  I have the best husband ever!

Hand-Made Sunday

Brian, if you are reading this stop.  This isn't for you.  But I'm posting it because Brian rarely reads my blog and I think I'm safe.

and even if Brian did see it, it's not a big deal to me.

So I made a garter tonight in about 5 minutes.

I had originally been drooling over these garters by Florrie Mitton.  But I just can't spend that much money on something I don't really care about.  I didn't think I would wear one at all and I'm sure not doing the garter toss, so what's the point.  But I've been thinking it over and I think the tradition of wearing one is really sweet and I don't want to miss out.

so I decided to make my own.  It is not as elegant as the one's above but it's cute and simple and took a total of 5 min.  which means it's awesome in my book.
First I bought this headband from Forever21 for less than $5. (score)

I love the applique and I think it will look good with the dress.  I cut open the headband leaving 1inch on one side and the rest on the other side.

I grabbed some grosgrain that we had laying around the basement and measured around my leg, subtracted the length of the applique and added a few inches. I cut two pieces this length and melted the edges with a match so that there would be no fraying.

I sewed about an 1/8 of an inch from the edges the two pieces of grosgrain together.

I trimmed any excess of the elastic from the headband.  I just wrapped it around my leg to find the excess and gave myself about an inch extra. Then I put a safety pin on the end of the elastic and fed it through the grosgrain.

Now the ribbon is covering all of the elastic.  I sewed the two open ends of the elastic with about an inch allowance.  I just did a straight stitch back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.  It looked pretty stable.

Here is a blurry picture of it over my legging!

and another.  It looks pretty good on.  I'm sorry the picture didn't turn out well.

The final product!  It may have looked better with white grosgrain, but my dress is ivory so this works for me.  I'm really excited to wear it!  28 days....

5 min. embellishment

I made this the other day in less than five minutes.


I ruched the little heart/leaves on the shoulder and made a little drawstring skirt.


If baby wants to show a little leg she can wear her slit in front!