For example, one year I sewed 3 little bears from corduroy, gave them special names, and each had 2 little outfits complete with wooden hangers.
Then I painted 3 clementine boxes, made little mattresses and they served as beds for the bears. Under each thin mattress was a short piece of dowel for the clothes hangers.
My handmade gift was primitive but they loved their bears and took them in their orange boxes wherever they went.
So this Christmas I decided to make a crafty item for my daughters children. I had a quiet book in mind making this project and thought it might be a good idea to also have them portable. They can take these boxes on vacation or even to a lengthy doctors appointment.
I bought two snap lid plastic boxes and my husband designed 2 labels for each box to personalize each one.
The boxes can go with them, wherever they go!
Next was coming up with small, portable fun activities for little hands.
Using card stock I downloaded this free pattern for paper glasses to decorate with colourful shapes. In the plastic zipper lock bag is also a glue stick.
Then I got the bright idea to make a puzzle by glueing a photo that my husband took onto colourful sticks and then slicing them apart.
Each picture is glued using a spray mount to the same coloured sticks to help identify the different pictures.
For the little guy, I numbered each stick so he can not only learn names of colours but numbers too.
No crafty art box would be complete without something made from felt.
So I made a Mr. Potato Head felt board for Mr. A and a doll with dresses for Miss C.
To aid the felt sticking to the main body I ironed on Steam-a-Seam to the pieces. It works well and holds the felt body parts to the main part. Over time it won't hold as well but over time I suspect the pieces will go missing!
Keeping with the theme of sticking things onto things, I bought some sticky foam shapes of frogs, bugs and butterflies along with some solid pieces of sticky foam that I cut into shapes of a pond, sky, sun, etc.
Also in the activity box I tossed in the age old Wooly Willy magnet hair game and wooden puzzles.
My husband went back to work designing and made a personalized covers colouring books.
The colouring books in the stores seem to promote adult shapes, you know, like Barbie or a host of Princesses. Since the kids will have a lifetime worrying about body image, I chose to download some vintage colouring pages.
There's not a bust line nor high heels anywhere. But just look at those darling vintage dresses!
In the little guy's colouring book are simple nature images.
Also in the boxes I added some Melissa and Doug sticker and painting activities that I bought so my daughter and her husband won't think Mamaw and Gramps are complete cheapskates!
Aside from one hand knit item, that's it for my handmade Christmas gifts this year.
