Christmas Crafting :: 2015

Our handicrafting is definitely seasonal–during much of the school year, we don’t get to it, but then we have a burst of creativity around each holiday.  (I’ve shared previous years’ Christmas crafting here, here, and here.)   This Christmas was no exception, and now that gifts have been given, I can share the crafting the kids and I have been up to over the last couple months!

Gianna and Cate did quite a bit of gift sewing…

They have made these felt hearts before–they are such a quick project, simple enough for a beginner but with a nice end result.  Cate made the one above for Gianna all on her own (to hang over her bed), and the girls worked together to make one in blue for their great-grandma (who plans to hang hers from her bedroom doorknob).

Gianna also took some bath towels we no longer needed and cut them into hand towels for the garage and such for Daddy.  She cut each towel in thirds, then zig-zagged the edges on the machine.  This was a great starter project for machine sewing–plenty of long, straight lines.

I did a bit of crafting too that could easily be done by children, so I’ll share the projects here:

The doll quilts I mentioned above.  I am no quilter, and I am too lazy to stitch a proper binding, so I sewed right sides together, flipped out, and topstitched the whole thing.  I was able to use bits from my stash to make the simple nine-square design and I backed it with flannel.  Gianna has already asked to do some simple quilting this summer and I think I’ll start her with something like this.

This is a sweet fabric book for my little guys.  I had this plastic ring from a free paper book we got somewhere or other that had long ago fallen apart.  I sewed squares from fabric scraps with ribbon tags, crinkle plastic, and interfacing for durability. Then I added buttonholes in the corner so they could be strung onto the ring.  Again: washable and super easy.

I handmake an ornament for the children each year.  I’ve done fabric, modeling clay, buttons, felt, and various other media in the past.  This year, I made beaded ornaments with glass beads and clear jewelry line.  As I was making them, I thought what a great project they would be with the littles–very classy looking but so simple.  (The hardest part was tying the knots!)

The children also did lots of paper folding and Christmas-inspired drawing.  And paper snowflakes for winter solstice, of course!  We did a stack of coffee filter snowflakes, as we always do.  Then I was inspired to try giant ones out of tissue paper, and they came out great!  (You can see them behind Cate in that bottom photo.)  They’re all hanging in our windows now and setting a wintery tone.