Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Teacher gifts

Here are the teacher gifts I made for the boys' teachers this year for Christmas.

For Colin's Teacher (who is an Aggie):
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The Tissue Holder is a Puff to go tissue holder. The coasters are the crisscross coasters. The coffee mug corset cozy is my pattern. I'm not overly happy with the grommets on this one. They didn't set like they were supposed to, but I couldn't take them off, once I put them on.

This set is for Gavin's Teacher (Gavin picked the purple fabric):
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Same set that I made for Colin's teacher, but I hand embroidered the openings for the lacing on this coffee mug cozy. I picked the turquiose coordinating fabric for this set.

Gavin's aides and math teacher:
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I made each of them a puffs to go tissue holder. I'm putting them in a special gift bag (I've only made one so far).
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I'm hoping to make some bigger ones for the boys regular teacher too. I made the one above out of left over microterry that I had left over from my diaper making supplies. I used scrap fabric for the nose and coal mouth and eyes. The lining fabric was some Christmas fabric that I wasn't overly fond of after I bought it. It was too thin to use as gift bag fabric on its own. As a liner for the microterry, it works great.

And last, but not least, I made some more crayons for Gavin's classmates.
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2 of the ones in the photo above are ones I made before, but the rest are new.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Christmas Gift Bags

Well I made some more gift bags. I'm hoping I'll have time to make more before Christmas. Some of these I made from patterns so they are alot smaller than I'd have made on my own, but they turned out adorable so thats okay, LOL.
Most of these bags are made from 3 different fabrics but some are made from only 2 different fabrics. I almost always line my bags so that you can't see through the fabric to the present inside.

This first one is my own pattern:

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Open - this is made from 3 different fabrics, has drawstring ribbon and jingle bells

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Closed - I love the way this one turned out. I only have one complaint, the gap in the top is too big when you have the bag pulled as closed as the fabric will allow. I need to tweak the pattern a bit, but you can't tell and I always put out presents on Christmas eve anyway, so there won't be any peaking.

My pattern, I used three different fabrics:

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Open

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Closed and tied

The next 2 were made from the pattern/directions from a book called "Omiyage" by Kimiko Sudo. The pattern is called Candy Twist (ironically enough) The bags turned out pretty small and they took 4-5 times longer to make than I usually spend on a gift bag but I think the results were worth it. I had to tweak the pattern just a little to suit my taste after making the first one, but it was no big deal.

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Here they are open and flat.

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And here they are drawn up. When they are drawn up they look like Christmas ornaments.

Here is a close up:
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Here are the last 2. The bag on the left was made from left over fabric with no pattern at all. I just didn't want to waste the fabric so I made a small bag. The bag on the right is from the same book from above but this pattern is called Chrysanthemum. Its very small and would only really work for jewelry.

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Here is the Chrysanthemum bag opened:
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Here is the bottom of the Chrysanthemum bag:
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Hopefully I'll have more bags to show you in the near future. I know I won't be making my New Years resolution but I'll try to atleast make a few more. I'm thinking of increasing the size of the candy twist bag. Plus I just need to make some more bigger bags.

Baby Octopus

My youngest son is in Speech therapy. His therapist is pregnant due with her first baby. So I made this octopus for the baby and the giftbag that it will go in. The Octopus is made out of cotton yarn is stuffed with cotton yarn. The eyes are saftey eyes. I hope she likes it. Its my own pattern. I liked it so much that I'm in the process of making one for my neice as well, but we will see if I get it finished.

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Here's the bag I'll put it in:

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Halloween Costumes 2009

Well I cheated all around this year. I didn't make anyone's costumes new this year. My husband went as a doctor, so we had him in scrubs (we didn't get a picture of him). I went as a goth/steampunk/witch something, LOL. I made my skirts last year and forgot to post a picture of them. The corset and blouse I bought. The spider necklace is silver and brass and something I made in college. It came together nicely but I didn't accessorize like I wanted to (I wanted to make a gun holster for a ray gun and make some gauntlets or something similar, oh well). Anyway, here I am....

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The boys decided they wanted bought costumes this year. Funny story behind that, I was trying to get my youngest to buy a cheaper costume with nothing that would go on his head or face (in the past, he wouldn't wear them since he is autistic and couldn't stand the feel of them on him). Well as we were leaving the costume isle he latched on to the swamp monster costume and would not leave without it. By this time I had my oldest convinced to pick a cheaper costume too, but when the youngest picked the more expensive swamp monster costume, I had to let them both have more expensive costumes to be fair, LOL. Anyway, to make sure that my youngest would actually wear the costume on Halloween night, I wanted them to try them on but we had to eat dinner first. Well he decided dinner could wait and started stripping at the table, LOL. He wore that costume (mask, gloves, feet and all) almost until bed time. Guess he proved me wrong, I was sure he wouldn't wear it. Anyway, I had to share it. Its not anything I made, but I couldn't resist showing it.

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Back to School

I know, I know, I should have posted this back in September, but better late than never. I made covers for the boys' 18 oz. Klean Kanteens for school. I made the pattern and hand embroidered their names on the covers. I think they turned out great and no one is going to mistake who they belong to.

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I need to make a few more covers actually, these are already starting to show wear and tear. The boys love thier new bottles and will carry them around the house and take them out when we are running errands.