Merry Christmas!

Before we drive off to visit the family, I thought I'd post these last-minute pocket notebooks I made on Tuesday for brothers & brothers-in-law. I wanted to give something thrifty (for me) but useful for the recipients. For sisters & sisters-in-law, I'm giving some pretty scarves I did *not* make, but bought months ago for an amazingly good price. In the past, we siblings & our spouses did a name-drawing & gift exchange; this year we decided to ditch that system and any gift-giving rules and just allow everyone to give what/if their budgets permit, no pressure. Since we only made this decision in the weeks after Thanksgiving, I didn't have much time to incorporate 6 more gifts into my schedule; next year I'll be able to plan ahead better.

Anyway...travel safely, and have a wonderful holiday!

Approaching deadline

Clockwise from top left: Two blank notebooks for a brother-in-law, made mostly with scraps of materials from work; a few of my holiday cards for this year, also made with scraps & salvaged materials from work; a rainbow spiral scarf for one of my nieces; and two ribbed cotton hats for two other brothers-in-law. I'm still working on a couple of crafty gifts and hope to start with all the food-gift making this week!

Turkey pinata!

On a bit of a whim, I made this turkey pinata for a coworker who'll have a few kids running around her house on Thanksgiving Day. I used papier-mache over a balloon for the body, then constructed the head & tail with thin cardboard. I cut the sides off a paper shopping bag and wrapped it around the body for the handle/hanger. There is a trap door on top for adding candy. I had a blast making this, and it was a big hit when I carried it on the subway to work!

Birthday notebooks

Here are some skinny notebooks I gave as a gift earlier this week. I used graph paper and card stock, held together with a seven-hole pamphlet stitch. I applied a strip of gray paper along the spines to conceal the sewing and to make the notebooks look like a set. I like using graph paper in blank notebooks because it's so versatile - you can write, draw, and design on it. I gave these along with a pack of colored pens.

Audubon card + blankie update

These are poor pictures, so take my word for it when I tell you these things look much better in person. Anyway, on the left is the card I made for my Dad for Father's Day, using some card stock from my bin of saved paper and a lovely Audubon image from an advertising supplement in the New York Times (there were a bunch of beautiful Audubon images - I cut them all out and added them to the paper bin). I also happened to have a little brown envelope that fit the card perfectly! My gift to him was a CD of folk & blues (Mississippi John Hurt, John Lee Hooker, etc.) which I didn't take a picture of because I just printed the insert with iTunes.

On the right is the Tree of Life blankie in its current state. I'm just starting the first "flower garden" section.

Starting small

I spent yesterday afternoon making cards and envelopes. For the cards, I used double-sided pages that I'd saved from an old Lotta Jansdotter address book. I folded each page in half and inserted a slightly smaller folio of translucent paper for writing on. To secure the two folios I tied embroidery floss around the fold. I made 20 of these; they are about 3 1/2 x 5 inches.












For envelopes, I used odd paper I've been saving and some old military field maps I got years ago when the museum I worked at was throwing them away. I used my circle cutter to cut an 8" circle and then folded it around a card. I cut the triangles out from between the flaps and then glued the bottom flap to the side flaps.










Below left are two finished envelopes. The paper with the birds on it was what my printer produced when I ran some test or other on it - I thought it was so cute so I saved it. On the right are some other envelopes I made from an old calender. These envelopes are squares with four half-circle flaps, and I made them the right size to hold a CD.