Boss Sanders - Homemade Christmas Gifts

Starting last year (2007), I began making at least most of the Christmas gifts we’d be gifting. So, this year it was no surprise that I chose to continue this tradition. And, with the lack of cash (seemingly) in everyone’s pockets, I’ve had a lot of people asking what sorts of things I’d be making.

And then I shut up.

I can’t very well tell everyone what TYPES of things I will be making, because that could easily give away the gifts for those receiving, but I can tell you some of what I made LAST year, so you get an idea - although, this year some of the crafts are different (but I’ll tell you about those AFTER Christmas)

These are the ornaments I already did a mini-tutorial on - but, basically it’s a clear empty ornament that you can fill with anything. I gave these away as small gifts to the people that we don’t buy/make larger gifts for… (like for the mini gift exchange my family does)

Handbound Journal and Travel Pillow. The travel pillow ended up slightly lopsided, seeing as I can’t cut a straight line to save my life. For the journal, I searched for the “perfect” book cover and simply used only the cover and rebound fresh pages by hand to make a new custom-made journal.

Photo Pendants. I made 2 photo pendants, each with a photo that the gift recipient held dear and this took a lot of trial and error. Not the photo part, but getting it to not bubble up at all and drilling the hole just so, so it wouldn’t all break and become useless. These are made of resin and you can buy resin kits at craft stores (like Hobby Lobby). It probably took me a good 2 weeks on getting the pendants to look like something I’d actually give. But honestly, I’m pretty sure these were a flop - or at least with my crowd. You can use the resin pieces to make jewelry of any kind, key chain, magnets, etc - I gave mine just as pendants so the recipient could choose what they wanted them as (with the exception of the hole I went ahead and drilled)…

More pendants, but with a variety of things inside…

T-shirt. I didn’t actually make the shirt, but I made the stencil and then painted it. “Herb” is a shortening of this person’s name, plus we thought it was sort of funny…

Even the dog got a homemade Christmas present - a dog bed. She’s way past her chewing phase (unlike Chance), and prefers to only chew on toilet paper and garbage. This was simply a hatbox, and I made a circular cushion for the inside plus an extra cushion to lay her head against, as well as some extra fabric for her to nose around to make her bed. This was a big hit with her, and now (much to Glory’s displeasure) Chance has taken it over…leaving a few chew marks behind.

A HUGE 2-person blanket. I didn’t use a kit, although they have those available, but I wanted something other than military/disney princess/team sports as this was for my BIL who LOVES coffee and is always cold. Personally, I ended up deciding I didn’t like the whole “fringe effect,” but it was a little late when I decided that, and luckily he liked it. He asked me to make another this year for his new wife so she’d give his back. Ha. I will warn you, though…unless you find the fabric hugely discounted, this project can end up running you $15-30 (or more) per blanket, so if you’re making gifts to save money you may want to keep this in mind and then buy the fabric on clearance when the weather gets warmer.

And, here’s one of the many Christmas photos I took and emailed out.

I made some other gifts, as well - but, can’t find the photographs. I’m sure half of you are bored out of your gourds anyhow, so I’ll just list them real quick just in case someone is interested: loom knitted hats and scarves, needle-knitted washcloth (I taught myself to knit for these gifts and quickly found out that it’s WAY too slow if I do the needle-knitting), baked gifts (like homemade bread), and Christmas cards (these were simple, a light colored card with christmas ornament shapes cut out of red and green patterned papers, and a bit of string tied on, then it all adhered down to the front side of the card. I made about 80, so they had to be simple!).

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