Christmas Ornament Craft Swap

December is such a fun time of year.  I love making presents for my friends and family.  It's also the time of year of the Christmas ornament craft swap.  This is my 3rd or 4th year participating.  It's always fun opening up the packages to see the different ornaments the girls make.  Here's a peak at last year's ornaments.

This year I sewed fabric birds with scrap fabric.

 

And here are the darling ornaments I received! 

2011 Ornament Swap

In 2010, I participated in an ornament swap with a friend of mine.  Five of us hand crafted ornaments and mailed them to each other in time to enjoy for the holiday season. I loved doing this because it's a great way to increase your ornament collection with pieces that 50,000 others have.  I love seeing what other people create and it's interesting to see everyone's crafty comfort level.  It also ties into my philosophy of supporting local businesses and having a more handmade lifestyle. 

In 2011, I participated again and am really late in sharing the ornaments I received, sorry!!   I decided to make felt sugar skulls.  They turned out kinda quirky cute.

I received a felt gingerbread house, yarn lion, paper ornaments, and a button wreath.

Kitchen Play Mat

You might remember my nephews messenger bag play mat, well once my friend saw it, she asked me to make one for her friend's daughter.  After racking my brain on what kind of mat to make I decided on a kitchen.  There are tons of kitchen play mats out there so if you are looking for ideas, just google kitchen play mat.

I put four burners on the mat with a sink.  I added a fridge that opens up with a shelf on the inside.  I decided to make some food for her to play with and had so much fun making the felt food; it was hard to stop and not continue to make more.  The soap is removable, and the water is blue ribbon.  I wanted to make the mat very interactive and have lots of texture for her.  I hope she loves playing with it.

Messenger bag play mats

A couple of weeks ago as I started to think about what to make for my nephew this Christmas, I came across this play mat over at Serving Pink Lemonade.  Super cute dino play mat and I decided to make one; I though the mats would be perfect for him to play with when they go out to eat.  But as I starting thinking about it, I was wondering how in the world my nephew could carry it around with his dinosaurs.  Then it hit me to make a messenger bag that folds out into a play mat!  When I did some searching to find a easy messenger bag to make, I stumbled across someone else who had this great idea, Gingercake made one from corduroy.

I also decided to make a play car mat that folds up into the bag, so he'll have some options.  I had so much fun making these mats, I just finished a kitchen play mat for a friend's daughter (I'll post those photos tomorrow).

Holiday Garland

I decided I wanted a little something to dress up my mantel this year and remembered a post I saw at one time with garland made from cut out magazines.  I thought it was a cute idea, so I dug out my old Budget Travel magazines and started cutting.

I guess I had forgotten how tedious it was to cut out circles without using a dye cut. So if you have access to something that will automatically do it for you, skip the scissors! My circles are not the most even circles I have ever cut, but from a distance you can't even tell.

After I cut out the circles, I stacked four of them together and sewed them into a strand.  Once they were sewn together, I just bent the circles to create a 3-D ball of sorts.

 

Ornament Swap

Last year, you may remember my participating in an ornament swap with one of my friends in NYC.  You can see the ornaments here.  This year we did it again, and I mailed my ornaments out on Friday. I decided to do felt sugar skulls and they turned out kinda cute, for my first try at skull making.  I am not sure what goodies I am getting in the mail because they haven't arrived yet, but it should be any day and I am pretty stoked.

Happy Christmas!

This year in an attempt to make my gifts more personal, I made my presents for everyone.  They all pretty much got the same thing, but I feel like it was a very practical gift.  I'll show more pictures after they open their presents tonight or tomorrow!  


I have always been drawn to keeping my wrapping very simple and clean looking.  In my shipments of inventory from Pure Romance I received wads of brown paper that acts as filler.  This paper is  great to use for presents! Cut out the names of the recipient from newspapers or magazines and you've got cute wrapping for your loved ones that chic and eco-friendly!