When my kids were little, I started a tradition of making them something special that was just from me. When I married my husband, I extended the tradition to include him. This year, I added my son’s fiance to my list.
Over the years, I have made my children personalized ornaments, albums, mirrors, calendars, posters, mugs, frames and more — all featuring photos I have taken. This year, I wanted to do something a little different. Since I am learning how to sew, I decided to make them each something from fabric.
For my son, I cut up a sweater I found at Goodwill featuring embroidered hula girls. It is so him. But, since it was a girl’s sweater, I added it to a pillow for his couch. He loved the fabric I chose and didn’t notice the imperfections in the sewing!
I figured my daughter has not gotten a new pillow since long before she moved out of our house four years ago (I was right, by the way). So I bought her a new pillow and made her a super-soft flannel pillowcase to go with it. It was a tough project … I waited in line for 2 hours to get the fabric on sale on Black Friday — only to discover that it would not work for the pillow. So, I went back to the store and started over. The pillowcase was supposed to take an hour to sew … it took me six hours, including a few times of ripping out the seams and starting over. The good news is she loved it and I now know how to do a French seam!
My future daughter-in-law received a sewing machine for Christmas, so I made her a mason jar pin cushion to go with it and filled the jar with a variety of twines, ribbons, fibers and lace. Although this is a fabric project, I actually used paper-crafting supplies to make it. Check back on Thursday for a tutorial of this project.
But, it would not be Christmas without at least one paper-crafting gift … so I made my husband a calendar on a clip board. This is a brand-new system from Doodlebug. They come in a rainbow of colors, but I kept this one simple in black and white for him. (He had been wanting a clipboard to provide a smooth surface to write on on his desk. I thought this would be perfect.) I included all of the holidays, birthdays and anniversaries he needed to know, along with some of the crops I will be attending, hunting seasons and gun shows in the area.
It was a wonderful Christmas with my kids and their significant others. We had tons of presents, plenty of Mexican food and lots of laughs.
candy scraps 
These are all wonderful! Looks like fun was had by all. Hope your Christmas was just wonderful. Glad you had both your kids with you. Hugs, Robin