Handmade Christmas

This Christmas I, and many of my family members, decided to "go handmade". Not "oh. um. how nice. thanks." handmade. Oh no, this Christmas was a "wow! you made that?? wow! cool!" handmade. :)

My sister made beautiful earrings for me:



magnets for our refrigerator:



cute as a button onesies for Josiah:





and a really stellar magnet board for our fascinated-by-the-alphabet preschooler:



My brother Jonathan and sister-in-law Jenny made us yummy applesauce and crabapple jelly (unfortunately unphotographable because we have already started eating them!) and a beautiful quilted potholder:



Jenn is quite the quilter - last fall we received a gorgeous quilt from her as a "welcome Josiah" gift.



And why blogger won't let me put the pictures of the quilts right side up I cannot imagine. Boo.

Jenn is also an amazing photographer. The boys were delighted with a poster-sized photo of an excavator (really, how cool can you get?) :) And part of our Christmas gift was a set of photo cards, each different, with photos that she had taken. You can see some of the photos she used at her website - I strongly encourage you to head over there and check it out. Jenn has an eye for beauty, and an ability to capture it that makes me green with envy.

My parents made this beautiful quilt block wall hanging. I love it especially because it reminds me of all the quilts that my mom and dad used to decorate the house when I was growing up.



We haven't received our gift from Christopher yet, but I have it on good authority that he's spent hours upon hours working in the garage, hand-making things, so I'm excited to see what eventually arrives. (The trouble with hand-made gifts is that they take such a long time to make, and Christopher can't start working on them until he gets home from school in mid-December!)

I made hammocks for my two brothers and my sister's husband. It was a natural extension of making slings - I just made some really big ones! :) Sadly, I forgot to take pictures of them before I gave them away. Maybe someone will take one for me?

And for all the women in my family: handmade soap.



I loved teaching myself how to make it, I loved the fact that I could purchase my supplies from other etsy moms, and I loved how nicely they turned out. Also, I like that they are gifts that can be used up. I'm very into gifts that can either be used or used up right now - probably a by-product of living in a somewhat cramped house and tripping over lots of kid stuff. :)

I love all the creativity that showed up this year. And I love that my family is the sort to appreciate handmade gifts.


(Thanks, Sarah, for the pictures which I stole from your post on the same subject!) :)