Holiday Wrap Up Day 6

I find it hard to believe that I am writing about Christmas gifts when the weather outside is determined to be summer. It is a sunny 70 degree day out in Oakland, and to be honest, I kind of miss winter. When I confessed this to my sister on the phone today, she assured me I would get my fill of cold weather when I come to visit her on the other side of the country in Delaware this month. I am sure that I will be happy to be back to the sun and warm once I have been away.

Today I wanted to just wrap up all the other presents I made this year for people. Here are all of the less cute, but still fun presents I made for the adults of the family. By no means did I make stuff for everyone, we did buy a few things, but a majority of the presents this year were handmade by me or purchased from other handmade places.

For my sister, I made her some Scrabble tile pendants. I went to a wonderful art store to pick out some Chyiogami papers. I did not realize how big the sheets would be, but I had to have two of them none-the-less. I think that some other projects can be made out of the left overs of the paper. Here are the tiles while they were drying:



It looked like I had some sort of odd science experiment going on. I thought that by putting some glasses over the tiles as they dried, I would prevent any dust from landing on them and being in the glaze. I really enjoyed making them and can totally understand why there are so many sellers out there. It was a fun, quick, and satisfying project. Here are my six finished tiles:



I also wanted to keep them covered to make sure that any errant glitter from the project I did for my Mom would not interfere. I made a candle holder project from this year's Martha Stewart Holiday magazine. I am always a sucker for her holiday issues, and this was no exception seeing as it boosted having a ton of handmade gift ideas. One that I really liked was this project that involved copying a picture into several sizes and placing it into the candle holders. You then were supposed to take glue and a fine tipped bottle and squeeze it on to cover the black parts of the image then sprinkle on the glitter.



Here they are getting ready for their glue bath. I found that the small tipped applicator bottles did not work well with the thick glue I bought, so I ended up painting on the glue. It worked out well, but the holders took forever to dry. By the time they would have been ready for their close-up, I was snatching them up to pack them for shipping. Sorry there is no finished shot!

For my sister-in-law Kathy, she wanted one of the burned velvet wreathes I made for my Mom and Beth. Luckily, I still had some of the materials left over. I found this project also courtesy of Martha Stewart a number of years ago. I finally got up the nerve to make one and bought all the materials and made all the rubber stamps. When it came time to do the actual project though, I made it for my sister for Christmas a few years ago. When my Mom's present that same year did not turn out, I cranked out another one for her. I was hoping to have the next one I made finally be mine, but I ended up making it for Kathy. Thank goodness I over bought on material the first time due to reading the directions wrong. I hope I have enough to make one more for me. Here is a picture of the one I made for Beth originally, but Kathy's looked almost the same:



I think that the next one of these will also be the last one, unless someone wants to purchase it from me. ;)

The last gift that I made that got out on time is the scarf I knit for my Grandmother. This is one of the first things I got done actually. I of course did not take any finished product pictures of this either, but here is it when I first started:



This was the first thing that I have ever knit. It is the "My so called scarf" pattern, and I really like how it looks. I am thinking about making one for myself too with some yarn that I bought at the same time. It is the same yarn just different colors, more purples and dark blues than this.

Well today I am going to try something new, free quilting on my machine. Since it does not have a stippling foot, I am kind of intimidated with this process, but I am going to give it a shot. I also have bread to attend to. I hope that it turns out. More tomorrow.