The how to's of our Christmas gifts!

Well, now that Frogs and Snails has enlightened you all to our children's Christmas gifts and our little plan to encourage their sense of giving rather than receiving I thought I'd give you a run down on how I made some of their handmade gifts.  

First off, let's get the girly dress out of the way.  This was the easy one.  A plain pink long sleeve top from Best and Less for $4 and a beautiful Fat Quarter I got off Etsy for $3.  So excluding my time this dress was made for the bargain price of $7.  All I did was hem two thirds of the fat quarter, stitch the sides together and then gather the top hem before sewing it to the shirt. 

Lastly,  I cut a strip from the remaining fabric, doubled it over and hemmed it before sewing a loose stitch straight down the middle.  I then carefully pulled the cotton so the material gathered and then sewed it on the neckline to make a lovely ruffle.  Easy peasy!  

I was rather pleased with the end result.  What do you think?  It looks even better on and although a little big on our petite Miss Two it is a dress she will most likely fit into for a few years to come.

Little Miss Two has a name beginning with E and although she is very little she has a tendency to be rather clumsy and heavy handed.  Despite her tiny frame she seems to bump into everything as if she were a huge elephant so we call her E... the Elephant.  I was looking through some blogs one day and came upon a photo of an elephant cushion which I thought was very clever.  I saved a copy of the picture but didn't think at the time to save a copy of the instructions so when the idea of hand made Christmas gifts came up and I wanted to make this cushion I had to come up with a method myself based on one photo.  

I took a trip to the local Salvation Army Store and found myself a $6 woollen jumper.  It was perfect, beautiful colours and oh so soft.  I couldn't wait to get to work on it.  I started by cutting off the neck and removing the sleeves.   I stitched the top together and then hand stitched on one side and gathered the cotton to create the ear.  I stuffed it with some cushion stuffing I had left over from another project (below) hand stitched again to create the other ear and finally sewed the bottom of the jumper together.  It looked more like a lolly in a wrapper at this point but I could see it's potential for being an elephant so I continued on.  Taking one of the sleeves I sewed one end together, filled it with stuffing and then sewed it to the lolly wrapper shaped cushion and TA-DA, my elephant had a trunk.  I added a couple of buttons as eyes and she was done.  

The stripes of the jumper were horizontal so you can see that it was made by turning the jumper on it's side.

I can't express enough how happy I was with the end product.  My elephant was so soft and comfy to lean against, I kept finding my boys cuddling up with it on the sofa and had to wrap it up ready for Christmas just to stop them from taking it.  

 Next up I moved onto matching travel mats for Little D and Little F.  I found this fantastic fabric from a Japanese supplier on Etsy.  Half a yard of this gem of a find delivered to my door from Japan for the bargain price of $8.  Another trip to the Salvo's produced two lovely, green, as new cushion covers for just $2 each.  So, doing the maths that makes two travel mats for only $5 each.  

I cut the fabric in half, retaining a small strip off the side for some ties and sewed in onto the cushion cover, tucking in the hemmed tie as I sewed over the final edge.  The beauty of using a cushion cover as a base meant it has in built storage. Master 8 rummaged through his collection of Matchbox cars to find a couple of cars to zip up into the cushions and the whole thing rolled up, sides folded in and secured with the ties would only take up a small amount of room in Mumma's bag when needing to keep the boys entertained whilst out.   Perfect!

Love it!  On the back I used some fabric markers to write each boys names so there would be no arguments over whose was whose.  

The last one I'll show you for today is Little F's fire engine.  This was the most time consuming gift of all.  Mostly because I started it before I bought my sewing machine so it was all hand stitched.  It started it's life as a red, square cushion, probably taking pride of place on somebodies sofa before being tossed into a Salvo's bin.  One man's trash is another man's treasure!  It was absolutely perfect for my little project at at only $3 for the cushion, 20 cents for a half a metre of yellow fabric (crazy, I know) and 50 cents for a metre of blue fabric with a few buttons I already had I created this!

Yes!  You read right!  One cuddly, soft fire engine for only $3.70 - say it with me.  BARGAIN!!!!

I love the SALVO's!!!!

I took the cushion and drew the basic shape on it, cut it out and then hand stitched it all together.  I stitched and stitched and stitched some more.  I then cut out the head lights and ladder, applied some heat and bond and then applique stitched around the edges (it's a kids toy, heat and bond alone just wouldn't cut it.)  I did the same for the light blue window.  The tyres were just a square of fabric with a bit a stuffing placed on top.  I gathered up the sides and shaped it in a sphere and secured to the engine with the button and a few stitches around the edges to ensure those blue tyres weren't going anywhere.  

Little F better look after his fire engine or my poor fingers will never forgive him.  Hours and hours of sewing this took but I think it was worth it. But in hindsight, I really should have invested in a thimble!

Handmade Gifts for Boys (and a Girl)

For Christmas last year my sisters and I agreed that the next generation was expanding a little too quickly for us to purchase Christmas presents for all the nephews and niece (yes there is a girl in there.) We've had three new additions in the last eighteen months alone (all male, of course). We also agreed that Christmas was getting a little too commercial for our liking, where the children were spending most of the day opening gifts and not really focusing on what they were receiving or who they were receiving it from. The solution we came up with was a type of Kris Kringle with a twist. We put all the kids names in a hat then each Aunty drew out as many names as she had children. The twist... we were going to make the gifts ourselves, with a $20 limit on supplies needed.
So, I, having two children with me for Christmas, would be making two gifts as would our younger sister who also has two children (one of which is the rarest of the rare in our family... a daughter). Our youngest sister having no children got off scot free. Lucky Sonshine and Lollypops, having four kids would have to provide four presents (that's what you get for your dedication to expanding the male population.)

We started preparing way back in October. I started keeping an eye out for supplies in early November but I must say I was still frantically working away at my sewing machine two days before Christmas.

On the day we handed out the presents to each child in ascending age order. We all watched as each child opened their very own, handmade gift before moving on to the next recipient.

Master 7 months received a beautiful handmade animal picture book with each of his and his cousin's animal motifs in it.






















Master 15 months (Little F) received a fire engine cushion(one of his many nick names is Little F the Fire Engine.) He also recieved a car track roll (not pictured) because as if Sonshine didn't have her work cut out for her making gifts for FOUR nephews and niece (yes, still only one), she had to make them TWO EACH! I don't know how she does it.






















Master 15 months received an 'op-shopped' playdough kit with homemade playdough. Little D and I really enjoyed making this together and I loved the utensils we chose so much that I want to make another for our house. Garlic presses, potato mashers and playdough were made for each other.























Young Miss 2 and a bit received a lovely cushion in the shape of an elephant (another nick name nod).It was made from an upcycled jumper found at the op-shop. I love the colours. She also recieved one of the beautiful dresses that Sonshine has been working on. On a side note, between you and me, I think our Sonshine was absolutely thrilled to have picked our only niece's name out of the Kris Kringle hat and with all those boys it is great that she does have one little girl in the mix to give her a little XX chromosome fix every now and then.






















Master 2 and a half received the same car track roll as his brother which is a blessing for me. Having two boys with similar interests so close together in age means duplicates of everything is an absolute must in the Frogs and Snails household.
I love the photo on the right. Master 8 is showing Little D the car he personally chose for his track. It was so beautiful seeing his pride and joy in giving a gift to another.
Little D also received a handmade t'shirt (not pictured) made by Master 8 with an orange and red print on it. He calls it his sunset shirt.






















Master 3 received a personalised alphabet book. I just love that cheeky face.






















Master 5 received a letter writing kit in a handmade bag. This is the piece that I left until the very last minute but I was super pleased with the final result.






















Master 8 received every 8 year old's dream, a huge bag of slimey slime! He also received some yummy homemade macaroons (his favourite gluten free treat)

The great thing about opening one handmade present each, one at a time is that even a month later, the kids still know where their gifts came from and who made some of their cousins gifts too. Another great thing (for my boys at least) is that these lovely individual gifts, made for them by people who know and love them, are shaping up to be some of their favourite possessions of 2012 and possibly of all time.