Christmas Crafts

As most people know, I love crafts. We did crafts in 4-H as kids and it has definitely carried through to adulthood. This year, we made most of our Christmas gifts and had a lot of fun doing it.

My first project was the PJ cans that I made with my friend Erica. We were originally just making Christmas cans for pajamas, but it evolved into making them for friends, nieces, teachers, etc, and we found other uses for the cans besides for PJs. We actually will be doing a phase two of the can project in the next week or so, so stay tuned. Here are all of our big cans mostly finished. The small can underneath Isabelle's is one that Erica made for her kids' teachers. Erica did a wonderful post about the project and what it turned into, so you can click this link to read her post: http://jeffamily.blogspot.com/2009/01/cans-cans-and-more-cans.htmlI had been feeling a little bit guilty during finals and end of the semester projects, so one night I decided that we needed a fun activity to do as a family. I looked online for some Christmas projects and came up with salt dough ornaments. We had a blast doing them and they doubled as gifts. Liam did a great job rolling out the dough. He loved to cut the shapes as well.He also liked to pretend that the spatulas were swords or magic wands as well.I can't believe I slacked so badly on picture taking, but I didn't even get a photo of the finished products, painted and all. :( They did turn out very cute though. Liam wanted to make them for each of his daycare friends. He even picked out which one for which child. So thoughtful. You can see them a bit in this picture, fresh from the oven. Liam decided to make a bridge with all of our chairs when he got bored with the activity.

I also wanted to make something to put with another little project I was doing, so I decided to give the cinnamon applesauce ornaments a try. They turned out great and smelled sooooo good. I think I'll definitely do these again. Wes made me do a "Martha Stewart" pose to look like I can actually bake or cook. Deceiving, isn't it? Another project that I did, was bathroom towels. With the help of my sister, I cut fabric out and sewed them onto towels and added a ribbon and button. They came out really cute, not exactly functional, but really decorative and cute nonetheless. Here are a few examples. I was sewing buttons on until Christmas Eve, but it was a lot of fun!

I also did one more project that turned out wonderfully, but didn't take pictures of it (I know, Erica, serious slacker, right?). I made 4 more memo boards like I did for Liam's room(see http://whstephenson.blogspot.com/2008/11/busy-day-off.html to see Liam's.) I may have to get a picture of my sister's and post it.

I had so much fun making Christmas crafts this year that I'm already on the hunt for more to make for next year. If anyone sees any cute ideas, let me know!