christmas crafts

since christmas is now past and the gifts have all been opened, here are some of the things the kids and i (mainly i) have been working on for the past month or two...

first we started with our homemade ornaments.  on my side the siblings just exchange ornaments, so we thought that we would make ours this year.  we started with a bowl of 1x1 inch felt squares.  then i gave each child a longish needle with thread and let them go to town.  the only rule (besides not poking each other) was not to but two of the same color next to each other.  madelyn made a few with patterns (red-green-white-red-green-white) and they all enjoyed it.  which was good because we did this at least five different days.

here are two of our finished felt wreaths.

then we painted feet for a canvas of christmas trees for papa and nana.  it came out so well that we made one for big pop and grandma too.  it was about then that matt and i realized that we only make gifts like this for the grandparents and never for us (they get all of the keepsake like things) so we plan to do one for us too - although, now that i think about it, we never did...

when i saw these on pintrest, i knew that it would make my mom very happy!  matt liked the idea too so we picked colors to match each set of grandparents' home and got going.  the kids helped paint all of the wood circles and then i did all of the writing while matt screwed in all of the hooks and eyes (not an easy job, by the way).  we were really happy with how they came out and they were such a big hit that we are going to make some more birthday 'coins' for each family.

teething necklace for baby wyatt from madelyn - the cousins all exchanged names (except for the mistake i made in double assigning mason..  we are actually going to draw names when we go down this summer so that will make things easier for the next year).

all three teachers received a set of four cloth coasters (well, madelyn's teacher will get hers when school starts back...).  the kids picked the fabrics for their teacher (mason was particularly passionate about the colors he selected for his teachers and was constantly checking on my progress) and then i pretty much had to do the rest from there because of how much you needed a glue gun.  simple but very time consuming!

once i had a sewing machine, i got a little craftier.  a few friends got reversible coffee cup sleeves.

matt got a back heating/cooling pad and the kids all got a set of hand warmers/boo-boo packs (madelyn's were heart shaped and the boys got squares)

maddux got a new (larger) sleep sack.

and we all got fleece socks (matt, mason, maddux got navy and madelyn and i got red with chicks).  i was really pleased with how well the fits turned out and i even made my own patterns!

i am already planning for next christmas!  and the plan is to make more things that the kids can play a larger role in putting together.  i just love giving homemade gifts - the giving is just that much more sweet.  (don't worry, we bought plenty of gifts too!)  love.