Homemade Christmas Gifts - Part 1

With Christmas just days away now, I have finally completed all of our handmade Christmas gifts!  I thought it would be fun to document some of our ("our," since handsome hubby has helped tremendously!) handmade gifts over today and tomorrow.

My favourite handmade gift was something I sewed for my future sister-in-law.  It has already been carefully wrapped; however, I will be sure to capture a photo of her modeling it for me (it's plaid!).

We drew names this year for all of the siblings/spouses in my husband's family.  There was a $30 minimum, so hubby and I both purchased something at that price for our "Secret Santa 'Giftees'" and then got a little creative with our time to create something extra.

For hubby's Secret Santa, I turned to my not-so-fancy sewing machine and repurposed a men's plaid shirt into something fun...(I'll return to that after Christmas.)

My Secret Santa LOVES hockey and especially the Toronto Maple Leafs (this is HIS obsession, not mine!)  The last year that the Leafs won the Stanley Cup was 1967, so I found some photos from newspapers at that time and transfered my images to wooden blocks using the method found here:

DIY Wooden Picture

Mine turned out like this:

I also made my Secret Santa an "I love you because" frame.  My husband and I really enjoy using ours.  (A few weeks ago he wrote: "I love you because: you don't have a 'nothing box'"  I'll explain another time!)  I found the idea via this blog and tweaked it a little with a fun font:

(Yes Julie, I promise to make you your own one day!)

For our grandparents, we made journal memory books.  I found my inspiration here: Grandparent's Journal, and then searched online for other various questions to build up my list of prompting questions.  While my book 'design' is not too fancy, I'm happy with the end result, and hope that our grandparents will be willing to record their thoughts on at least some of the questions!

I have had fun making some of our gifts this year.  I had considered making them ALL, but now two days away from Christmas, I am very happy I didn't!  (I really don't know where I would have found the time.)

(Tomorrow I will share the two different types of photo blocks we created for various family members.  I love how they turned out!)