With eight weeks to Christmas, according to my 10 Week Christmas Preparation Plan, my task this week is to complete making the handmade gifts that we will be giving to family and friends. Each year I am making a few more things, to add to the handmade collection, but I still do purchase the majority of gifts. Hopefully in years to come, (when I have some more time!!) I will make a larger percentage of my gifts.
This year so far I have made:
- Fabric Covered Button Hair Ties
- Fabric Covered Bobby Pins
- Fabric Covered Stationary
- Children’s Fancy Dress Tiaras
To add to the collection of handmade gifts, we have made Card Making Kits. These are perfect for stocking fillers, or to give to the children of close family friends. My 3 year old son and 5 year old daughter happily helped me with this project and it was great to have them involved in the gift making.
What We Used:
- We used an arrangement of patterned paper that I had bought on sale a year ago and some plain colours that had been given to us.
- We used Fiskars paper punches. They are more expensive than many punches you will find, but these punches the children can actually use themselves with ease. And as you can see the paper you are punching the shape into, you waste much less paper.
- Basic white card. For the last couple of years I have been making the trip to Preston to purchase card from Pedigree Paper. They have a retail outlet where you can purchase paper and card by the box. There are black, red and gold boxes that you can fill up. They are different prices depending on the quality of the stock. For the black box (basic) you can fill it up with a mix of A4 paper and card for approx $30. (This means that you get approx 150 sheets of card that is 250gsm.) For $5 they will also cut the contents of your box in half, so then all you have to do is fold the card in half.
- Double sided stickers. There are many ways to stick the shapes on the card, but I find these squares are the easiest for little fingers and make minimal mess.
We then placed all the finished materials into a ziplock bag and we are in the process of writing labels for each to them. My daughter loved these so much, that one has already been given to a friend as a birthday present.
I did meet my goal of making five handmade items for Christmas. I am hoping that we might still find time to make one more handmade gift for Christmas, but time is racing by, so we will see how we go!