So, I made it a whole week with no sick days. I know, incredible. We haven’t done that since Halloween. It has come to and end. Big-sis is sick this time. This does not bode well. She doesn’t get sick nearly as often, but when she does…lets just say two Christmases ago she spent a whole week with a fever of 105.

So we did quiet things today. Made cards and read books. The one above are circles punched out of an old Knit Picks catalog. We’re using them as gift tags. These ones below are the ones the one we’re mailing. We’re hoping to get them mailed out by Wed.

By far the fav around here is the Wise Men. In case you can’t read it it says “They did not wear hats, they wore towels”.

Little-Sis woke up this morning insisting that she needed cards for all her “kids” at preschool. She’s just learned to write her name, so I came up with these. Yes, it’s the same art I used for the Doggie Bookplates. Can’t help I, I love these dogs.

These would work as tiny cards for kids, or as gift tags. They’re all in a PDF and can be printed in color or black and white. Enjoy!

I have to say keeping up the advent calendar this week has been crazy. We’ve had a slew of meeting, ranging from PTA to pre-school pageant. It is like every group or organization we are in had to get in a December meeting this week.

I haven’t even finished attaching all the numbers to the calendar. A project leftover from last year. Things done and undone, right?

I try to balance fun stuff with things that relate to the Christmas story. Tonight the girls got star stickers. We talked about who followed a star, and what they were looking for.

Here are some of the other things we have done. Some of them are cards to follow clues to find something, or cards for an activity.

• Make teacher gifts
• birthday candles
• Make cookies with mom
• straw tied in a present- we talked about how it felt, and what kind of bed it would make for a baby
• write Christmas cards
• Then the old fall-back, M&M’s

OK, I admit. I spent all day yesterday hanging out in my jammies. Sat’s debate meet went great, but after 12 hours of running back and forth I was pooped. I didn’t even knit.

This afternoon the girls and I worked on some holiday stuff. Big sis still wants to be the first librarian in space. We used her date stamper to make wrapping paper:

I love simple wrapping papers, and this is perfect. It’s red and white, and no mess to clean up.

Handmade Holiday is rolling along. Here’s the updated list of Handmade Holiday folks:

• Billingtons
• Crafty Bits and Bobs
• Kathryn Ivy
• mk carroll
• Rosie
• Tara

Be sure to stop by the flickr group. Amazing!

Tomorrow I’ll add some more ideas of what to make. Right now the husband and I are going to watch Transformers and I am going to rework a yoke on a sweater for little-sis. Every time I start to knit for them they insist on growing!

Oh, and check out the Flickr badge to the right.

Another Wreath-here’s the how-to

Yeah!! Rosie over at www.rosieknits.com just signed up to participate in Handmade Holiday. Check out her blog, lots of snappy things!

Personally I am rolling along on the gifts. I had lots of good knit time on the DC trip this weekend, so I now have a cardigan done for little-sis and half a sock for a family friend. Deep calming breath, it will all get done.

Need an idea for what to make? Here are some smaller projects I’ve come across. Have a good idea for a simple handmade gift? just e-mail me and I’ll add it to the list. (becca (at) handmademom dot com).

• Portfolio from Amy Butler - I think I might make one of these for big-sis. She’s writing a book-a-day right now. This looks like something she would love, and I can make in an evening…perfect combo. Have I mentioned I love her fabrics:

• Knitty’s winter issue always has tons of great quick gift ideas.
• Did you say baby? Here’s a pattern for a knitted baby kimono over at The Complete Fabrication. Too cute.
• For the kids this year we are doing lots of books. I am including a set of my Doggie Bookplates with each one. If I have time I also plan on making a busy bag to hold them….right, time…

I learned this last year at a meeting of my teaching sorority. It is the easiest way to make a homemade fresh wreath that I have ever seen. Even the kids helped a bit.

Materials:

• Artificial Evergreen Wreath (trust me, they’ll never know)

• Lots of cut evergreens.
• (Optional) Dried flowers and seed pods from the garden.

Directions-before making the wreath

• Gather the evergreen cuttings. Start collecting early. Mine is cedar, boxwood and other clippings from the yard. Honestly I have no idea what the variegated stuff is. The cedar we scored down the road. A neighbor was cutting back some shrubs and left it out for trash collection.
• Put the cuttings in a bucket of water until ready to use. Keeps then nice and fresh.

  

Directions-How to make the wreath

• Start by setting up your work area. If working inside put down newspaper.
• Put the wreath form back-side down on your work surface and push apart all the branches. Basically you will be using these branches like pipe cleaners to tie the fresh greens to the form. It is easier to do this if you untangle a bit first.
  
• Cut the fresh evergreen into bundles about 4 to 5 inches long.
  

  

• On mine form there are two rings, one inner and one outer. I started on the outer ring.
• Place the first bundle down and twist two branches around the bundle, about 2 inches from the cut end of the greens.

  

  
  

  

• As you work make sure to lay all the cuttings in one direction, overlapping by about 3 inches. Try to tuck the branches of the artificial wreath behind your cuttings. It fluffs up the wreath, and fills in any gaps, but is otherwise invisible.
• Continue adding bundles until you have gone all the way around the form.

  

• Tuck the cut ends of the last bundle under the end of the first bundle, twist into place.
• For mine I did the outer ring in cedar, then for the inner ring I alternated boxwood and the mystery shrub. I then added dried flowers from the garden-gomphrena, seed heads from garlic chives. You could also use pine cones, seed heads from crepe myrtles, berries, bows, whatever you have on hand.

  

Note: I checked with my garden savvy stepmother-the yellow speckled stuff is Aucuba.

We’re finally getting some chilly weather here. Lots of hope for snow this winter. Last year, after the move back from Florida we got about 3 flakes, so my little flakes really do not remember what snow looks like.

We’re starting to work on our Christmas list. Last spring I made the girls a Family Memory game. I think we might duplicate this for their cousin in Williamsburg. The girls have love this, and it’s been a fun way to remember everyone.

We’re also starting to think about teacher gifts. This is a hard one for me personally. I teach, and the last thing I want is to saddle someone else with a bunch of “apple-crap”. I am also on a public schoolteacher’s budget, and like the idea of hand made.

So we’ve been working on a hot chocolate recipe, and think we’ve hit the final formulation. Little-sis likes to play Top Chef when we do our taste testing which is pretty funny. The plan is to put this in small cellophane bags and put this in a holiday mug.

Hot Chocolate:

• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon Cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl. Put in small jars or gift bags.

For the tag:

Mix 2 teaspoons with 1 cup of hot milk. Stir and enjoy.

The girls are still at the point where they like goofy hair accessories. This is the Santa Barrette cover made of felt.

Here are some plain red ones with light blue snowflakes.

Materials

• Felt in various colors
• Embroidery Floss
• Needle
• Clip style Barrettes

Directions

• Print out the pattern below and cut out all pieces. The top and back are flesh colored, the hat red and the beard white (duh)
• The bottom rim of Santa’s Hat was done in French Knots
• Add the face-eyes French Knots, Mouth in an outline stitch
• Use a Blanket Stitch to attach the beard to the face
• Put the back and top pieces together, wrong sides facing. Put the hat on top. Work around the back piece using the Blanket Stitch, making sure to catch the hat as you go.
• Slip the barrette in, and your set to go.

Need some help with the stitches?

That snappy gal over at Primrose Designs has an excellent stitch school with directions. Very clear directions and great pictures.

Enjoy!

So we can get started on:

The girls started their drawings for our Christmas cards last night. Our current favorite is “The wise men did not wear hats, they wore towells”. The husband thinks it is the best Christmas message ever, I am not sure how on point it is, but most of our relations will find it funny.

I do have to say we will especially miss:

I’ll try to scan in the Here’s the pattern I’ve been using for the barrettes. tomorrow. We’ve had a lot of fun with these felt covers.