Handmade Christmas presents

I made a bunch of handmade gifts for family members for Christmas and thought I’d share them here.

My dad is a coffee drinker, so I had the idea of customizing some mugs for him. I bought the pen a long time ago, but then couldn’t find it and had to go out and buy another. The pen was around $3 from Hobby Lobby (they also carry them at Michael’s) and the mugs were from Bed Bath & Beyond (although I saw a line of white pottery or china at Target later). The hard part was trying to come up with a pattern to cover them for a man. The herringbone pattern was inspired by this mug, and the gems just came to me from pieces of my watercolor mailart pieces.

My sister in law has told me before that she wanted some vintage sleigh bells, like my parents have hanging from their front door. The problem; those real bells cost about $100. So, when I saw this sleigh bell DIY I knew I had to attempt making her one until we find some real ones at a garage sale/thrift shop/estate sale. The bells used in this tutorial are really bright, new and shiny and I know real vintage sleigh bells are more patina-ed so I went about searching for a patina that I could buy locally at the local craft stores and found a kit. Once I started applying it I quickly realized it wasn’t quite the look I was going for. I also worried about using chemicals that seemed like they might flake off, on an item that would be near children and animals, so I just left the bells plain.

My sister loves astronomy, and I saw a picture of a moon necklace that she favorites on Pinterest. The shop makes necklaces with the phase of the moon on whatever date you like, seen here.  Inspired by that I had the idea to look up the moon from when my sister was born, and it was a sliver away from being a full moon. Then I found an image online of the moon and printed it out on shrinky dink and made this necklace for her. I actually had to make the necklace 3 times before the moon wasn’t completely askew and wonky.

More than a year ago my mom bought me a couple of necklaces that hold different patterned magnetic buttons, so you can swap out the center. I liked one of the necklaces, but knew I probably wouldn’t wear both so I gave her one of them back and she asked me to make her some magnets that had pictures of my nephew on them. Flash forward over a year and I finally got around to making those buttons. My next nephew or niece is due to be born any minute, so I guess I will be making her some new ones in a year or two ;)

edit: before I had a chance to even publish this post the new baby was born! Today and this evening I felt very fortunate to be able to help my brother and sister in law by calling family to keep everyone informed, walk their dog, bring lunch to my family, and have my nephew and their dog over this evening to play and watch him while his parents were otherwise occupied. I’m sure I will be posting more as soon as I get to meet this new edition to our family.