Christmas 2017: Spouse/Husband Gifts

 Right, hold on, I need to do a thing.  Ready?  *Puts on Santa hat*

*Clears throat and starts to sing*

On the 12th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

12 handkerchiefs

*Mumbles through a bunch of lyrics*

 Three containers of whipped foot cream.

 

Two embroidered pillow cases

*Strikes dramatic pose*

 And a pillow marked with a "B" *imagine "B" is more like "Beeeeeeeeeeeee!"*

Thank you *bows*.  To quote Alf, "Ha! I kill me!"

Obviously, this post is covering what I made for my husband for Christmas, so I figured I would share via a song.

So, let's break it down by the numbers...

First I made my husband and dozen handkerchiefs, because...well he needs them.  I just used an existing handkerchief to make a pattern (I just drew a 1/2 frame around the entire handkerchief to allow for same allowances) and then I just did french seams so that the handkerchiefs would hold up to constant use without fraying or anything.

The foot cream I kind of punted on. I used to make a foot cream my husband really liked, but I didn't have about 70% of the ingredients in the house anymore, so I made do with what I had and made him a new one.   I made it with some calendula oil that I had already and then I added a tablespoon each of borage oil, evening primrose oil and black currant seed oil (since I bought those to use on the son and he didn't like the smell at all and won't let me put them on him much), added three tablespoons of beeswax pellets and then heated it all up in the double boiler until the beeswax was melted and completely incorporated.  I then added about 10 drops of lavender essential oil and another 20 drops of peppermint essential oil.  After it had all cooled to room temperature, I took some solid state coconut oil I had and mixed in a bunch of it with a hand mixer until the mixture was light and fluffy.  And voila!  Foot cream.  This will be stored in the fridge after Christmas just to be sure it'll have some staying power, but hopefully it'll help my husband's cracked heels.

The pillow cases actually got made after the neck pillow I made for him.  My husband has problems with his back from time to time, so I wanted to give him a pillow to tuck under his neck when it was bothering him and made it big enough that he could watch TV or something while using it comfortably.  I thought about it and since the pillow was going to be on the bed all the time I wanted it to look nice, so I embroidered a "B" on it as an afterthought.

I then decided to embroider a couple of pillow cases to go with the pillow and thus the two pillowcases were done.

I am quite proud of myself as these were done on the sly so I am hoping my husband isn't aware of any of these gifts.

Total Time to Make Gifts:  The handkerchiefs took me 3 hours between cutting them, sewing them and juggling kids while doing it all.  The foot cream took me, oh I'll go with about two hours between preparation, waiting for it to cool and whipping it and such.  The pillow cases took me two hours per pillowcase (believe it or not the design is really simple and it didn't take long to get done embroidery-wise) and the pillow itself took me about two hours.  For the ends of the pillow I used a decorative plate as the template for the circle and then added a half inch circumference around the circle so I had a seam allowance taken into account.  I then just cut the fabric straight at what I thought the pillow should have for length and then I just sewed one circle onto the end, sewed the other end on and then sewed up the middle seam.  I embroidered the "B" on after the pillow was all together (which was a pain, but didn't take too terribly long).

Total Cost to Make Gifts:  Nothing out of pocket currently to do any of them.  The handkerchiefs I made with bleached muslin that I have in the house pretty much all the time (although if I had to guess on cost overall, I would say about 2.00 for the handkerchiefs since I got the material on sale a while ago).  The pillow was actually made with the unbleached muslin that Jo-Ann Fabrics messed up and didn't send me when I ordered it so they gave me the material for free to make up for it, so the pillow literally cost me nothing on the material front.  I used an old pillow for the stuffing for the pillow itself.

The foot cream is what probably would cost the most in materials.  The calendula oil I made from calendula petals I had dried myself a while ago and I had the calendula oil in the cabinet to put on my son's eczema as needed.  The borage oil, the evening primrose oil and the black currant seed oil cost me probably about 3.00 for all three oils once I had emptied enough oil caplets to get the oils I needed.  The coconut oil I had buried in the pantry.  The little mason jars I had on hand as they are part of my canning supplies.

The pillow cases were ones I already had around (one of them was actually part of a craft kit my step-mom sent me with no instructions with it, so I didn't use the pattern printed on it and just washed it off.  It worked well), so they didn't cost me anything to embroider.  The embroidery floss and thread were gifted to me, so that didn't cost me anything either.

Not too shabby of gifts to give to a spouse I'd say.

So, how about you guys?  Making anything for your spouses this year?