Thursday, December 21, 2017

Christmas 2017: Teacher Gifts and a Girly Throw Pillow


 Yay!!!  We are at the end of the gifts I made for the family this holiday season!  And I managed to do it by Christmas (I was worried this last week if I was going to make it in time).

First, I let my daughter's pleading get to me about wanting another throw pillow for Christmas this year *laugh*.  Where she will stick this on her bed I have NO idea, but I'm sure she'll figure it out (kids are great that way).

She desperately wanted a pillow with a rose on it, so instead of embroidering one onto a throw pillow (running out of time to do more embroidery and all), I went through my fabric stash and found a pink fabric with roses on it instead.  It came out pretty, I think.
While making cookies a few nights ago (thus the sprinkles in the background...the cookies are taking up the other 80% of the table) my daughter asked if we could make some gifts for her teachers at the same time.  So, I pulled out some wood clothespins and we made some reindeer ornaments out of them. I learned how to make these ornaments years ago in Girl Scouts when I was a kid and I always thought they were so cute.   I actually bought the clothespins we used on these when the daughter was in preschool to make these very ornaments and we have some hanging on our tree, so I figured it would be fun to make some for her teachers (and in my case I decided to make one for the speech therapist, the OT and the adaptive PE teacher for Alvah as well).  A red and black Sharpie for the fine detail work, some red embroidery floss for the hanger, some Elmer's glue and  voila we had some Rudolph's ready to go!

For my son's teacher I gave a couple of bags of Hershey kisses this year (bought with a coupon on top of a sale to get them for cheap) for her and the aides to split how they saw fit as I figure candy is always appreciated by most people.

Everyone loved the ornaments, so I'd say we did okay :).

Total time to Make Gifts:  The pillow took about 1/2 an hour between cutting it out, sewing it and stuffing it.  The ornaments took about an hour between gluing them all together and waiting for them to dry enough to put the faces on.  Past that it was just letting them sit overnight to dry and giving them out. 

Total Cost to Make Gifts:  Nothing.  The stuffing for the pillow was the last of the stuffing from the one pillow I stuffed pretty much everything with this year.  The fabric I had already and it was given to me originally.  The clothespins cost me something years ago, but nothing out of pocket currently and the Sharpies we already had (as well as the glue and embroidery floss).

I am super happy with what I made for the kids and husband this year, I have to admit.  It was nice having time to actually put into the projects and make them nice looking.  Now onto the rest of the week and enjoying the Christmas holiday =D.

2 comments:

  1. Yay, you! Everything looks wonderful!
    Enjoy the rest of your holiday!
    Debbie

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  2. I really like the pattern on the pillow. It came out so nice:)

    I did not make very many gifts this year. Other years, I have made more. This year, I've been too busy working, homeschooling, etc. But, I'm happy with what I bought with the money I earned. It's always a trade-off, and each year is different. I did sew 2 Christmas stockings, but it was much harder than I expected--not the sewing--finding my supplies, sourcing a pattern (I know, really clever people would have made their own from an existing stocking, but I didn't), etc. I like the ones with a lining and that's difficult for me to do without a pattern. Sewing is much harder because my machine has to be retrieved from the garage every time I want to sew, and then put away sooner or later. Right now, it's still on the table, but it's got to go back to the garage in the morning because I have guests coming and right now only 2-3 people could sit and eat. I do have one more project I want to sew soon, but it most likely won't happen before Christmas. Thankfully, I bought something else super cute, and the child it's for will always be around in a month or two and I can give it to her then.

    I'm glad you can enjoy the holiday now, I think I can, too:). We got a LOT done today. (Today was the first day I did not work for a while and so we had saved things like shopping for today. It's not very easy with special needs children in tow, and that's what I do for a job--take care of my special needs nephew). Costco was already packed first thing this morning, so I'm super glad we went there this morning and didn't wait any longer.

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