Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Handmade Christmas...

With my family every year we do a gift exchange, in the last couple of years it has changed to a handmade gift white elephant type gift exchange. We all make a handmade gift, pick numbers, and than steal, steal, steal... it is so fun. Everyone gets so creative. This year B and I were supposed to be in California, so we didn't plan on making anything. When we got stuck on the highway, and had to throw in the towel on our California Christmas plans... we had to think fast and get our crafty on...

I ended up making homemade bath bombs, which turned out awesome. I can't wait to make more. I scented half with rose powder and jasmine, and half were lavender, with just a hint of patchouli.



B made a set of nesting bowls, they were made out of pages of magazines. You fold the paper to about 1/4 in and wind it together like a collapsible cup, than you pop it out, and cover with a coating of modge podge, or elmers glue, whatever you have on hand. They turned out so awesome! We are going to make some more for around our house, I am totally bummed I didn't get more pictures of them, but we were making them up until the last minute on Christmas day.

B came home with an awesome wind chime made by nick out of hardware parts, pics to come soon. I got a cook book compiled of family recipes and aprons handmade by john... they are pretty freakin sweet, and it is so awesome to have a book of family recipes, included in the book are bread recipes from my grandpa's bread book... he was such an awesome baker, so it feels pretty special to have his recipes.
Also in the exchange...
  • Candle holders hand painted and embellished by rachel
  • a B-52 drink mix kit, put together by jason
  • handmade set of birthday cards by annie, there were enough cards for an entire year to send one to every person in our family... we have a huge family so I think there was like 30 some odd cards.. impressive
  • custom painted speakers, custom painted by none other than jeff
  • a set of grocery and produce bags handmade by becki, complete with wine and beer already in them...
  • a coffee quilt, coffee, and mugs by mom... the quilt was awesome.
  • a comfy cozy handmade fleece blanket and a borders gift card made by nicole...
  • and a lovely framed family tree made by jo, with our entire family on it, it was super cool.

what a fun tradition we started, this is really one of the highlights of Christmas, I can't wait for next year to see what we all come up with.

1 comments:

Tiffany said...

That is so awesome. I suggested homemade for our get together...no one jumped on it. I was kinda bummed. What a creative family you have!