homemade holidays: gifts of 2015

After counting them all up, I figured I made over 50 handmade gifts  this year.  Most of those gifts were small scale, but that added up to a lot of crafting hours, and not many sleeping hours in December.  :)  I promised my husband not to make anything for two weeks after Christmas, but luckily I have plenty of things to show you during my hiatus.

All of the projects in this post are lumped together because I only have fuzzy phone photos of them - sorry about that.  Guess that's what happens when you craft late at night and wrap/ship first thing the next morning!

I took advantage of the free house box printable by Polka Dot Prints for Design Mom and made a gazillion little treat boxes for friends, playgroup mommies, helpful ladies at church.  I paired as many as I could with an extra little gift, like a sparkly bird ornament or small pack of letterpress cards.

These houses were obviously designed for Christmas, but swap out that wreath, and you could definitely use it all year round.  A heart for Valentines?  Bunny for Easter?  I think I'll get a lot of use from that printable.

My L-Letterpress was working double-time, and I gave out a lot of notecard sets.   These were printed with the Ruffles Printing Plate, which I think is quite pretty.

For Oscar's preschool teachers, I made patchwork lanyards using the tutorial from the blog, Simply Cotton.   These are super easy to make, and only take 8 charm squares (5x5" cuts of fabric).  Just a note, if you are sewing them in bulk:  sew all 8 charm squares together first, then cut the long strip in half, essentially making two lanyards at once.  It speeds things up a bit.

Also speeding things up, use one kind of fabric and skip the patchwork.  I made a more neutral (wardrobe friendly?) lace print lanyard for my sister-in-law, BYU-Idaho's newest librarian.   Love you, Holly.  :)

I think these lanyards make a great, useful gift for anyone required to wear a name tag to work.  If I were having any more babies, I would make some for the wonderful nurses in the maternity ward.  I bought the lobster clasps from an etsy shop, twpmango (also got some cufflink backs ... but I'll show you those later).

Ok, last up in the terrible lineup of photos, I made three colorful clutches using Elm Street Life's Bow Clutch tutorial.  I love this little bag - it is the perfect size for the little necessities ... wallet, phone, chapstick, etc.  Anytime I don't want to haul my diaper bag, I grab my little clutch like this.  Admittedly, the pink one turned out a little wild (sorry, Megan!), and the polka dot clutch was somehow sewn backwards, but are still cute for a pencil case, make up bag, travel pouch ... 

Phew ... sorry again about those fuzzy photos.  I'll take better photos of the things I made for my kids.  :)