Christmas Gifts

So after making Christmas gifts for all the cousins over the past few years, this year I resolved to not make any hand-made gifts this year.  No 3-to-5 year old really wants a hand-painted anything, they want toys that come in shiny boxes from Target.  So, this year, I resolved to just go for toys in shiny boxes from Target (or Top Ten Toys and Amazon, to be accurate).  But somehow, I still ended up making a bunch of hand-made gifts anyway.  I appear to be some sort of glutton.

Keith's Mom asked for a knitting bag with feet.  I don't knit, I've never knit, and I haven't the slightest idea what a knitting bag is, but for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to make this for her.

Keith made the frame and I designed & made the bag.  It turned out surprisingly cute, there are even pockets for her needles & scissors.  But...  You can't tell this from the photos, but the whole thing is, what the word?  ENORMOUS!  I'm not sure she wanted a knitting suitcase with feet, but that's what she's getting.

Cecily needs a piggy bank.  This is one of those projects that started out so innocently, I looked for one at a craft fair, but I couldn't find a cute one.  So then, I decided to buy a blank one & paint it myself, but then I thought that might turn out to require buying a ton of supplies, so I thought I'd just go to one of those pottery painting places & do it there.  Then, I saw this guy at the $-store (only in pink).

This may turn out to be the most annoying $1 ever spent, it took about 10 coats of purple paint to get the guy covered, and you have to jam the stopper out with a skewer through the coin slot.  We'll see how long it lasts.  But it should up the glitter-factor in Cecily's room by about 1000%.

These signs were an idea that Keith actually came up with last year (our friends have something similar), but we didn't have time to execute them last year.

I actually started this project in early-October, but just put the finishing touches on a few days ago.  We went through several different ideas for how to do it.  The final product isn't exactly what I'd hoped for, but I seem to be the only person who doesn't think they're perfect.

So, I did break the "shiny-boxes-from-Target" rule for a few kid gifts:

Fiona was a yellow dinosaur for Halloween, so I figured she'd enjoy being one the rest of time too.

I was planning to make a dinosaur sweatshirt for Cecily also, but ended up with something more like a purple lion:

I made capes for most of the cousins several years ago.  I think I even cut one out for Parker, but then I got pregnant and everything went out the window.  So, this year I finally made one for Parker: 

But for the best part, check out the fabric:

What's not to love about construction dinosaurs?