Handmade Christmas Gifts

Amazingly, even with the new baby, I was able to make a couple of gifts for Jr. and Nichole this year. Thank you, husband, for helping me out.

My friend, Brittney, made a fairy princess skirt and talked about it on her blog. It was so cute, I wanted to make one for Nichole. So, I followed her tutorial but made my own changes to personalize it.

Instead of gluing jewels to the bottom (I found it is helpful to put something down there to give it a little weight), I strung beads through the ribbon, as well as a few bells to give it some jingle (but not too much).

Nichole loved that it had bells on it. She got all dressed up in some of her other fairy gear and enjoyed posing with her new fairy skirt.

Jeremy suggested I make a tool belt for Jr. to use with his Handy Manny tools. He even drew out a diagram to give me an idea- pockets and loops to hold the tools. I am learning to sew as you may remember from Halloween, but sometimes it takes me a long time to figure things out- did I mention I'm a beginner? Handmade Christmas presents require the recepient to not know what's going on so I was trying to work on the tool belt while Jr. was asleep (Nichole's I was able to do in my bedroom during the day as it didn't require any sewing). Unfortunately these days I get tired and sleepy a lot earlier since my nighttime sleeping is so broken up with taking care of the baby, so I just could not concentrate and figure out how to do the tool belt like Jeremy was suggesting. It was a great idea, though. Some day I will have the skills. I ended up simplifying it to the point of just having two pockets. And Jeremy gave me a spot in his office for setting up the sewing machine and ironing board so I was able to do it during the day while Jr. was awake and I could concentrate better.

So here is the finished product.

It will fit his tools just putting them in the pockets. Or he can put anything else he wants in there. This tool belt has room for him to grow, which is good because he's not really interested in it right now. That's okay. I finally convinced him to wear it long enough to get a picture.