Christmas Attire

I changed my mind so many times with the type of shirt I was going to make the littlest Mr for Christmas events this year.

But it suddenly all came together in my mind yesterday and created today.
(Sorry about all of the pictures, he was such a poser and I HAD to show off all these great photos of him looking very proud of his new outfit!)

Only two more shirts to make for the other boys (they have chosen and told me what they would like on theirs.. so stay watching)

Handmade Gift Bags

Not only does it avoid wrapping paper waste, but they are pretty cute... and reusable!
I just made a simple calico bag (next time I might use ribbon or twill strips for the straps to save time and allow me to make more, or even buy some premade calico bags) and embroider the simple Christmas greeting to the front.

I hope they will be repurposed in future gift giving or as a carry bag during the Christmas time.

DS Cover/Case

Shhh... My older two boys are getting DS's for Christmas.
And as you may know they are expensive, especially with all the accessories and games etc.

So I got creative, not only did I manage to get 2 pre-owned DS from a games shop at a fraction of the price, and they still come with a 12 month warranty on them.
Plus a bunch of pre-owned games from forums and classifieds.

But I decided to make them covers each for storage rather than buying them.
Plus I don’t think store bough ones have this much storage.
These have storage for 12 games, the stylus, the DS, and games instruction (and I added another pocket because I had a bit of extra fabric because I managed to cut one pattern piece twice for both cases)

This is the tutorial I used.

And if they fill up the 12 game slots, I have intensions of making something like this.

Patchwork Diary Covers

Using the exact same method as I explain in my Fabric Covered Book Tutorial (except instead of drawing the measurements on to my interfacing, I did it on some paper beforehand because all 5 books were going to be the same size) I made some patch work diary covers for Christmas gifts for the kid's teachers.


Work out the fabrics you’d like to use for the front.

Using a couple of different sizes of paper (I just used a notepad I have, similar to post it notes, 1 was the full size, the other was folded in half one way, and the other folded the other) I then cut out a few of each fabric in the different sizes.

With my paper pattern as a size template I arrange the fabric pieces to fit in the best without too many of the same fabric touching completely. (Remember your fabric pieces are going to NEED to hang over the edge of this pattern, because when you sew each piece together you are going to lose a bit of its size)

Once you have created you "Main fabric" you continue all the steps exactly the same as the other tutorial!

It's Beginning to Look Like Christmas.

Years and years ago, back when we had only one child, I found these HUGE Christmas stockings, like novelty size (but actually practical to fill with toys).

I loved them so much I bought 2; we had talked of having a second, so I knew this wasn’t too ridiculous.

Little did I know we would end up with 3 children and the store since close, so I couldn’t find the same size stocking again.

The first year we had our youngest, I got away with buying a MINI stocking (novelty size to the other extreme) because he was the baby and it suited.

But last year, it just wasn’t working, and still no luck finding a large one for him, AND to top it off the other boys were starting to fall apart inside where it had this weird foam lining.

So I promised myself I would make new stockings for ALL of us this year.

I had intentions to make jumbo ones for the kids, and regular size for mummy and daddy, but changed my mind.

By the way, I used this pattern, just added the fold over cuff and didn’t worry about lining

The red tree fabric is from Spotlight, the green with white spots is from my own stash.