Inspiration and tutorials

I am so excited to be a part of the Crafty Christmas Club again this year. I have already begun making the presents for my family and I just wanted to show you some of the great tutorials I have been inspired by.
First I want to share with you the new Pinterest board that I have setup for this purpose: "Making Christmas Gifts 2011". I am a great fan of Pinterest especially if you can link through and find amazing tutorials.
One of my favorite is the Porcupine Pin Cushion  from Prudent Baby. It was so easy to make and look real nice - just something for the people in my life who love sewing.
Another of my favorites is the 3-way laundry bag by // Between the lines //. Its so easy to make and I have already made 3 for myself (check them out here on Grey Duckling) and 2 for family gifts.
Last year I made decoupaged a bowl with stamps for my husband and this year I have also been decoupaging a couple of gifts for the family (more later).
Finally I want to show you a picture of a couple of decoupaged Christmas decorations I made this year (see last years decorations here).  





During the summer I decided to move more of my personal projects over to my own blog "Eddie's Room". Since I am now 8 months pregnant the latest posts have been about making baby stuff so if you are in need of inspiration for baby gifts you are welcome to have a look over there or on my other new Pinterest board "Creating for baby".

Unless I give birth before then I will be back soon with some pictures of the gifts I have made so far.

Eddie

X-mas Present Ideas: Pencil Cases, a Wall Organizer and a Painted Mug

Hello, Crafty Christmas-ers! My name is Stephanie and I blog over at The Naked Seamstress. I'm finally writing my very first post on this blog although I've been signed up to the blog since last year! I really enjoy reading all of your posts and have gotten many good x-mas present ideas from this blog both last year and this year. But somehow I never quite get around to writing blog posts at Christmas time. To make up for my absence I have decided to share three presents with you that I made for last years' Christmas. Maybe some of you will get inspired by these ideas to make up some presents for this year.

First up, are these cute little pencil cases I made for my four cousins in assembly line style. They are quite quick to make although you have to fiddle a bit to get the corners right (of which I had to sew 32!). They also require very little fabric so are great for fabric scraps. The tutorial I used to make them is from Annie Get Your Glue Gun and you can find it here.

The second present is a wall organizer I made for my mum. I used no pattern for it but had a look at the Tory pattern from Burdastyle for inspiration. I didn't use the pattern in the end because I figured that the purchasing, printing, sticking together and cutting out of pieces would have taken longer than just making the measurements up myself. And I think I was right. The wall organizer was very easy to sew but without the pattern you have to like doing a bit of maths.

The last present I want to show you is a painted mug I made for my mum's husband. I bought a set of mini ceramic paint colours and mini brushes in a craft's shop and I had a great time painting our little family, living in two countries at the time, on a mug.

I hope these ideas gave you some inspiration for your own Christmas crafting. I hope to post again soon with my current Christmas-y endeavors. Happy Christmas crafting to you all!

How I Roll - Animal Blankets Out of Control

Hello fellow crafters! I'm Amy, and I blog over at Sew Well. I've really enjoyed keeping up with everything that everyone has been making for their family and friends this holiday season. I'm getting a late start posting over here, but I'll hopefully be able to get it all in in the next few weeks.

I figured I'd start with a few animal blankets I made for friends who just recently had babies. I used the Cotton Ginny's Animal Blanket pattern, which comes with patterns for a bear, elephant, and hippo, but I modified the patterns to better fit the recipient. Here are the results.

A pink unicorn for a little girl who's room is filled with magic and fairies.

A floppy eared dog for a little girl who's mom grew up with the greatest basset hound ever.

The blankets are simple to make and only require a sewing machine and a bit of hand embroidery at the end.

I hope everyone's having a great weekend. I'll be back soon with some more of my holiday crafting.

Until then,

Amy

Purple jackets

I've been having a sweatshop over here, sewing three, pretty much identical jackets (two of them are a bit bigger).They also have different zippers so that it will be easy for me to tell the bigger ones (pink zipper) from the small one (blue zipper). I know that the kiddo loves his, it feels cruel to make him wait for Christmas, but maybe then he'll have forgotten about it and be surprised all over again. (What to do next year when he will be more aware of what I'm doing. I must resort to sneaky sewing and no fitting).

The fabric is a sweatshirt fabric I found in the scrap bin and for the wristlets I chopped up an old failed project.

More pictures and information on my blog.