Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Homemade Christmas gifts, Part 1

Hey everyone! I hope your having an awesome week so far.  This has been a pretty slow normal week at our house. Normal being of course trying to keep up with two very energetic boys plus all my normal cooking and cleaning. :) But I truly do love it and I am working hard to appreciate that I am blessed enough to stay at home.  We finally got our own internet hooked up this morning....we have been using our neighbor's wifi for almost two years....so I can finally get back to posting normally.

In this post, I am going to show you the Christmas gifts I made just for my boys.  In the next post, I will show you the rest that were made for family members.  I made about 70 gifts within a month's time!!! Some of these were sewn and some just made but man it was alot.  I did not plan on making that many but money was tight and I wanted family and our boys to get gifts so this is what had to be done.  An amazing former high school teacher of mine sent me two boxes full of random material and other random sewing things. I could not have made the majority of this stuff with out it.  So thank you so much, again, Jenny Smith Cummins!  Also I thank God my boys play well together or all of this wouldn't have happened.

The majority of the gift ideas came from Pinterest of course.  :) If you haven't checked Pinterest out stop what your doing and go see...its amazing!  This is going to be a post with a bunch of pictures so please feel free to skip it if you don't care to see.  Here we go!

---This is a busy book I put together really quick made with felt, velcro, regular cotton material and an old pair of khaki pants.  Since this was just thrown together it is not good for him to play with alone so its an activity we do together.



















Front cover painted with glitter glue.

Matching car shapes and colors page.

Make an icecream cone page.

Fish and bead page.  The fish are velcroed on.

Dress-a-man page.
 
Peek-a-boo page. 

Tucker's sensory activities.  These were made out of Crystal light koolaid containers with holes poked in the lids.  Inside are pipe cleaners and fuzzy craft balls.  I was worried he would try to eat the little balls but so far he hasn't.  He really likes them and they were cheap to make. 
This is Tucker's busy tray and bag.  I made it out of some of the material my teacher sent.  The tray is just a cookie sheet from the Dollar Tree painted with acrylic paint with a piece of fun scrapbook paper glued on.  I bought some magnetic numbers and little animals off of ebay really cheap to go with it.
This is Jonah's art portfolio made from felt and an old pair of jeans.  This was super easy and is super cute.  Below is the inside of it.  The red, yellow,and blue pieces are all pockets and it has a velcro closure.
Above is a simple felt dinosoar playmat.  I used the 25 cent sheets of felt at Hobby Lobby.  I simply cut the shapes out of the felt pieces and hot glued them on.  I found a pack of small dinosaurs at the dollar tree so this was a super easy and cheap gift.


This was also a simple car felt playmat.  It's made the same way as the dinosaur one but it also has some fabric paint enhancements and its bigger.  The boys already have a bunch of cars so I didn't buy anymore to go with this. 
This is a messanger bag I made for Jonah.  It has become the bag that holds all his PSP stuff for now.  It is made from a cotton bed sheet, jeans, and felt.  I love how the robot and rocket turned out.  This bag matches one I made for my brother and for my nephew which Jonah really liked.


This is a set of fabric roads for the boys to build their own roadways.  I hate I didn't get a better picture.  This was made from an old pair of jeans and fabric paint.  There are a few more pieces that go with it.  So for the boys haven't played with this much but I hope once Tucker gets a bit bigger they will both like it. Already had all the supplies so this was a free gift.
Above is some hot glue art plates.  You place a paper on top and rub the paper with a crayon so the image appears on the paper.  The images are an owl, sailboat, circle, square, triangle,and rectangle.  Jonah has played with these one time and seems to like them.  They were just made of hot glue and an old cereal box. Another free gift.

Jonah's PSP case.  His big gift this year was a PSP and instead of paying $10 for a case I made one.  This one matches one I made for my brother's macbook pro, which I will share in the next post, which made Jonah super happy cause he LOVES  his Uncle Buck! The inside is a soft thick dark blue flannel and it has a velcro closure.
Jonah's Captain America shirt, mask, shield, and shoes. These were also made from some materials sent by my teacher.  The blue tshirt was just painted with fabric paint.  The mask is blue felt over a piece of cardboard and painted with fabric paint.  The shoes are just felt over cardboard painted as well.  The shield is made from a pizza box cut into a circle then covered with fabric.  I was going to paint the rest of the shield but ended up just gluing on fabric.  I also made Tucker a pair of shoes like Jonah's but put an elastic strap around the back so they would stay on.
These are constellation cards.  You can shine a flashlight through them and see the stars on the wall or cieling.  We have tried these once but unless you have a big flashlight they are too big.  I want to make some more but make the cards much smaller and in a circle shape instead of a square. These were made from cardstock and a hole punch.  Another free gift.


These are playdough number mats made out of cardstock and a bingo marker.  I already had all the supplies for this so this was a free gift.  They use their playdough to make little balls and help them learn to count.  I want to make all the way up to 10.

This was Jonah's busy tray and bag.  Made the same way as Tuckers but Jonah's I made other small games.  There is a dress-up boy, a foam shape game, a build a robot game, and a build a house shape game.  His favorite is the robot game.  This has come in handy for long car trips. 

This a pizza box easel.  I made one for both the boys.  Obviously this was made from pizza boxes. Lol.  But I did have to also add a pice of thick cardboard to one side.  The picture above has clips to hold a piece of paper for painting or drawing.  The white sheet is for dry erase markers.  Jonah has used his and loves it. 

This is the chalkboard side.  It's painted it with chalkboard paint. This is the extra piece of cardboard.  I love that this all folds down to be thin and stores easy.  I already had everthing I needed to make this except the clips and I found those at the dollar tree so this cost me a dollar.

That wraps it up for the boys homemade gifts.  Of course, they got a bunch of other store-bought gifts but I just had to make them some too.  :) They always get WAY to much and this year was no different but it was really nice to make a bunch of things that weren't expensive but that they really enjoyed.  I am really enjoying them being little and liking Mommy-made things.  :)
Have a great night!


2 comments:

  1. Very cute resourceful! Great job!

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  2. Thanks Courtny! It was a fun challenge to see what I could make with stuff I already had on hand.

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