It's been an interesting week. Somehow I managed to cut the top of my #1 finger washing a LARGE (and very sharp) kitchen knife. It wouldn't stop bleeding so I had to go to the emergency room and I got 4 stitches. I didn't think it would affect the function of my right hand (I'm right handed by the way) but oh was I wrong. This created a bit of a problem for me since, you know, I work with my hands a lot. Showering, putting my hair up, writing, and many other things became temporarily difficult. With the holidays coming up this incident was certainly a speed bump on the road to making my family handmade presents. Warning: gross picture approaching...
After it healed for about a week I was finally able to bend my finger and had time to complete all of my presents before I went home, but not without some bloody finger humor:
I made my own cards this year for my mom, dad, and sister. Hand drawn and painted with watercolors; best holiday card ever. And inside the card?
Sometimes you gotta laugh about the bad things that happen to you.
For my sister, Laura (27), I made her an original pink chubby bear. I had made another bear like this bigger in blue a while ago that she said I should give to her. I spent 2+ hours hand embroidering the entire nose of that bear:
and I didn't feel like giving it away as a gift so I made her her own (a little smaller) pink bear with cream accents (cause pink's her favorite color). Instead of embroidering the whole nose I just did the mouth and the outline and colored in the rest with a fabric marker (sneaky).
The best part of this bear is that it comes with a removable bow pin (so totally her) that she could borrow from the bear and wear if she so desired which she loved. So adorable.
As for my mommy, she's always looking for lightweight simple bags that she can take on vacation. She likes LeSportsac bags because they are both of these things but they're not made especially well because just like with any mass produced item, manufacturing corners get cut to make the bags cheaper. They also don't hold up especially well overtime. So I decided to make her a LeSportsac style bag.
She's all about the toned down colors so I had a hard time picking a color scheme that I would be ok with making (I tend to lean in the direction of bright colors). The bag is a neutral grey coated nylon with maroon zippers and a yellow coated nylon lining. I think it turned out pretty well. She's also super specific about her pockets and the direction of her zippers so I made sure to pay extra attention to those details. Of course, she loved it.
My dad was a little trickier. My sister always gets him books but I don't really read so I have no idea about any of that stuff and I would also feel weird giving someone a book (unless it was a sketchbook I made). BUT THEN it came to me! When thinking of things my dad likes, two things immediately came to mind: golf and Crown Royal Whiskey. So obviously I went with making him a Crown Royal golf club cover.
I did a drawing of a bottle of Crown Royal, scanned it, colored it, and got it printed on fabric. I kind of guessed on the size since I didn't know which golf club he would want to use it on. But it actually worked out really well because there was a cover he had for one of his clubs that was getting old and dirty and his new Crown Royal cover fit perfectly! I made sure to spray it with some scotch gard since I know he'll be playing out in the rain.
Fits like a glove! (It kinda looks like one too I'm surprised he knew what it was when he opened it, LOL)
Hooray for handmade holiday gifts!!!
