A Very Crafty Christmas *A Belated Post*

Anyone who knows me knows that while I certainly enjoy crafting and being artsy, I am not particularly naturally skilled at things that involve sewing machines. I haven't exactly had the best "luck" with them in the past (read: needle snapped in half whilst using the machine back in '04 and haven't touched one since), so no one was more surprised than I was when I decided to do a lot of do-it-yourself gifts this Christmas.

I'm just going to go ahead and put it out there: Pinterest makes me think that I can be super homemaker. Even if I have no sewing skills, Pinterest says, "It's SO EASY! TRY IT!" So I do. 

Anyway, back in October, I came across a super sale on fleece at Hancock Fabrics, and decided to give the "No-Sew Tie Blankets" a try, since I've always loved them, but fleece can be a bit pricey. I may or may not have bought enough fleece to make several blankets in one fell swoop of determination to make Christmas gifts by hand. It was such a nice thought, and the first two blankets were fun to make. But as I struggled to find the time and motivation to do the last two blankets, I began to mentally kick myself for committing to so many projects that I had never attempted before.

The blankets turned out beautifully, and I even made one that will be one of Molly's birthday gifts next month. It may or may not have ended up as a child's blanket due to some unfortunate measuring.

The next project that I undertook was a variation on the "hot/cold rice pack" that I found also on Pinterest. I had made these before with my mom (using the machine from '04!), and since it had been a number of years since we'd made them, I deemed it a good time to give everyone an "upgrade". I didn't use rice - I used flax seed because I think it smells good, and I've also read that over years of microwaving the rice, it ends up cooked and smells weird. I don't know if that's true or not, but either way, I bought up all the flax seed that my town had to offer. I know those health food store ladies thought I was crazy.

I had to use my mother-in-law's sewing machine for the flax seed bag project, so these did not turn out quite as visually pleasing as I had seen in the "IT'S SO EASY" Pinterest post, BUT, I was still pleased with how they turned out. Yep - all 9 of them. 

I made a few other smaller projects, including framing family pictures for grandparents and homemade hand scrub. These both turned out great, and I'm thinking I might try out the hand scrub soon and post a review here, since it was an extremely simple recipe.

Next year, everyone is getting something weird, random, and creepy from the Dollar Tree to make up for how thoughtful and creative I was this year.