Christmas Gifties Part 2

Sorry it took me forever to get to the rest of the gifties I made for Christmas, but at least I am getting it posted before next Christ mas, haha! Life just sometimes is a little nutso with 4 kids so posts sometimes are easy and sometimes like moving a mountain! Without further ado, I give you the next batch of handmade gifts of 2009:
This is a little travel tic-tac-toe board I made for my niece. The base for it is a placemat I bought at Target. I then used a satin stitch to make the pink grid on the mat. I sewed a small zipper pouch out of some stash fabric and a zipper I had and then sewed it to the mat also. I made markers that were turquoise on one side and white on the other (I made 9 total) and those hide out in the zippy pouch when not in use. Finally, I sewed a ribbon to the edge of the mat so that it could be rolled up and tied closed for on the go tic tac toe! It is perfect to grab and bring along for car trips, waiting at restaurants, waiting at the doctor's office, whatever. And for the same reasons, I made the gift below, Story Dice:
I read about these online in several places and absolutely loved the idea! I was going to make the pictures by stamping them, but this site provided the graphics, already sized and everything, so I for once took the "easy way out" and used them. I purchased the wooden cubes at Michael's and sanded the edges to round them a bit like real dice and to help them roll easier. I then Mod Podged the images onto the dice and put another couple coats on to seal them and then made a cute little zipper pouch to tote them in. Here are the directions I included:

"The goal of this game is to roll as many of the dice as you would like. Then create a story, tall tale, poem, or song using the pictures you roll. You can also roll the dice and create a piece of art that incorporates all the pictures. The only limit is your imagination!"

This gift was a huge hit with all the kids-I am thinking of making a set for our girls, as well. And they can even be used for little kids by asking "what picture is that?", etc. They are limitless!

My next niece is a very tactile learner and she has a high need to touch and interact with things in order to learn. So I made her a set of bean bags out of different fabrics with different textures. Each bag has a letter of her name on it, capital on one side and lowercase on the other-she is in Kindergarten so it will help her recognize and spell her name as well as allow her to make up new words out of the letters if she wants to. And just thrown them around and hit her brothers or whatever, too. Can't be all learning all the time, right?? :) I got the idea here:

For my sister, I made this little meal plan menu thingy--I printed a blank calendar on a transparency and then cut a cute piece of scrapbook to go behind and put it all in a regular wooden picture frame that I painted red. The paper had to not be too busy of a pattern such that it obscured the calendar-that was a little harder to find than I thought it would be!! But it can even be changed out seasonally or with decor so the sky is the limit on this. Then she can use a dry erase marker to write the month's meals on the glass and just erase and re-use it each month, easy peasy! (I saw where you can also make the calendar out of vinyl with a fancy pants cricut machine for you scrapbook folks, which I am not) I also added a pretty ribbon to hang it, but I did that after I took the picture so use your imagination :)

And finally, every year my girls and I make an ornament to give to friends and family. I saw this here and knew that was our ornament this year!! It turned out so cute! LOVE IT!

Can you stand the cuteness? (and the blurriness? sorry!!)

handprint with chubby fingers into snowmen=CUTEVILLE! plus a fun memory of the size of a little one's hand that year :). Bought the plain glass ornaments at Michael's of course and then just used white paint for the handprints and then paint pens for the details.

So there you have it! The wrap up of handmade gifts this year! Thanks for bearing with me!! I am working on a few other projects now and maybe one day I will finish them and post them. Of course one day I may also finish my laundry and the dishes too, but I am not feeling real hopeful....