Hand Made Holidays Part 1

It's been forever, I know. Nearly an entire year has gone by since updating my craft blog. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep up with updates this year (but don't hold your breath, Royce)!

For 2010, I made a lot of handmade items for Christmas/Winter.

First up, my lighted blocks. The Winter Wonderland block was nearly 7 inches square. It was cut using the Cricut and the Cricut Design Software (cartridges used: Zooballoo - font, Doodletype & Doodlecharms - snowflakes). The Wisemen Still Seek Him block (just over 5 inches square) was also cut using my Cricut, but I used SCAL to get the fonts and wisemen silhouette. Both blocks had generous openings at the bottom where I added squares of scrapbook paper and a 50 count string of mini lights.


Second, although not necessarily a Christmas gift, the mittens were given just before our preschool Christmas break. The gauntlet style mittens are similar to the mittens Bella wore in the movie "Twilight". A sweet friend is ever so slightly Twilight obsessed, and as soon as I saw this pattern I knew she had to have them!


Next up, embellished burp cloths. These are the 6 ply pre-fold cloth diapers (purchased at Target) that I added a simple stripe of a fun cotton fabric down the middle. The preschool uses them as a small gift to expectant mommies :)



And last but not least for this post, a Christmas tree ala Shannon. It's a 1x2 that I had cut to size, and then I just followed Shannon's excellent instructions. Again, I used my Cricut and the Cricut Design Software to accomplish the lettering. The paint was a mix of two green acrylic paints I had on hand, and after applying the lettering, I used Matte finish Mod Podge to seal in the vinyl (not sure if it really works or not, but it sounded good at the time). After all of it was dry, I used hot glue to attach each block to one another. I added some ribbon rather than raffia to my Christmas Tree.