Hello all and Happy New Year to you. I hope the holidays were pleasant for all of you. While this year was definitely not how we normally celebrate, we did enjoy them. We scheduled a Zoom call with our three boys who live away from home and that was great. Also, my son set up a Zoom so we could just quietly watch the girls’ Christmas morning excitement. That was especially great – seeing them so excited, opening their gifts. Sometimes I wish I could just have a webcam to the girls’ play room and watch them all the time. However, that would also mean I would get absolutely nothing done. They are so entertaining.
This year our tradition of making some holiday gifts continued. I wanted to show you some of them.
Have you made these bookmarks before? There are loads of tutorials for them on the internet and they are super fun. It is made to slip over the corner of the page to keep your place. I used a stack of miscellaneous charm squares I had for these. I tucked them into cards for my sisters and included them in gifts to (most of?) the family. Coincidentally, I also received one in the mail from a quilting friend which was a fun surprise!
I made three pair of pajama pants. The two above were made for my parents. I believe this is their first pair of matching pj’s and I am hoping they will take a picture of both of them when they wear them.
They seemed quite happy with the idea of matching jammies though I did get them different color t-shirts to go with them.
This is the only picture I could find of Julia in her new pj pants. Cute polar bear flannel, right? You will also see Townes in this photo. Julia is fostering him for the shelter. This is the third dog she has fostered and he is such a sweet animal.
My husband made a set of these sweet Christmas trees, enough for one for each of our children plus our parents. I love these and they are definitely one of my favorite of all the things he has made. So simple and really pretty.
Julia painted this wooden ornament for me. A while back, Ray sliced a branch into small rounds and gave them to her to craft with. She has made several ornaments so far. Mine is so sweet. She made one for Ray as well but he keeps it in our room and I failed to grab a picture of it for this post. It is a cute camping scene of a lone tent in the mountains. Perfect for him!
I also made two aprons, one for Julia and one for my daughter-in-law, Shar. I don’t (yet?) have any good photos of those gifts though.
I do love making gifts for people. I am happy to see Julia also making some gifts. It makes gift giving even more special. Today is going to be the take-down-the-holiday-decorations-day. How about you? As much as I love Christmas, I am ready to get the house back to normal. Enjoy the weekend everyone!
So many fun gift ideas! (I love the bookmark, by the way) How cute that you made your parents matching jammie pants – I love that! Enjoyed this post, Bernie! I think you should sell those trees in your shop, by the way – so cool!
Thanks Wendy. It was a fun Christmas. I have always liked making gifts for people. Glad you like the trees. I really love them. ☺️
Happy New Year Bernie – I do so love all the heart-made goodness! I have to confess that I, too, love the holidays but look forward to all my ducks getting back in the row that I lay out for them!
Wishing you all the best in 2021.
Lots of fun gifts! I might start taking a little decor down here and there this week but I’m in no hurry.
I start taking down tomorrow. Most years it is down and away by New Year’s Eve. This year I didn’t want to rush it out the door. I’ll keep white lights, battery candles, greenery, and wintery frosty things on the mantel through January. It’s still so dark in the evening out our big windows that I plan to keep the soft warm lights going a bit longer. Lovely gifts – I need to check out those bookmarks!
What a great post! I used to make a lot of gifts, but somehow have gotten away from it…thanks for planting the bug that I need to get back to more of the making of gifts. The only gift I made this year was a knitted stocking for a great nephew born in June… I started doing these decades ago, and enjoy it so much…for 2021 we will have a new family member (nephew is getting married)…and their wedding will be mid-December, so they will get a knitted stocking for Courtney, and a quilt as part of their wedding gift. I am thinking the quilt will be a Christmas one….they won’t expect that, so it will be a fun surprise! I’d better get busy on it…it will be machine pieced, but hand quilted…the clock is ticking!!
Happy New Year to you and yours…fingers crossed and positive thoughts for 2021 to be a good year, even with starting out still battling COVID-19…
Take care!
I love the idea of the Christmas stockings. That is wonderful – Yes, the clock seems to tick very fast these days so if you want to have a quilt made for them, best to get going on it! Good luck with that. Take care Sandra.
I love everything about this post. I have not tried the bookmarks; I will someday. I love the pj bottoms. My last forray into this was less than successful, maybe need to try again this year. The wooden trees are delightrful as is Julia’s ornament. I love giving handmade things too, and have often done ornaments for my SILs.
Hi Kathleen – you would like making the book marks. Very simple. PJ pants really are as well. I think the trick is to measure the rise so they aren’t too baggy – I made some for my kids one year and they were ridiculously huge on them. I look at the photos from that year and just laugh. So silly!
Great projects, Bernie!! What fun to see your parents with their pjs.
Thank you Carole. I felt so lucky to have them over for the holidays. We live just a few miles apart and see each other often. The rest of the family….. not so much! Happy New Year.
What a great idea — I’d love a webcam to watch my nieces. LOL I usually have a video chat every two weeks with them. ♥
I love to talk to H on FaceTime. I hope we can get up there soon – maybe early spring? All depends on the virus and vaccines, etc. Take care Anja.
Great gifts! I love the matching PJ’s for your parents! This was the first year that I didn’t give handmade gifts, my daughter just had her first baby so the entire family came to Texas — so that was our gift– being together! I know what you mean about the webcam — I spent 7 weeks with the new baby and I miss him so much — thankfully my daughter facetimes with me on a regular basis.
Happy New Year!
I got one of those bookmarks along with the charm pack of Moda Wovens – leading to a nail-biting squirrel chase!!! Thank you Bernie but I am holding you responsible for the squirrel attack in my studio. Post will come sometime after I have gathered my wits and notions 🙂
Haha – well have fun making one or 52 – however many you decide on. They are quite simple and a nice way to use up some scraps!
Love the pjs! and I love that Julia fosters dogs. I also like her little ornament she made you. Handmade gifts really are the best, and I was able to send out a few this year. I haven’t seen those bookmarks, so will look for it as Brady would love one!
Julia loves animals so this is a good way for her to help out. Our local shelter is packed right now and they need a lot of foster parents. She does a good job of it. Enjoy making the bookmarks – quite addictive!