Homemade Christmas Lands Again

Christmas 2014 was wonderful!  We enjoyed a celebration with each of our families and it was nice to have so much family time lighting up our holiday season.  Once again, we made all of our Christmas gifts for our family and thoroughly enjoyed the process.  Of course, we were working right up to the wire and again told ourselves 'we must start earlier next year'; we'll see if we do or not!

Let's start first with the non-Christmas gifts; these were for our niece who is due the beginning of April!  We are so excited to meet her!  In lieu of a shower, we gave these to her parents while they were visiting.   As you know, baby projects are some of my favorite, and it was again so precious to pour love into gifts for this little one.  I made her a blanket and a snow owl puzzle.

Front of blanket

Back of blanket

Made with Love tag

All ready to go!

And the puzzle:

Outside of the puzzle cut out

Added an inscription

Puzzle done!

Love the way it turned out!

This owl was inspired by a listing we saw on etsy here.












Now on to our Christmas Projects.  This was our Christmas Card this year, once again we made them.

Front of card

Inside of card

Our first round of Christmas we celebrated early with my husband's family and were so blessed to have his whole family with us to celebrate.

For his mom we made an under-cabinet mount tablet holder so she can use her iPad for recipes in the kitchen.

Stained and clear-coated

Hung up in her kitchen!

You can find a tutorial for this iPad project here.

For his dad we made a wood carrier.

Ready to go

Personalization Added

And a little birch to test it out

Works great

If you're interested in making one of these, I recommend checking this page out.

For grandpa we made a potato cooker and some homemade taco seasoning.

The two sides of the potato bag

Finished potato bag

I don't have a tutorial to offer for this one as I made it without one based on bags my mom and I had.  If there is interest, I can post a tutorial later.  These bags are amazingly handy in the kitchen for making potatoes, corn, and small tortillas in just minutes!

For his brother & sis in law we made a convertible wine rack, wine bottle lamp, spice rubs, and infinity scarf.

Wine rack in position one, here it holes one bottle of wine

Wine rack in position two, here it holds six bottles of wine.

The wine rack was inspired by a post we saw here.  It is really neat and holds either one, six, or twelve bottles depending on how you have it set.  This was one of our favorite projects of the year and very fun to make.  I have a feeling more of these will be coming out of the shop in the future!

Wine bottle lamp with monogram

Spice rubs

Infinity scarf

I don't have tutorials for the infinity scarves as I combined several. You can find the ones I looked at here and here.

Our second round of Christmas we celebrated with my family and got my brother & sister-in-law as well as time with some of our cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents.  For my brother & sis in law we made a spice rack, pantry shelves, spice rubs,  and an infinity scarf.

Spice rack box

Spice rack in their cabinet

And filled with spices!

Pantry shelves

All together in their house

And in use!

Spice rubs

Infinity scarf

For my folks we did coupons for chores they need done as they are very difficult to get ideas from ;).  We also helped them complete their own aggravation board as in all the years they've made them for family they've never made one for themselves.  I have to tell you, after helping in this process from making all the pieces (40 for each board) plus the game boards themselves, I can tell you that these boards are an act of love.  A lot of hours go into them.  My husband also made a wooden tree for my mom on his lathe.

Wooden tree

Six man side of aggravation board.

Four man side of aggravation board.

Remember the recipe books from this summer?  We made another book, this time in purple for my Grandma.

Purple recipe book page

For my hubby this year I made a cell phone/wallet/eyeglasses holder.  This was very fun and we may make more in the future!

Starting point

One of the pieces cut out

Front piece

Side piece

We used every clamp we had in the shop to put it together!

The finished product.

This project was inspired from here.

My hubby went all out this year and made me an amazing Nativity Puzzle and turned an ornament on the lathe.  I think as well as the ornaments turned out we'll add these to our every year Christmas Project list!

Nativity Puzzle

I love it!

Ornament

I also made a potato bag for a dear friend of mine.

Outside of bag

Inside of bag

We also made this wonderful salad at both celebrations, and I must say, it's easily one of my new favorites.

Delicious salad

And here's the loot our family made for us and one another this year.

Snowman decoration my folks made for their kids

Pantry drawers my brother & sis-in-law made for me!

These are so amazing

Guess what project moved way up our to-do list!  Yep, drawers for the rest of our pantry!

Four man side of aggravation board my folks made for my brother & sis-in-law

Six man side

Bath products my cousin made for the cousins, and her adorable card!

Tree decoration my folks made for the nieces and nephews.

As you can tell, the gifts of our Christmas season were plentiful.  We had a delightful time with our families and in creating gifts for one another.  We also checked some thing off our local to do list before my family left.  We made it to the carousel downtown, rode the gondola, and had a wonderful farewell lunch at O'Doherty's.  

Amazing sky coloring a couple days after Christmas

View of the falls from the gondola