I did have to order a few things, but overall we kept the $ right around $150 for all of our friends and families and ALL of thier kids, that we had to buy and didn't have on hand, which made it very doable.
So for our bible study friends, I ordered angel candle holders for the parents and for the older kids I embroidered towels with each kids name and across one end of the towel, I made fabric pockets for them to be able to put change, goggles, wallet, cell phone, etc and then the towel rolls up with elastic to hold them rolled up and a strap to throw them over the shoulder. I also made these for the older kids of or other friends too.
Embroidered Towels rolled up:
Towels waiting for snaps:
So here are the inside pockets fabrics that I used- and yes, the names were quite a challenge for me to get the lettering straight because the towels were sooooo fluffy, so it was hard to hoop them up and keep them straight!
So all in all I did 12 embroidered towels.
Then for the younger kiddo, I made a fabric book with Old MacDonald had a Farm motif and embroidered the pages with the animals and such and made the books from fabrics I had too.
Here are the page sets I did:
I started out planning to do books with 10 pages in them and an animal on one side and an E-I-E-I-O on the other. Little did I realize until I got into the embroidery part of that, that with making 7 books, that this meant 2 embroideries on one side of the page (and on that farm he had a... and then the animal) and then th eEIEIO embroidery on the other side. so that's three right there for one page for one book. so 10 pages for each book meant 30 embroidries, then take that times 7 for 7 books... That doesn't include outside and inside covers either.
Soooooo, all that being said- I made the books with 5 pages and did a 10 page set for AC for Christmas. Having made it now though, I think the 5 page set came out looking better though with sewing it together. It's still cute, but wasn't as happy with it as I was the others.
So here's the pages (mind you that the cross lines were all washed out after assembly):
The outside front cover:
The inside front cover:
The inside back cover:
The outside back cover:
The assembled book:
So all in all, I made six 5 page books and one 10 page book for AC.
Then for the family and other friends, I made travel blankets and knitting needle/crochet needle holders for the crafty ones. :)
For my Great Grandmother:
For my Aunt Nancy:
So I made three needle holders.
Then made 9 blankets- which I forgot to take pictures of befor wrapping. So some of them I will have pics of when opened, and here they are:
One for Grandma R:
One for Grandpa Dan:
One for Dad:
All in all, I did 10 blankets.
So now that Christmas is over, Hubby is VERY glad to have mom and wife back and not have sewing machines running non-stop. LOL!
