Homemade With Love #1

Monday, 10/23/06, is the day GiBee has called us to pull all our Homemade gift ideas together (I know I’m a day early, but I wanted to add the pictures at home tonight). I’m such a craft-a-holic that I’m taking it 1 step further. For the next four Mondays I am posting homemade gift ideas previously used or being used this year and I WILL include the angel and snowman earrings!

My darling husband has a HUGE family. Nine years ago, when I told him I wanted a small intimate wedding and he sprung on me that his immediate family included 72 people…I knew I was in for a major change. He has 14 aunts and uncles on either side and 4 sisters. Not to mention a mother, step-mother and grandmothers on both sides. Suffice to say, the pressure to come up with creative and inexpensive ideas is sometimes stifling.

Thankfully it’s also one of my favorite challenges each year. For the past 10 years we’ve come up with different ideas for homemade gifts for the group of them. The first year they received simple decoupage baskets filled with my husband’s annual contribution of Biscochito cookies. The year we married, they all received crosses like these. We made a total of about 25 of these things. One year it was scarves…just something homemade each year.
This year half of the aunts and uncles are receiving ‘inspiration frames’ like these.

They are fairly easy to construct. I purchased multiple frames at a fabric store at the end-of-season sale last year for .40 each. They are fairly nondescript fabric frames but quite striking when embellished (I'll include a couple I've completed next Monday). The embellishments I also typically pick up at end-of-season sales or garage sales through the spring and summer. The paper I’m using primarily is a Christmas toile’ that I picked up at an end-of-season sale last year. It is reversible with one side red and beige and the other side a black/white Christmas toile’.

I have lots of paper options as I scrapbook and collect unique papers. Here are some that I've used or could use this year for a less 'holiday-ish' frame. I picked this rather ornate frame (to the right) up at a "Ross" store here in town last year for about $1.50 or less. I'm a big 'bargain' hunter (translation: somewhat thrifty AKA: cheap) which probably helps my cause.

For the Christmas frames, I choose a quote or poem to print on clear paper or sticker paper and add it and other stickers, etc to the picture. I then embellish the outside with a recycled ornament or some fun fringe I have on hand.

They are really quite fun to make and not very time consuming and you can do one for $1.50-$3.00 on average. I also love to wrap each gift in a unique manner, but I'll include that on my final Homemade Monday post in November.

Let me know if you’re participating! I can’t wait to see all the ideas. Have a creative and inspired Monday!