More Gifts to Give

This month was my second cousin's second birthday and next month is a friend's baby shower.  So in addition to the books I bought as gifts - I just can't resist books as a child's gift! - I made this stuffed butterfly for the two-year-old.

The wings and body are fleece, with felt for the pattern on the wings and floss for the eyes and antennae.  The body is stuffed with fiberfill and the wings with batting.  I had a lot of fun designing and making it!

And for the baby shower, a rag doll bunny!

I hope they're loved for years and years!

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My Handmade Holidays

I did a lot of creating this season.  A lot.  I'm tired, but still truckin' along.

I suppose I should start with Chanukah, which also happened to pretty much coincide with one nephew's birthday, so I include the birthday in this post too.

Both nephews, for Chanukah and Christmas, got these cute magnetic fishing games I made.

Eric helped too; he cut down the dowels for me to make the fishing poles!

And I knitted each one a fish like this one.

But not all the crafts were mine, and I really should back up.  First, there was one gift exchange with a group, and for my recipient, in addition to giving her my own candles, soap, and one of my washcloths, I gave her a beautiful bear ornament from Reflections, like this one.

And Kris, the shop owner, was so wonderful that she sent one for our tree too!

And no, we don't have a fake white tree, we get the real thing from the local EMS, generally.  It just doesn't show up as well on the dark green in a photo, so that's Kris' shop photo.  Here's how it looks in our house:

I also gave the same person this cool hot/cold pack in a racing fabric from Lil' Bit Sassy.  My recipient's favorite sport is NASCAR, after all.

Then in another exchange, in addition to one of our bath salts and one of our candles, I gave my recipient these incense sticks from Delightful Scents.

My office is also REALLY big on Christmas, so we had all sorts of gift exchanges.  For my boss, I got this terrific print of a watercolor painting, which I then framed for her.  It was from StartsArts.

It looks even more amazing in person, and Eric and I kind of want one for ourselves too.  The colors are so bright and vivid!

For the associate with whom I also work, I got this really pretty hanging tealight holder from Reflections.  Fall is her favorite season, so I thought it was perfect.

And for our office white elephant exchange, I got this awesome mug from River Rock Arts, and gave it with some homemade chocolates and a Dunkin Donuts gift card.

That mug is called "oversized" in the description, but believe me when I tell you it's HUGE and gorgeous, and I will own some at some point!

And to everyone in the office, I gave handmade snowman lollipops.  With 14 people in the office and three pops per person, 42 pops took me quite a while to do.  I admire chocolatiers, for sure.  But at the end, everyone got one dark chocolate, one milk chocolate, and one white chocolate pop.

For each other, Eric got me some amazing teas and other stuff, and I got him a dehydrator and some books and things.  It was a great Chanukah and Christmas all around!

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Handmade Highlights

I've posted some individual ones here before, but they're so fun!  I really love fishing through all the items at the Handmade Artists Shop to create Highlights, and love perhaps even more going through the Highlights others make to window shop... or actually shop.  The cool thing about Highlights is that in the original on the site, each thumbnail takes you back to the item in the shop itself for a closer look!  Check out some of them with me...

I Heart Snowmen

Festival of Lights

Fire and Ice

Happy Valentine's Day!

I'm a member of a face painting Google group, and have been for years.  We're very good friends, helping each other with tips, techniques, business ideas and referrals, and meeting to work together, jam, or just hang out.  For many years, we've done a Secret Santa, but this year everyone was so busy during the winter holidays that it was decided this year to make it a Secret Valentine.

My recipient was my friend Mike, out in McKinney, TX.  I know he likes and uses our Purity soap, so I sent him a tub and a bar of that.

But I needed more.

So I made some chocolates!  I ransacked the cabinets, and hit the store for chocolate melts, and came up with some pretty good combos, I think.

These little ones are dark and milk chocolate filled with hazelnut.

And these hearts are filled with peanut butter - some crunchy, some creamy.

These pops are red and white chocolate with red sugar sparkle sprinkles embedded.  They came out pretty funky looking.

And these are milk and white chocolate, with pink sprinkles and raisins inside.

I did a bunch of milk chocolate with chopped almonds and pecans throughout.

And last, but definitely not least, dark chocolate with sea salt.

All together and wrapped, it looks like a lot of chocolate!

And some friends liked the look of 'em so much that they ordered some for themselves!  Oh... and Mike got his.  Loves 'em!