Christmas on a Budget

It is finally safe to post all the things I made for Christmas this year!!!! I'm already looking for ideas for next year and determined to get an early start this time around!! I should say that handmade stuff can get expensive, so you still need to be aware of your materials costs if you're making things. I'm not sure I've ever paid full price for a fabric and I'm a big fan of the JoAnn remnants cart. I keep all my scraps and old clothes and they come in handy with smaller projects. Be creative with your materials and you can do quite a bit "on the cheap". I haven't yet separated out Christmas specifically, but we managed to stick to our gift budget for 2008---we spent just under $600 for the year (that includes birthdays, mother's day, father's day, teacher gifts, etc...). On to the list!!

1. Rag Quilt. This was Sierra's present. It's quick and easy to do. This was actually Josh's first big sewing project--as long as I was around to answer questions, he was able to do this by himself while I worked on something else
2. Tea Wallet. These were super quick to make and are a neat little addition to a "wellness pack". She also has direction to make it a credit card holder.
3. Hot/Cold Packs
4. Chicken Scratch Book Marks--I put a layer of felt in mine to give it some stiffness, because that's what I had around. If you happen to have a scrap of timtex, peltex or flexifirm, you could stuff that in after sewing.
5. Fabric Doll Houses I ended up making 4 of these this year and helped friends with 2 more. They really aren't complicated even though they look like it at first! This was a great use for leftover quilt batting and fleece scraps I had.
6. Felt Cat Toys for the cat lovers on your list
7. Playing Card Books I would've loved these to pass notes on when I was in middle school. I used wood glue b/c I didn't have any E6000, and I used the super thin, flexible vinyl (sold with Halloween costume fabrics)for my binding
8. Zippered Make Up or Pencil Case easier than it looks. I made one that was okay, but I wasn't thrilled with, so I cut the zipper out of it (the only part that cost more than a few cents) and made another...the second was super quick and came out wonderfully.
9. Fabric ball great small gift or stocking stuffer for toddlers. Really quick to make.
10. Marshmallow Shooters A blow gun that will shoot mini-marshmallows 50 feet. For about $10, we got a 10 foot piece of PVC, all the connection joints and a big bag of mini-marshmallows....enough for 5 shooters and ammo.
11. Car care bucket Okay, nothing to make here, but a good, reasonably cheap gift, nonetheless.
12. Real Fudge A little bit of a learned skill, but sooo worth it
13. Easy Truffles I know just what a teacher needs after handling my precocious child all morning...a big dose of chocolate
14. Felt Food--I don't have a link for this one, but the idea is trace a CD onto felt, cut out two of them and sew together, flip right side out, stuff, hand sew the inner circle...instant donut. Decorate with "sprinkles" (embroidery floss or beads) before sewing if desired. Use different colors felt for an icing effect
15. Quilted hot pads--also no link. Find a fabric you like and a scrap of terry cloth. Cut to same size squares. Also cut out some batting (I used 4 layers of cotton quilt batting) the same size. Sew across the squares for a quilted affect and bind (there is a good tutorial on binding with mitered corners on About.com)

There were some purchased gifts as well as a couple of quilts thrown in there too. If you are looking for ideas, Check out the Sew Mama Sew blog. They have been doing a "handmade holidays" series every November where they link to several tutorials each day. If you look on the right hand side of their page, you can click on the tag links for Handmade Holidays and Handmade Holidays 2008...LOTS of ideas. The TennZen blog also has some neat holiday on a budget ideas listed under their Holiday tag (not all homemade, so there are some ideas for you non-crafty folks too!).

A few pictures of things I remembered to take pictures of: