Crafting for Christmas: Ornaments, Dresses, and a Printable?

I may have gone a little quiet the last couple of weeks.  It’s because I’ve been frantically sewing for Christmas, and I have made excellent progress.  Here’s few things I made.

Ornaments!

These are Danish woven heart baskets.  I found the tutorial for them here.  When I first saw them, I thought they would be perfect to make as ornaments to give as gifts.  Just fill them with chocolate and they are perfect.

To make them, I used sheets of craft felt and ribbon for the loops.  You can also use construction paper, for a fun kids project.  The problem is with my color choices.  I love the look of pink, but on these the pink looks more Valentine’s day then Christmas.  I guess that works too.

The next project at least screams Christmas.  It’s my new…

Poinsettia Dress!

I found the fabric at SAS on sale, $1.99/yard.  I bought several yards.  I thought it would be perfect for a dress, and a few other things that will come later.

The dress uses a Simplicity pattern for the bodice and I just made a full rectangle skirt for the bottom.

I trimmed the neckline with red ribbon, bows and some black lace I bought last year.  The lace was intended for a skirt I tried to make, but it didn’t match the fabric.  Finally got to use it.

I added lace and ribbon to the skirt too, right above the ruffle.  The ruffle was easier for me to make than usual.  My new sewing machine handles things like that a lot better than my old one (see A Sewing Machine Review Because...).

This is a pair of angel pins that were gifts from two different people.  I wore them both with the dress to church last Sunday.  It was the day of the choir’s annual Christmas Cantata or concert. 

I did surprisingly well considering I woke up coughing and sneezing like crazy that morning.  Some medicine, herbal tea, and a few cough drops later and I could sing just fine.

The next project is a bit different.  Normally I am all about making all my gifts, but I do have some people who are super difficult to craft for.  I decided that they would be happier with a gift card, but you can’t just hand someone a gift card and call it a day.  You have to wrap it nicely too right?  There are tons of cute printable gift cards all over the internet, but I wanted to add a special touch to them.  I thought about mazes.

Many of you know that I draw mazes, I even have a maze blog.  So I thought, why not print out a gift card holder and draw a maze on it?  Then I thought, why not make the maze the holder?

Now presenting…

The Maze Gift Card Holder

Now everyone who receives a gift card from me gets a fun maze to try out.  And I posted it to my maze blog, so anyone can download them and give mazes too.

I have more even projects to share in the next few days and some more surprises too.  I can’t wait to show them to you.  Look forward to it!