One of the many projects I could not post about during the holiday season were some gifts that I worked on. A few were for birthdays, one was for Christmas, and one was a “just because” kind of gift.
My recent bag success sparked an urge to make many more. In reality, I have only made two more, but they are very quick projects, and I’ve already cut two additional ones. I use the one I made for myself as my purse at this point. My only complaint is still the length of the strap. I reduced the length of the strap on these new ones I made.
The one on the right below was ladybug themed. I made it for one of my very good friends who i got to see one Sunday early this month. We don’t get to see each other often, but I miss her lots and remembered that she likes ladybugs. She and her hubby live out in the Seattle area, and are very likely to have tablets or a kindle that they might want to carry around with them.
The one on the left I made as a birthday present for a friend from Atlanta (one of the ones I crafted with recently, making Christmas trays). I know she has both a kindle and an iPad and thought she might enjoy a bag. My only wish is that I had bought a different color rick rack than red. Maybe white or black. But it still came out decent I think.
I have a pink and purple set of fabric for another one of these, and enough of the fabrics above to make more. I think I might have enough to make another of the original yellow, gray, black color scheme. Do you have a favorite out of these bags? I have to say I really enjoyed picking the fabrics for these, trying to decide which fabrics go together, etc.
I also made some non-sewing related gifts. More specifically, I made two sets of wine glasses. I began by spray painting the stems with magnetic paint (about 5 coats each), and then covering with 2 coats of chalkboard paint.
Users can write names on the chalkboard. The magnetic part was supposed to be for some magnet charms that could be placed on the stems as markers as well, but unfortunately I took on too much crafting this holiday season and didn’t get around to making the magnets. Maybe next year I’ll get to those.
After I completed this part of it, I found some designs online to reference while I painted on the glasses. I used standard acrylic paint. I am very paranoid about the paint washing off, and I certainly don’t recommend putting these in the dishwasher. I feel like there is probably a more appropriate type of paint for painting on glass, but acrylic does work. It was easy to correct mistakes as I painted by just rubbing with a fingernail. I had to do at least 2 coats of acrylic paint on these as well.
The first set I made as a birthday present for my friend Nadine, also one of the ones I made trays with in Atlanta. I went with a cherry blossom design for hers, hoping they would be usable all year long. She received 4 wine glasses, a box of chalk, an eraser, and a little stand that hang dries wine glasses. The idea was that the glasses could actually be stored on the tree for display when not in use. Below is my painting progression for these glasses.
Sadly, I did not take a shot of all 4 finished wine glasses, but they looked just like the last image on the right above.
The second set I made as a Christmas present for my mom. She, like me, is a huge fan of Christmas, and I thought she would like a handmade Christmas craft. My parents are not big drinkers, but they do occasionally drink, and holidays are a common time to do so. I also thought that if she didn’t want to use them or risk washing them every time and having the paint come off, she might be able to use them in a different way. For instance, putting a tiny tea light candle in each glass and lighting them might be cute. Or using each wine glass as a candy holder (and you could write the candy name on the glass stem or something). Anyway, you all know I have a reindeer obsession, and I decided to share it with mom via this set of glasses.
Each reindeer was done in a different metallic Christmas-y color, and the stems were outlined with glitter glue in the same color. It was hard to keep the reindeer the same size … The gold one was the first one I painted, and I like his size the most. The others started to take over the glasses a little too much. Mom also received a box of chalk and an eraser with her glasses, and a wine glass holder to dry and display them. In case you are curious, I ordered the glasses, chalk, erasers, as well as the wine glass holder, from Amazon. Love Amazon.
All of a sudden, these 4 handmade gifts don’t seem like that much. But I spent a decent amount of time making them at a pretty busy time of the year, so somehow it felt time-consuming. I hope all the recipients liked them, cause I sure had fun making them!