There really is a first time for everything

I don't like making gifts that aren't specifically for a certain person. Like mass quantities of the same thing and then doling them out with no personality put into them. Every hand made gift from me was thought out and made with love. So what did I do when I already exhausted my creative stores to make a friend's Christmas gifts and her birthday is mid-January? I poured over craft blogs and websites looking for ideas.

If you have a craft blog or website I thank you from the bottom of my heart for putting your ideas out there!


Thankfully, I already had one big item in the works since October - a blanket knitted with a variegated lavender bouclé. Knowing I just don't have the attention span/ability to yet make an item that large with a complicated pattern, I used plain knit. And with only two mishaps of children yanking half my stitches off the needle I did finish in time! I hope she gets lots of snuggling out of it.

My first big knitted blanket- check!





Karen also loves black and red combinations and Asian-inspired home decor. She and her husband have a new house and she's hoping to do her living room with that in mind. So I got myself over to Folding Trees and tackled the kusudama tutorial.

I am totally new to origami but their tutorial was perfectly simple to follow. My only problem? Not enough pretty paper in the colors I needed. Not to be set back by something so simple as having no supplies (haha) - I grabbed a stack of printer paper and stamped half the amount I needed with red and half with black. Problem solved! The kusudama went together great and I have it dangling from a black satin cord.

My first kusudama - check!





Recently Karen told me about having fond memories of lilac perfume and wondering where she could get some today. I stored that away and pulled it out for the occasion! I took a lovely, intricately patterned, pewter perfume bottle I already had and decided to make my own perfume for it. I already have quite a stash of essential oils bought from a local man, and as luck would have it I had a lilac one in there!

Using several online sources (which I apparently didn't bookmark *sheepish face*) they all said that vodka was the perfect vehicle for home made perfume. They usually suggested a percentage of essential oil to alcohol but I have to admit I winged it and just kept mad-scientist mixing until it smelled right to me. If, like myself, you aren't a drinker, liquor stores have tiny little bottles for around a dollar.

My first home made perfume - check!

I also included a hand-beaded bracelet as well as a glass snowflake ornament - the only purchased item of the bunch! Now for the wrapping... which will be in Wednesday's post!