Is it possible to handmake every present in a year?
If you are in a small family, maybe.
I have lots of children, nephews, nieces, and friends that I buy for. My list stays in my wallet and grows every year.
And I got to the point where I would be rushing around at the last minute, throwing some plastic toy into the shopping trolley that I knew would be broken within hours of being opened.
The rush, the stress and the almost careless thought that accompanied this type of birthday and Christmas shopping began to wear on me. Me, the lover of all things Christmas, was feeling like the joy had gone. I watched people in the mall as they dashed about…where was the spirit of Christmas? Where was the love?
Giving a gift should be one of the most exhiliarating things we do, yet in our busyness, it becomes an afterthought – then a bad afterthought as we scramble to find something, anything to hastily wrap and pass on.
Imagine if the gift recipient could feel in their gift the stress, the tension and the headaches associated with trying to figure out what, out of the billions of products on the shelf, would be suitable for that person.
I watched Julie and Julia again the other day, and it inspired me to attempt to handmake all my gifts for 2012.
WHAT??????????????
You’re probably thinking I’m crazy right?!
I won’t be crafting/cooking every day like Julie does in the movie, but my aim is to DO something every day – whether it’s looking up patterns to try, finding great fabric, sourcing ideas online, or getting stuck into the scissors, fabric, glue, timber, paint, you name it – some kind of craft!
Can it be done? Is it even possible? Has anyone else tried this? Am I putting undue pressure on myself? Will the children, who are so used to ‘bought’ gifts, even like the presents? I don’t want it to be a waste of time, giving some half-baked, poorly made item that gets ‘re-gifted’ (there’s a whole nother topic to post about!) as soon as I walk out the door.
I will journal as I go, and am placing this post on my side bar as a reminder of where I’m at. I will have a list of birthdays, their ages and sex, then tick off as I go along. Then there’s the Christmas gifts for the same people!
I’m hoping that others might join me! If you are interested in trying this yourself, leave a comment and I will encourage you along via email, put a link to your blog and let the world know what you are doing. What a way to stay accountable!!!
I would LOVE to have your help too! Take a look at the ages and sex I’m making for, and offer suggestions for gifts. Any craft is OK – I’m game to try it!
You could send links to patterns, or let me know about a great site that has crafty ideas, find some up and coming Martha Stewart who I haven’t heard about that I can copy from be inspired by!
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So here we go with the list – they are listed by age they will be turning, month of birthday, and relationship to me.
Husband – 47 - July
Daughter – 21 – May
Daughter – 20 – November
Daughter – 18 – August
Daughter 15 – August
Daughter – 9 – August
Daughter – 6 – November
Son – 25 – December
Son to be – 26 – May
Mother – 66 – March
Father – 69 – September
MIL – 69 – May
FIL – 75 – December
Niece – EJ – 6 – November
Nephew – David – 4 – June
Nephew – James – 2 – September
Nephew – Trent – 17 – September
Nephew – Aidan – 16 – January
Niece – Fi – 15 – April
Niece – Jarrah – 9 – January
Niece – Teal – 8 – July
I have other nieces and nephews, but they are now over 18 and have ‘aged out’ of presents. We decided that 18 was the cut off point for gift giving, and in the next few years there will be grandchildren for us, so we figured it was getting beyond ridiculous buying for everyone.
I will journal on how I organise my time, my schedule etc and what I will be making. I really hope for some interaction on this from you out there in blogland.
I don’t know if I will succeed, but I’m having a go!!!!
Why not take up the Handmade
Twenty12 challenge?!
Wish me luck
:)
You go girl, we use to buy for everyone until all our siblings started having children, both Tim and I come from a family of 5 children, with most of them having 3 children each and us having 7.
We design and create personalized birthday cards for everyone. Then at Christmas our home does a joint family gift that we all can enjoy together.
A long time ago, before children, I use to make everyone’s presents, but once baby number 5 came that all stopped. EVeryone enjoyed the handmade presents and the children did understand that a lot of time, love and care was put into them and didn’t seem to mind that they didn’t get some state of the art game that had just came out in the shop.
I found that making or decorating a container and then filling it with some yummy goodies that were handmade always brought a smile for the adults. Cuddly toys and pillows for the children under 13 – 14 years. Once they were over that age it started to get tricky and found myself personalizing journals, calenders and photo albums etc.
Pray this helps
Love it – cant wait to see what you make
Oh my gosh mum!! That’s what I was going to do too!! (hehe.. ashy might help too).
I’m in this with ya mum!
Hooray!
We are hand making almost all of our Christmas gifts this year. I have to admit though that I have a much smaller gift giving list than yours. We have three children, so I’ll be making for them and my husband. We stopped exchanging gifts with our siblings years ago and they assumed at the time that meant their children as well… so no nieces or nephews to make for.
I’m not sure if you sew or not, but one of the things I’m making for our oldest and her partner and for our middle daughter are travel sets (a boxy zipper bag for toothbrush, toothpaste, etc, make-up bag (for the girls), shoe bags, laundry bag.) I’ll be using the same fabric for each set, but using different fabric for each person.
Hubby is going to be the most difficult to make for… but one thing I’m doing is collecting rags suitable for using in the garage and then I’m going to sew him two draw string bags with the words clean rags on one and dirty rags on the other. I’m going to cut up some old denim jeans for the bags as those will be good and sturdy.
Our son loves to cook, so one of the things I’m making him is a butcher type apron. And I’m also going to hand write out all the recipes from my recipe box that are family favourites. I did this for our girls the first year they were away from home and they loved it.
Hope that gives you some ideas that might work for your list.
And while I’m shy about promoting my blog, if you check back through my archives, you’ll see other gifts that I’ve made as well.