Christmas crafting

Here we are, one month after Christmas, and I'm finally getting caught up on pictures!

Once upon a shiny time, I had visions of entirely handmade Christmas gifts - the kids, relatives, the works. Since then, I've modified my ideal. Crafting, for me, is a joy, an expression of praise in acknowledgement of our Creator God, love and prayers woven in with each stitch. I will neither make it a chore nor craft for those who equate handmade with cheap (particularly since I rarely find homemade projects to be much, if any, cheaper than store-bought gifts).

With that in mind, aside from a couple fabric bird stocking stuffers, I took on only three major Christmas crafts this year: a scrapbook album for my mom, Christmas pajamas for the boys, and a tin of cookies and recipe cards for the landlord upstairs (this barely slips in as a "craft", but you'll get a couple bonus cookie recipes out of it at the end of this post, so indulge me).


First up, the castle scrapbook. I designed and made this album for my mom. The idea was inspired by a local scrapbooking shop, which I wandered into for no particular reason one evening while having a little me-time. The album practically leapt out at me, screaming "here I am, your mom's Christmas gift!!" My mom is very Disney/princess/castle obsessed, and last year they went on a(nother) Disney Cruise that took them, among other places, to Russia where they visited a castle. It was one of the highlights of their trip. The album is half-filled with the few pictures my mom had sent me, with space for her to add in a few more.

The structure of the castle was made from chipboard covered in cardstock-weight scrapbook paper. The insides are cardstock-weight scrapbook paper stuck together and embellished with regular scrapbook paper. I used double-sided tape throughout. It was a satisfying project to work on in the evenings, and I'm reasonably happy with how it turned out.


Next, the boys' Christmas pajamas. These were so much fun to make and I am very happy with the final result.

The baby's shirt was made following the 90 minute shirt tutorial. The pants were made using a basic pajama pattern I always use for them (McCall's M4643).

The boy's shirt was made with a more grown-up neckline, while the pants were made with the same pattern as the baby's were.

I tried to take action shots, but, well, most of them turned out pretty similar to this (that would be the boy pretending to eat the baby's head, while the baby ignored both of us in favour of the book I'd given him to try to bribe him into not crawling away):

It's hard to take pictures of two boys at the same time.


Finally, the tin of cookies with recipe cards. I made my specialty, spicy gingerbread cookies adapted from this recipe, as well as lemon thumbprint cookies with raspberry jam filling, adapted from this recipe. Wow, should I have ever made a second batch for us. Those were delicious. The recipe cards were downloaded from Shabby Princess' Holiday Recipe Collection and printed on cardstock.

And here's your bonus recipes!

Enjoy!