The Good [Handmade] Stuff: Merry Christmas! Love, Peter

I was inspired by this post at Design Mom. How she manages to help her five kids make gifts for each other, I'll never know. I love the tradition of having our kids make gifts for each other, and I tried to think of things Pete could do for Nathan and Shane. Borrowing a few ideas directly from the blog, here's what we came up with:

Bookmarks for Shaner, who is recently graduated from school and enjoying recreational reading for the first time in a long time. Nathan generously rounded out the gift by giving him a Wallace Stegner novel, which Shaner is really into right now. I wish I had a laminater (word?) at times like these.

Apple-Print Bibs for the little guy. We put acrylic paint on half of an apple and Pete stamped some muslin we had on hand. It was tricky to get the stamp on evenly--I learned that the apple has to be cut perfectly straight for it to work. I had a bib pattern from Amy Butler's Little Stitches that worked out nicely. I ran out of bias tape after the first one and couldn't be bothered to make yet another trip to Michael's. I am particularly fond of the green buttons.

So, that would have been good enough for me, but no! After finishing our immediate family, Peter insisted on gifts for his twin cousins and best buddy, Kate.

For the twins, 'we' made some tutus (Pete did help tie the tulle). I think they turned out pretty cute:

We brainstormed a lot of ideas for Kate's gift, but Peter felt quite insistent that Kate needs a playmat. We compromised that it would be a small playmat, and we included the essentials, like Kate's old house and our old apartment and Yale and maybe the most important thing: the food carts.

Pete had a fun time making these and hopefully caught the spirit of giving amidst the Santa insanity.