Homemade Christmas - bit late but I couldn't spoil the surprise!

Above is the pile of some of the stuff I made as Christmas presents (I so wish I had the talent to make these pictures good!) Mainly thanks so to the Pink Penguin and to the fabulous tutorials posted by Sew Mama Sew. For my mother I made this fabric basket and a lavender eye pillow inspired by this brilliant idea - I did the same for my sister - and I filled the baskets with their favourite cosmetic ranges - bought as gift sets on eBay for a fraction of the price that they were in shops - particularly proud of the Body Shop Vitamin E bargain, please don't be offended dear sister, but I halved the £20 max and got 4 full size products that retail for £5-£8 each and a pink facecloth to match!

Again I wish I was a photoshop whizz - but here's a close up of the baskets I gave to my Mum and my sister as they were filled with stuff. The funky fabrics were fat quarters bought on ebay for between £2 and £3 a piece and the natural tone fabric is the trimming from my old Ikea living room curtains.

I discovered a whole new world - and a new hobby this Christmas and I'm really having to reel myself in from buying lots and lots of fabric on eBay! However, trawling the internet for patterns, advice and ideas is a free past time and really you can do this with old clothes and other bits of fabric you may have lying around. Plus I have lots ans lots left over so I can make things for my Mum and sister that carry on the theme.

My friends got an experimental range of made up gifts as well as a number of variations of this. Once you get the hang of this idea you can really run with it - and I think that's where a lot of my confidence came from. For colleagues and my Boss's wife I made a small drawstring bag with a lavender eye pillow and a lavender bag inside - all matching. I also worked out a very basic lined tote pattern using some Cath Kidston napkins and some old curtains - everyone got
one in some form or another and I am so bored with them now that I think I could make them in my sleep - I might do a tutorial - if I can ever work out the light in my dingy little flat! This is the first one I made - for a collegue who is a big Elvis Fan, I used the Cath Kidston red star fabric and got a small "Elvis Lives" iron on patch on eBay - she cried when she opened it - she's quite emotional sometimes!


For those that I couldn't really sew something for - I know you can sew something for every one - particulalry if you look here - I decided to flex my culinary muscles!


For my lovely Boss, a bottle of spiced Arancello and a bag of orange and Hazlenut Biscotti. I bought soda bottles from Lakeland - they were cheaper than on eBay and some cellophane bags on eBay - this took a few goes for size! The smaller ones were fine really! I used my daily grind sectrearial skills for the labels - just a word template and a google image search and put a list of ingredients on the back. I ran out of hazelnuts and couldn't face zesting another orange so I just chucked in some almonds and cocoa instead - they were everyone's favorites! I would say though - if making biscotti make sure you have a VERY sharp knife for the cutting - I had bits everywhere!

I was very pleased with the way everything turned out. And I think my firends and family were happy to recieve something I had made. Goodness knows what I'll have to come up with next year!