Angels

 

Angel ornaments from my mom's hankies

     My mom died last year in November.  This December would have been her 90th birthday so I decided to have a party for her.  It was a nice way to get to talk about her and our memories of growing up.

The final result

     As a keepsake for everyone to take home, I made angel ornaments from her box of hankies. She had dozens of them.  I looked on Pinterest for some directions and started making them.

Original angel I made

    The first couple I made, I used stuffing to make the heads and tried to starch the hankie so it would look like wings.  I only did a couple as I wasn't too happy with the results.  I then went to Hobby Lobby and found some some balls to form the heads.  I used two different sizes depending on the size of the hankie.  I looked for crochet or lace shapes that I could use for wings but didn't see anything I liked.  Then on Amazon I found some fabric wings. 

'Heads' from Hobby Lobby

Wings from Amazon

     I was going to glue the wings in place, but then I remembered the double faced tapes I had bought for doing window treatments and thought that would be much less messy and faster.

Tape I used

     After I got these items all in place, making the angel ornaments didn't take long.  I believe that this was a nice way to remember my mom.

     It was so nice to get together with family and just talk about my mom.

      Rest in peace mom

Christmas Presents for Friends

Gingerbread man mug rug and ornament

      I have two dear friends that we get together for brunch once a month.  We started out talking about our businesses but now it's more about just us.  This year for Christmas I made them a mug rug and a matching ornament.

    I bought these cute designs from Designs by JuJu. I did the mug rugs first and then used some of the same fabric to do the ornaments.  

     For the backs of the ornaments I used some of the flannel left over from making pajama pants for my great niece.

     I even used some metallic thread to add sparkle to the ornaments.  These were fun and easy to do using some of my scraps I have saved over the years.

     Even the mug rugs were mostly scraps.  A great way to use up leftover fabric.  I love the designs from Designs by JuJu and the accompanying directions make them easy to do.

Christmas Jammies for the Grandkids 2024

 

Getting those last two pairs cut

     I decided once again to just make the pajama pants for the grandkids and embroider store bought t-shirts.  These are gifts from St Nick (the 8 yr old figured it out this year that grandma probably makes them as they are all the same.)  I bought matching t-shirts from Old Navy and flannel from JoAnn Fabrics.  I figured I needed about 10-11 yards of flannel to make their pajama pants.  Unfortunately the bolts only have 8 yards on them usually at JoAnn's.  I bought a full bolt of one with ice skates and sweaters and three yards with gingerbread men and Santas.  The plan was to cut the four older grandkids from the larger piece and the two younger ones from the smaller piece.  However with some creative cutting layouts, I was able to get all six pairs from the one piece.  As they get older and bigger I'm sure that won't be an option.

      For the youngest, I used the pants pattern from Sewing for Baby.  For the 3 year old, I used the pants pattern from Sewing for Toddlers and for the four oldest, I used McCall's 8311 that I have in multiple sizes.

For Violet, 1

For Gabriel, 3

The four older ones

     When it came time to do the embroidery on the tops, I was debating between ugly sweaters or ice skates.  I chose the ice-skates pattern from Embroidery Library after I found I was able to buy HTV from Amazon in white.  I thought this made for a more realistic looking ice-skate.  For the girls I did pink laces and for the boys I did blue laces.  For the two youngest I chose the smaller size embroidery and for the four older ones the larger size.  I just hope the HTV holds up in the wash.

Embroidery detail

     Maybe I can get a picture of all 6 of them wearing them when the come here to celebrate Christmas.

Christmas Pajamas for the Great Nieces

 

     I made some Christmas pajamas for my great-nieces in Arizona.  I had enough fabric in my stash of Christmas flannel to make one pair of pajama bottoms only.  I ordered some pink long sleeve tees from Old Navy to use as the tops.  So off I went to JoAnn Fabrics to buy more Christmas flannel.  Since I had already ordered the pink tees, it had to have pink in it.  I did find a cute gingerbread man print.

     All the seams were serged to prevent fraying.  I left the shirts plain this year as I thought they could wear them at other times if they wanted to.  I sent them off via USPS.  My niece let me know the package arrived though it was quite smashed in on one end.  Good thing there was nothing fragile in the box.