Christmas Toys

Well, I finally have time to update my blog! This week has been busy busy with finishing these gifts, mailing packages, addressing Christmas cards, and our church Christmas party (of which I was on the planning committee). Among other things. :)

Here are the two gifts that I hand made. I made 3 of each, one set for my own girls, plus two sets to send to some family members. I'm trying to decide if I have enough energy to make one more set for some friends at church. We shall see!!

(And as always, please forgive my poor photography!!)

The first is an I-Spy bag! I got the idea from THIS POST on Make it and Love it.

I found some cute fleece at Spotlight (which, sadly, is closing in a couple of weeks. I better make another trip out there!), and found some bean bag refill (in a thankfully smaller quantity), and ended up using a double layer of zip lock bag for the plastic window. I think it will be strong enough to withstand children.... as long as they don't chew on it too much!!! The items inside the bag I just gathered from around the house and my craft drawers. In retrospect, I wish I had found a few more bulkier items to put in them... Will keep that in mind for next time. :) I also printed and laminated photos of all the objects so that the person knows exactly what they are looking for.





The second gift was a felt Mr. Potato Head! Perfect to use as a "quiet toy" at church, or to help with small motor skills etc. I also got the idea for it on THIS POST at the same Make it and Love it blog.

These took me a bit longer to make than I expected for a few reasons... 1) The pieces were small and sometimes hard to work with. 2) I would have to sew part way, then stuff with batting, then finish sewing. Sometimes the pieces shifted and I only sewed one piece of felt, so then I'd have to pick the seam and start over. 3) I ran out of white felt and it took awhile to find more. I tried to avoid making the 1.5 hour trip over to Spotlight. Thankfully I found another source closer to home! 4) Some of those shapes are hard to get right! YOU try cutting out the perfect luscious lips!!

I also made several different accessories/options to make it more fun.



Of course there has to be some Mrs. options to even it out a bit.



On the back is a handy dandy little pocket to store all the pieces.


But in case they don't all fit, I also made a little drawstring bag to keep it all together.


The Mr. Potato Head tutorial instructed me to sew all of the velcro bits on. Unfortunately, the only velcro I could find had adhesive on the back, which ruined one of my sewing machine needles. Oops! I ended up hot glueing all the velcro on, and earned myself a few burns and blisters in the process! But it was all worth it. I think the finished products turned out super cute, and my girls had fun trying them out. They don't know that I made extra for them. :)

More Christmas surprises to come shortly!