A Homemade Christmas

Since we are preparing for our upcoming arrival in the spring, my little family has been doing our best to stick to a budget this Christmas. But sticking to a budget doesn't necessarily mean skimping. To me, it means getting creative and crafty! 

I also subscribe to the Four Gift Rule for children (with a little rule stretching). Emma's gifts this year include:

1. Something she wants. (A nice little tea set, which was a Black Friday bargain, and also a Mrs. Potato Head from a garage sale which I snagged for a dollar - more on Ms. Head later.)
2. Something she needs. (New bath soap and lotion, along with a couple new tub toys.)
3. Something to wear. (Emma's closet is more packed than mine, so she doesn't need a new outfit, but I made her a pair of Christmas pajamas - a tradition in my family.)
4. Something to read. (This one we stretched a little, but she loves books and we got each of these for 50 cents each at our local library book sale.)

The other item in the picture below is a glass tree ornament that I got at a garage sale for ten cents. I filled it with some sand from our 2012 family vacation to California (Emma's first beach) and applied some vinyl stickers to commemorate the year and the place. 

As I mentioned above, I found a like-new Mrs. Potato Head at a garage sale this fall for only one dollar. While it was in great shape, all the parts came inside a plastic suitcase that, in my humble opinion, is about half the size it should be.

 I know that if the case is too small, the parts will never get put away, so I decided to make a little fabric bag, or POTATO SACK, if you will.

After using an iron-on adhesive on some brown scrap fabric, I cut the letters out on my Cricut Expression using my George and Basic Shapes cartridge. 

Then I simply cut out a potato shape, and arranged all of the letters along with the potato onto some scrap burlap that I also had on hand, and ironed everything down. I sewed a drawstring into the bag, and everything fits perfectly!

For Emma's Christmas pajamas, I found a fantastic pattern and tutorial over at Noodles and Milk. Her directions are very clear and easy to follow! The only difference I made for Emma's was to reduce the size to about 60% of the original pattern, since Emma is still wearing a 12-18 month onesie. The white onesie was from Goodwill, and the felt for the reindeer was "stolen" from my mom's stash.

The pajama pants were very easy as well. I actually used an existing pair of Emma's "lounge pants" as a pattern to cut out and sew. I had the giraffe print fabric left over from a baby blanket, so this whole outfit was basically free. One note on the pajamas - Emma will be wearing this outfit for Christmas morning, and hopefully for everyday use for a few months but these are not true infant pajamas being they are not flame retardant.

I have to confess that I was a little over-eager to finish everything and get it wrapped this week before Christmas, and I realize that I don't have good final pictures of the potato sack and Emma's ornament, and not a single picture of the tea set, so I will have to update this post after Christmas when they've been unwrapped!

Happy Holidays, everyone!