Simple Gifts

I know I've been missing for a few days. We've been busy as a family as everyone else is at this time of year. Yesterday we had a visit from my mother-in-law and sister-in-law. I wanted us to make gifts for them. I only had about a week to get ready, and in true fashion I couldn't come up with any ideas until the day of.

Well, I had started a scarf for my sister-in-law. It's one of those scarfs made with a specialty yarn. I didn't particularly enjoy knitting with this yarn and probably won't be in a hurry to do another scarf. It did turn out nicely though.

My mother-in-law loves hedgehogs and for her birthday this year I found a pattern for a stuffed hedgehog. When I went to the fabric store I found some adorable flannel that was covered in hedgehogs. ☺ It was the end of the bolt so I bought what was left. I still have quite a bit left so I pondered for days how to use some more of this fabric for another gift. I finally decided on the kind of bulletin board where you cover the board with fabric and crisscross it with ribbon which hold your pictures/papers in place without having to use pushpins. I was so happy with how it turned out. If I had had more time I would have taken pictures and done a tutorial. Maybe I'll make another one for some else and do a tutorial.

I also wanted the children to make some gifts, but what, what, what? I went on Pintertest and came up with these ideas:

~We wrote "We love you" on one side of a mug and they signed their names on the other. We did this for Father's Day, but the post I found is gone now. I just did it from memory, but my oldest daughter found this post with lots of tips for writing on ceramic with permanent marker.

~They covered two notebooks with scrapbook paper. You can find the instructions here.

~My nine-year-old daughter was discouraged because she wasn't able to do the notebooks so I went back to the drawing board (a.k.a. Pinterest) and found this idea for a corner bookmark. She and her younger sister loved this craft. It's simple and they caught on quickly. They plan to do this for more gifts soon. It's a great craft because now that they know how they can totally do it by themselves.

So if you're still in need of some simple and fast gifts, I hope we have given you some ideas. Do you have any simple and fast ideas to share?