Handmade Holidays

We had a wonderful Christmas together with family but I gotta say I'm sort of glad all of the pre-christmas mayhem is over! *grin*. I really planned to be ahead of the game when it came to all of my gift making and baking but somewhere along the way my schedule fell totally apart but now I can just sit back, relax and enjoy watching the children play with their new gifts :)

I had promised you more photos of the fairy house my son was making for his sister and here they are. I am SO proud of all the hard work he put into making it special for her. He keeps teasing me that it was really my project but I was just the creative director and he really did all the figuring :)

He rigged up the elevator so that when you crank the little handle on the outside of the house, the dowling on the ceiling spins and the ribbon winds up on the wooden thread spool lifting the elevator up through the hole in the floor and then there is a ladder that takes you up into the attic space :) LOVE it.

He used popsicle sticks to create the little shutters outside the windows...

and here's the little doorway with one of the crocheted rugs I made inside :)

In the dining room we put a small table covered with a little crocheted doily underneath the chandelier :) We just need some chairs now and I'm going to let her help me decorate the windows with little lacey curtains and flower swags. She is so thrilled with it :)

For my mom this year I made her a batch of Canadian Mincemeat using cranberries, maple syrup, port and other goodies and it turned out delicious! I was a little worried that it wouldn't turn out like the one she usually buys since I had never made it before but it was awesome :)

All of the kids got felt bandit masks which hubby is so graciously modeling for you *grin*....

and an assortment of fun mustaches.
This is the crazy wooly one that I made looping thick black wool across the felt making it quite amusing :)

They also got hot lips and full beards to go with their pirate crowns I made them last Christmas :)

Along with all of the homemade gifts we always get them pajamas, socks, one book each and one gift that they really want within reason. So this year my little guy got a lego man flashlight that doesn't require any batteries. You just wind his arm around and around and it charges up the battery inside so he can fall asleep with it at night and we'll never have to replace any batteries! My oldest son got a model airplane to build and my little girl got the fairy house as her big gift because she actually had seen a plastic one that she liked but I thought wood would be so much better *grin*.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas as well and I can't believe that it is only days and we will be ringing in 2011!!

Hugs,
Rosina