My Lego-loving boys are getting these great drawstring playmats/storage bags for Christmas this year. I first saw the Lego Sack Tutorial during Celebrate the Boy month in the spring and immediately added them to my sewing list. I think these are going to get a lot of use around here!

A quick side note on these: The long drawstrings made me a little nervous so I tacked each one down in the center of its casing so that can’t be pulled out. I’ll also be sure to remind the boys of the safety rules when using anything with a long tie like this.

My art-loving daughter, Samantha, asked me recently to sew her a wrap for her extensive set of markers, so she’ll be excited to find this on Christmas morning. I used my Art-on-the-Go Kit Tutorial, extending the width and leaving off the art pad . . . easy peasy!

I had a bit of a hard time coming up with a handmade project for my husband’s mom. I know that she loves real hard-copy pictures of the kids, though, and I know that I’m terrible about sending them to her. I was roaming through the craft department at Walmart and was struck by a great idea when I saw this unfinished wood photo carousel.

I had already planned to make some wood block ornaments with the kids. (Pictures of those coming soon!) I figured the same basic method of decoration would work for this, too. I started by painting the whole thing white, then I used Mod-Podge to apply scrapbook paper to each side. While that was drying, we cut letters out of old magazines to spell out “MawMaw’s Babies” ransom-letter style on the top. Once those were decoupaged on, we let the whole thing dry overnight.

The next morning, I sanded the edges of the scrapbook paper to smooth them out and the corners of the photo carousel to rough them up. Then I rubbed a light coat of wood stain over the whole thing, wiping it right off. When that was dry, we just added pictures, wrapped it and shipped it off!

Earlier this month, I attended a Mom’s Night Out with the other mothers from my local homeschool group, and we did a Chinese-auction-style gift exchange. I wanted a simple idea that would work for anyone, but since I’m all about practicality, it needed to be useful, too. Here’s what I came up with:

This is the “Natural Moms’ Cold & Flu Season Survival Kit”. Simple washable cotton velour tissues, oranges, tea for sore throats and congestion and antibacterial soap. Each tissue is two pieces of cotton velour cut 6 1/2″ x 8 1/2″, then serged with wrong sides together. (The velour needs to be at least 80% cotton for it to work well as a tissue.) This would be a thoughtful gift to give anytime you hear that there’s a bug running through a friend’s home this winter, too!

My 16-year-old niece is studying culinary arts through a charter program at her high school, and she asked me for a full apron in zebra stripes and purple to use for her cooking classes. I think this fits the bill nicely!

The zebra-striped fabric is a lightweight twill with stain releasers that I found at our local Hancocks Fabrics. A great fabric find for an apron! I used McCalls 2233 which I used for my sister’s apron last year. It’s a sized pattern, and I think it’s a great choice for those who need an apron in a size that’s larger than the standard size 6-10.

On the first day of Christmas, a seamstress made for me . . . No, really, I’m not going to sing a new version of the twelve days of Christmas, but I do have twelve handmade projects that I’d like to share between now and Christmas Eve! (Most of them are done already, but I do have few projects that have made it to the last minute scramble)

First up is this simple quilt for my youngest niece. She is a big fan of anything giraffe related, and I think she’ll love these!

Because I didn’t have a lot of time to put this together, I pieced the quilt top together from solid 10″ blocks, alternating the four block fabrics. Then I put a quick border around it, backed it with minky, quilted it in diagonal lines and machine-bound it. The final quilt is about 50″x60″.

I love these minky-backed, no-batting quilts for little ones because they’re warm and soft, but they don’t take up a lot of storage space in your closet when you store them or in a bag when you travel.