What’s that? I can’t hear you. La la la la la. It is definitely not March already. No way no how.
So then, do you think it’s too late to do a Christmas recap? Well too bad. I never did quite get around to showing off our crafting efforts for Christmas 2008, which is very sad, considering the effort that we (and particularly Dermot, since I was all broken-wristed and what have you) went to. Christmas, it goes without saying, came hand-in-hand with a little bit of family drama. Gift-making and giving became the subject of argument, so I was left feeling a bit flat about the effort we had gone to. Que sera sera. I’m over it now. Much of the enjoyment is in the making anyway, I find. And I did offer to keep the gifts we had made for the prime grumbler, but that offer was (strangely) refused!
Our ‘theme’, if you like, for Xmas 2008 was ‘Paper’. We put together a bunch of photo albums – these are Japanese stab bound, just like the album I made for Nichola.
These are A5 sized…
With black album pages…
And glassine interleaves…
We also put together some smaller notebooks, more conventionally hard-bound…
Pretty pretty on the inside…
And some more…
And I found that Gocco-ing is not so difficult with only one hand…
So I printed up a bunch of these notecards (graphics are from, um… Clipart.com, I think)…
And my favouritist thing of all, some lovely bookplates (some were blank like these, others had names already printed on)…
Finally, we printed up these Mibo calendars (freebie found via Steph) and had them bound at Officeworks. I love the graphics on these, not sure why we didn’t do ourselves one…
Whew! When all of that was done (in the two short weeks before Christmas, mostly), some of us were plum tuckered out…
(Not that she had much to do with the crafting, mind you. Perhaps she just grew tired of waiting for Mum and Dad to pay her some attention!)
When all of this was in the planning stages, and there were two wholly-limbed adults going to be taking part, it all sounded good. When a good slab of the cutting and binding came down to Dermot after the chair incident however, I don’t think he was so impressed. I heard a lot of ‘I told you that you should get started earlier’, I can tell you ๐ . I’ve promised that 2009 will be my year to do all the work… so I’d better get started, hey?
I think everything you made and sent is gorgeous, very professionally done! I can’t believe that people moaned, I would have loved to receive gifts like these.
Beautiful Presents.
Love the Gocco stuff.
Can I quietly admit that my mother bought me one when I was in my early teens – I used it until I couldn’t get lamps anymore and then I have no idea what happened to it. It is definitely gone though.
I must be a pretend crafter to have let it go.
OOOh Lovely! :love:
Beautiful gifts! I also made handmade gifts this year – I started in October and was scrambling to get them all finished in time to mail. But they all arrived before the big day. It is a lot of work, and it’s true, the giver gets the most out of it. I don’t know about you, but I kept every person in my thoughts as I was working on each gift, so they were all “infused with love”.
They are beautiful gifts, and very practical also. I would have been honoured to receive something so lovely.
Great job Dermot for doing much of the work himself.
They were wonderful gifts. My favourite is the little book (with iris paper on the inside covers of course).
Wasn’t it fun, with everyone Oohing and Aahing at the effort others had put in, and voting on their favourite gifts? We are doing it again this year. I am already working out a theme ๐
I think those are absolutely wonderful gifts and would be thrilled if I were a recipient of one of them. Kudos to you for spending time to make things for the people you care about!
melanie, I am so jealous you know how to make hand bound albums like that…….where did you learn, I would love to do this
sharon
The paper crafts you made are just wonderful. I can’t believe someone grumbled!
They grumbled????.
man, I want to join your family – I would never grumble at such beautiful gifts.
You (and Dermot) did a great job with the pressies, they look fantastic.
I am just going through the process of working out all handmade gifts for Christmas this year and I loooove yours. I cannot believe anyone grumbled! Just one question, with the clipart how do you print in those lovely colours? I am not very experienced with doing that sort of stuff unfortunately. Also, let’s hope Mibo provide another free calendar download for next year! I have my fingers crossed. Great site by the way. Glad to have found you!
I’d never grumble if I received something like this! Handmade gifts are the best kind, it shows someone thinks enough of you to put effort into the gift. Anyone can wander into a shop but not everyone would bother to go to the effort of a handmade gift.
It’s not exactly the same, but my sister printed out my favourite fanfictions and bound them together for me. It was one of the simplest gifts I ever received and to this day, remains one of my favourites.