Our Gifts - Part One

We decided to make a lot of the gifts for each other this year for Christmas. Some people in our family are more talented (ahem - Preston!) then others (me). But we really enjoyed making them and we all have loved the outcome! Here are the gifts I made for Preston and Elliott:

The oh-so-popular notebook shirt. I made the mistake of thinking I would prefer to make it with fabric markers rather than fabric paint. Even though I do like the "hand drawn" look from the markers, it took way too long to do.

This is a fishing pole. Elliott was using "mommy's pretty" (my necklaces) to fish off of the coffee table. So I thought this would solve that problem and it has. It's a dowel rod, hand painted (not taped - again, I wanted that messy look), and I drilled a hole towards the top and strung it. Originally I tied the string on, and it was not working. So I drilled. Yes, there was smoke and yes, I had to take a drilling break every 2-3 seconds or else I am sure it would have caught fire, but it works! 

One of the gifts I made for Preston was an NYU hoodie. He kind of collects them from the universities he has attended. So I looked up pictures of some examples and designed my own. The font was tough to make, but after that it was pretty much the basic freezer paper, fabric paint project. Except for the zipper. That zipper! The "Y" had to go right in the middle and therefore over the zipper. But it all came out in the end. The important thing is that he loves it.

Part two (Preston's gifts) coming up Monday!