A Hand Crafted Christmas

As families have grown, we have been challenged to think of new ways to provide Christmas gifts to the adults in our family without breaking the bank. This past Christmas we began a tradition of a prepared (or nearly prepared) pantry or freezer meal for each family. This worked out great! We prepared a dinner, a bread and a dessert minus the obvious staples of vanilla extract etc and all of the perishables. So, for example, my gifted meal was Texas Cornbread, Texas Two-Step Stew and M&M Cookies. I used mason jars to mix together or layer all of the dry ingredients for each course and provided any canned goods that accompany. I stuck it all in a good sized mixing bowl with a nice wooden spoon and ta-dah - Merry Christmas with love.

This year we are sticking with the meal exchange but we are also adding another component - a handmade gift. Each of us have all year long to create handmade gifts for our dear ones. What fun! So, I have scoured the Internet and all of my crafting books and I have a few ideas in mind. My first project is the simple scarf. I adore scarves. They are beautiful adornments to the neck as well as an occasional chair. As a craft, they may be knitted, sewn or crocheted and best of all are portable as you create them. I chose to use a natural, undyed cotton yarn to crochet my first scarf of the year. Crocheting is fun and simple. You are basically using a small tool to creatively knot yarn into an item. If you are an impatient crafter this may be the project for you because it is a project that you can see results with in just moments. Depending on the size of your project, it is also a craft that is possible to complete start to finish within a day. Crocheting is slightly easier than knitting, but is incapable of creating the pretty cables that knitting produces. However, crocheting is perfect for a quick craft minus the stress and mess. I'll post some pics of the final project, once complete. I will also post more of the "hand crafted" Christmas items I come up with :-)