Gifties

Thrifties.

As usual, I waited until the Last Possible Moment before making anything for Christmas.  Do you want to see the gifts of which I took pictures?

What's that?
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Wow!  A resounding YES!!!!!!
Thanks, everyone!  Your enthusiasm for my boring posts totally made my day.

I finally tried my hand at cold-process soap making, thanks to my sister-in-law Sarah J.  Sarah's given us beautiful bars of cold-process soaps made by a friend of hers for the last couple of Christmases, along with  the world's best  handmade lotions and lip balms.  This year, the Peter Johnsons weren't spending Christmas in Nanticoke, so I knew in order to get any homemade soap for Christmas, I'd have to make it myself.

Since I was making it anyway, I made some to give away as gifts, too.  I created my own recipe using the handy lye calculator at soapcalc.net, which not only obliterated the headache of figuring but was also a wealth of information regarding what ingredients produce certain bar qualities.  It taught me everything I know, which, granted, is barely anything, but still...


Batch #1: Good Morning, Sunshine!
Tangerine soap with calendula blossoms (surely you remember those) curing on cookie racks, resting on Millie's first knitted dishcloth*, and tied up with a bow.




*...her first knitted dishcloth that she brought to the kitchen with the triumphant exclamation, "Look, mama!  I just taught myself to knit!"  Yup.  So she did.  Now she's starting lessons with Grandma J. to learn more because, so far, I am a knitting failure.

Batch 2: Curiously Strong
Pepperminty soap curing on racks, curing on racks, and.....

 tied up with a bow.

 

As I said, I made the soap a wee bit late, so I had to attach warning labels to the final bars.  Oops.  Let me distract you from that failure by directing your attention to the fact that record bowls can double as gift bags.
What laziness ingenuity! 

All these gifties were thrifties, but the fancy "soap molds" I saved from Dude and Mom Owen's visit are a highlight.  It's a scene straight from Martha Stewart Living, ain't it?

Here's a funny, little penguin I stitched up for my sister-in-law Sarah and a funny, big one I doodled at the Last Possible Moment (i.e. on HER COUCH in HER HOUSE while SHE SAT NEARBY).    There, too, are my penguin feet.

 

You needed a bathmat fix, right?  Longtime readers might remember my recent odd practice of making one bathmat each Christmas.  (I place the blame fully where it belongs, as should you.)  Anyway, I couldn't let a blossoming tradition die on the vine, could I?  Here's the 2012 Christmas Bathmat I made at three in the morning for my sister-in-law April, but, shhh, it's REALLY for her cat.

Lastly, here's a measly table runner I made and appliqued for Dude and Dudette.  It's measly because in order to show gratitude in gift form for all that they've given us, I would have had to give them at least two and a half million table runners, and, no matter how much I love them, I couldn't find the time-- squeezing milk from a stone and all that.  Besides, they don't even have two and a half million tables, so it'd be foolish to sew that many table runners, right? (This is how I avoid guilt.)

Moving right along, isn't the color combination in their kitchen awesome?

 

p.s. If you actually read the words I wrote above, which isn't likely, and if you're actually reading these words, which is even less likely, here's why my mom is going to teach Millie to knit. Below you'll see the only thing I've ever knit, from way back when.  Half of it I tried to knit right-handed until Titi discovered that I'm a lefty, and then the other half I tried to knit left-handed (because I'm a lefty), and then I just wilted entirely (because I'm a lefty).  When I found it unfinished in a bag of projects several YEARS after Titi gave up on me and left me for dead, I looked at its crooked lines and lumps, sighed, and tried to knitwit my garbled way to the end.  Ezekiel wears it because he doesn't know any better.