Christmas Gifts

I've been in a funk since Christmas has come and gone. I spent so much time in down-to-the-wire mode, I'm a little confused and lost now. I pick up a project and wander off to find that thingy I needed... forget what I was looking for and then see something in another room, set down the original project to work on another... find that thingy I was looking for to begin with and wonder what in the world I did with the first project. Anyone else there? I spend all day piddling with things and never get anything done.

Now that the gifts have all been gifted, I can share the handmade goodies that I was working on pre-funk.

For Buggy and my niece and nephew, I made pillows with their name appliqued on the front and a patchwork border. Here is my little niece's (her name is considerably shorter than the other two kids so she got some flowers too):

And on the back a big pocket! For Christmas it had stocking stuffer-y things inside like stickers and candy. But I was thinking it would be good for stashing secret stuff or taking toys and games on a car trip.

And, of course, we needed more manly colors for my nephew:

Plus a super cool button for my favorite T-ball player:

And where are pics of Buggy's pillow? Let's blame it on the funk. (Yeow, I'd better go back and make sure I used an "n" in the other spots)

Here is a fun project, I know I'll be doing some more of these around Mother's Day (don't look Mom). I've never done anything like this and was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was.

I took pictures of the girls with a window behind their heads. A little photo editing to bump up the contrast and make them B&W, then I printed photos of each girl on regular paper. I used a sharp craft knife to cut out their heads and used that as a pattern to cut black paper in the shape of cuteness. Double-stick tape is holding it to the parchment colored paper. Originally, the silhouettes were slightly smaller than the 5x7 frames, but I thought it needed a bit more white space to look pleasing to the eye so I shrank their heads to 4x6 size. I also wanted oval frames to give it a more vintage-y feel but didn't realize until the last minute that they are really hard to find.

And now I'd like you all to take a second look at the shape of my youngest daughter's head and send a little sympathy my way.