georgiabaste

I’ve unofficially taken a handmade holiday pledge, to give only handmade gifts this season.  My intention is to make all the gifts myself and I think I’ve put together a pretty manageable plan with things specially suited for those on my list.

Except for the guys.

For some reason I can’t seem to find fun or interesting things to make for the guys even with all the suggestions on Sew, Mama, Sew and the craft books or blogs I’ve scoured.  Sure I can do hats and scarfs for them but that just seems a little boring.

I need some help.  What are you giving those men on your list? If you’re a guy, what’s the best gift you’ve received recently?  Found a good pattern or tutorial that you’re using or altering for a dude?

How wonderful that Sew, Mama, Sew has deemed today Give-Away Day because I’d like to offer this little art binder as thanks for a great guy gift suggestion.

This would be perfect for a toddler (or even a big kid) to carry a sketch book and pencils.

So here’s the rules:

1. Leave a comment with a gift suggestion for a guy, preferably something to be knit, crocheted or sewn.

2. I’ll pick the winner on Friday, Dec. 5 at 10pm Eastern.

3. Open to U.S. and international friends.

4. Sorry, but the pencils and silly Office Max notepad not included.

Thanks for the help!

P.S. Check out this list for lots of other crafty giveaways!

Update: Holy Moly!! Thanks for all the great suggestions so far. And seriously, how am I supposed to get to ALL the blogs on the list?!  May need to quit my job, ship my child away and camp out on the laptop 24/7.  Feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the generous and talented people in the blogosphere.

December 3rd, 2008 | Tags: giveaway day, sewing | Category: holidays, sewing | Comments (142)

Before

During (Nice face, it didn’t taste that bad…really.)

After

Yikes!

What a great day we had with family and food and fun.  Now that it’s over and Grandma and Grandpa have gone home I’ve parked my lazy toosh on the couch.  I didn’t do any Black Friday shopping (of course my husband couldn’t resist buying a new printer/copier/faxer/scanner thingy because it was SO CHEAP) just burned some brain cells watching Hulu all day. Tomorrow’s Monday so I’ll get back to real life then.

…..

I’ve got a couple things on the to-do list for this week including participating in Give-Away Day.

So check back here on Wednesday for my giveaway and Sew, Mama, Sew for a huge list of the others participating!

December 1st, 2008 | Category: other stuff | Leave a comment

Happy Thanksgiving, all!  My mother-in-law and I will be cooking up a storm today while the guys watch way too much football.  I’ll be missing my family and friends in Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Texas and New York and hope they all have a wonderful day full of good company and good food.

Today is also my mom’s birthday so here’s wishing her a Happy, Happy Birthday!!

November 27th, 2008 | Category: other stuff | Leave a comment

In many ways it feels just like it was yesterday that I was lumbering around the house with a gigantic belly and swollen ankles hoping like mad that I’d go into labor.  And in many other ways that feels like ages ago.  In reality it was two years ago.  Wow.

To mark the special occasion, I took inspiration from Amanda’s book The Creative Family (should I change the name of this blog to SouleMama’s Biggest Fan?) and made a Birthday Crown and Flags for my little guy’s big day.  These things are not only cute but will also hopefully last for quite a while.  A new tradition perhaps.  Bonus: I just grabbed some fabric and supplies from my stash to make them so they were free!

The crown is red and brown felt with two yellow stars, with room enough to add a star each year until he refuses to wear it.  I wish I had had some 100% wool felt around to make this instead of the polyester because it’s a little flimsy.  Oh well, it’ll do.

The flags are just pieces of fabric cut into triangles, sewn wrong sides together then sewn into bias tape.  Super easy and fast.

So what did we do to mark the day?

My in-laws are in town and we took them to the state park nearby to check out the playground and for a nice long walk in the woods.

We went for pizza.  We had ice cream and cookies at home.  Then Aiden got to open a billion presents and talk to his aunt and new friend on the computer.  A pretty exciting and fun-filled day for a two year old!

November 27th, 2008 | Category: mommyhood, sewing | Comments (1)

Thanks to a sinus infection I’ve been able to do very little this week.  It is 50 degrees here in Georgia which is a bit cold for us and it seems that at the exact moment the thermometer dipped I got sick.  Nice.  So I haven’t been doing much sewing or much mothering to be honest.  Poor Aiden made it through the week on a hearty diet of crackers, raisins and Signing Time.  I’ll do a better job next week, I promise.

I did manage to get a couple caps made for a new project called Caps to Cap-Haitien.  The project was started by Amanda as a way for crafty mamas to contribute their handmade items to a very worthy cause.  You can find out more on her new site Mama to Mama where she writes much more eloquently than I.  Since I have a serger and some old Ts laying around I thought I’d give it a whirl.

Piece of cake!  I already have three done and enough shirts to make a couple more.

She has tips on how to make these simple caps with a sewing machine, too.  So if you have some old T-shirts, a sewing machine and about 5 minutes you too could make some newborn caps for the tiny babies in need in Haiti.

November 22nd, 2008 | Tags: caps to Cap-Haitien, sewing | Category: mommyhood, sewing | Comments (3)

Today while my little guy took his nap I made these for his cold toes:

He had been running around the house without socks on because our hardwood floors are too slippery for him otherwise.  Now that its quite a bit cooler its unacceptable to be running around barefoot.  Necessity being the mother of invention and all, I let him pick out some colors from the fabric stash, found a pattern and voilà!  And by voilà, I mean three days and two versions later….

I think he likes them and I’m satisfied with how they turned out.  This is my first attempt at appliqué, a technique with which I could obviously use practice, but I like the shape and the overall fit is good.  Now if you’re reading this, Santa, Aiden would really like these mama made slippers upgraded to these.  In the meantime he’s pretty happy to have warm toes while he plays inside.

……….

If he isn’t challenging me to a foot race around the house, Aiden has lately been demanding to watch “Train Thomas.”  I’m not sure where this is coming from because we don’t have any Thomas paraphernalia so I’m blaming his schoolmates.  Peers!  Geesh!   I thought I had at least 4 more years before I had to compete with peer pressure.  Well played little toddlers of Savannah, you certainly couldn’t have chosen a better object for my lovely angel to become addicted to.  If his request to “Watch Train Thomas….right now!” is met with a (very stern) “No” the cherub face turns ugly, very, VERY ugly.  After a few days and many sessions of time out I caved.  Some wonderful person put this movie on YouTube and it appeases him.  For seven minutes.

November 11th, 2008 | Tags: sewing, toddler slippers, youtube | Category: mommyhood, sewing | Comments (2)

They are fast approaching, these holidays, and I’d really like to avoid being the crazy, panicky girl knitting/sewing/baking/etc. into the wee hours that I usually am.  I’d also like to avoid the last-minute dash to the mall for overpriced gifts that the recipients usually don’t want anyway.  Even though there are a few birthdays and other events before Christmas rolls around somehow I find myself daydreaming about what to make and give for that particular holiday.  My initial goal was to spend the entire month of November working on these gifts but considering we are already a week into this lovely month that goal isn’t happening so far.  I’m not hitting the panic button yet, though.  I am however trying to put a plan together to streamline the process a little.  True this is not a revolutionary idea but for some reason whenever the holidays start approaching I lose all decision making abilities, so having a gift plan is an Earth shaking concept for me.  Here are a few things on the list so far:

A garden tote

A cute sun hat

And a bed pocket organizer.  All patterns from Lotta Jansdotter’s book Simple Sewing.

A very cool tote bag made out of plastic bags from Not Your Mama’s Crochet by Amy Swenson.  I may make a dozen of these because we have about half a billion plastic bags!

Some hats, this one from Stitch ‘N Bitch by Debbie Stoller.

And (I want to make this for myself) a shrug from One Skein Wonders.

There’s also a few wonderful tutorials I’ve scoped.  Like this fabric house, and this knitting needle case.  Of course Sew, Mama, Sew is hosting Handmade Holidays and there’s Holidays by Hand so this plan is open to lots of change over the next few weeks.  See how indecisive I can be?  Maybe my crafting assistant can help with that…

Then again, maybe not!

What do you have planned for the holidays?

November 9th, 2008 | Tags: handmade, holidays, plan | Category: crafty stuff, sewing | Comments (1)

Giveaways.  Who doesn’t love getting free stuff?  There seems to be no shortage of generous and thoughtful people inhabiting the Internet lately.  Here are a couple giveaways that I’ve entered lately:

Selena of Apron Thrift Girl is giving away a very lovely necklace from Olaria Studio.

I REALLY want to win the Epson Artisan 800 printer from Simple Mom.  Truly an amazing giveaway!

This great see kai run shoe giveaway at Frugal Mommy of 2 Girls.

And Crystal of Money Saving Mom has a huge list of other bloggers who are hosting giveaways on their sites as well.  Just do me a favor and don’t enter any of them, so I can win.  Me, me, meeeeeeee!!!

November 6th, 2008 | Tags: freebies, giveaways, win stuff | Category: other stuff | Leave a comment

Is it really finally over?

Well, almost…

November 5th, 2008 | Tags: vote | Category: Georgia on my mind | Leave a comment