Homemade Gifts

Okay, okay so I know Christmas is long gone at this point, but I had to share some crafty things that I was working on over the holidays.

First up, I made a Gil doll for Jack.

If you don't have kids you may not recognize this little mer-boy(?) but he's a character from a Nick Jr show called Bubble Guppies. While we don't have tv, we do have a computer that we watch shows on. I limit how much Jack watches obviously, but this kid would love to sit on the couch, or as he says "cow" and watch either Bubble Guppies or Mickey Mouse Clubhouse all day. :)

Jack with his Gil doll, showing me where his mouth is :)

Grabbing Gil from me while I was trying to take a picture so he could give him kisses :)

Okay so this next one wasn't actually for Christmas but a week and a half later was Tom's birthday. I made him a paracord-wrapped hiking stick and keychain.  Well, I didn't make the stick, it was one that his Grandpa gave him a few years ago, I just wrapped it for him. He's been wanting paracord to do different things with so I bought some then made these things and he can use the leftover 65 feet to do whatever he wants with it. It came in a skein of 100 feet. I used about 12 for the keychain and 22 for the hiking stick. To wrap the hiking stick I used suggestions from this blog to make the Turk's Head knot at the top and bottom to hold it in place and did the middle with the Chinese Staircase knot. It took me about 3 hours from start to finish and I'm pretty pleased with how it came out considering I've never done anything like this before. I guess playing with lanyards as a kid probably helped out here :)

Paracord wrapped hiking stick

Turk's Head knot on paracord-wrapped hiking stick

Next up is actually a gift that was made for me! Tom knows that I love anything astronomy related so he made me this awesome Orion necklace! 

Close up of the front of the Orion necklace. He even drilled the holes different sizes to indicate the sizes of the stars. (He mixed up the sizes of a couple of them, shh don't tell him) :)

It's hard to see but on the back he wrote Psalm 19:1 which says "The heavens declare the glory of the Lord, the skies proclaim the work of His hands." What can I say my hubby is amazing!