What's Sew Cool about that?

Ok, FINALLY I can write this post!  I wanted to do it before Christmas but it would've given away my gifts so I couldn't.  This year I tried something new, I tried to make a lot of the gifts I was giving to family for Christmas.  Now somethings just don't work out, like honestly what would I make for a teenage boy?  Yep that one was not gonna happen so he got cold hard ca$h! :)  But for my cute little nieces and nephew (Yes we are lacking in the boy department around here......could someone do something about that??!!)  I made stuff!  I was ELATED, THRILLED and ECSTATIC for them to open them up for Christmas.  I think it's the first year I have ever been more giddy than the children!  I must make this a habit, for pure JOY experiences! First off I made my three cute nieces ages 4 (2 of them) and 2 aprons, complete with a wisk and the cutest little rubber spatula's I found at Wal-Mart on a whim one day.

           

Here they are!  Three cute aprons for Three adorable nieces!  There were some learning experiences that took place with these little aprons.  For example, when you sew everything inside itself then pull it right side out, you must make sure that the pleats are pinned with the seam pins.  Also do not try to put a pocket on after you sew it together.  I got pricked by pins and had to un-stitch things more than I care to count, but they were made with love and they were made individual for each little girl!  

Next on my list was a car carrier, complete with roads and painted just for my little nephew!  I didn't take a picture of it and I really wish I would've but I got the idea off of Pinterest and it looked somewhat similar to the one here!  I used some old jean I had and an old jean jacket of mine along with some funky fabric that was really durable that I had picked up along my journeys, with the pockets from my jean jacket I made pockets for little man's cars, so they had the zipper and wouldn't fall out.  Then we cut roads and painted little dashes on them for detail (when I say me, Jo helped me too!)  Got some cool cars and wrapped it all up for my car loving nephew!

I have two nieces who are sisters and fairly close in age, so for these two pre-teen cuties, we made spa bags!  This was something I also derived from the ever loving pinning frenzy world.  I saw this idea here and adapted from that.  We made rice filled eye masks and scented them with orange essential oil, and we made finger polish mats with wipe-able fabric on one side.  Then we got some spa essentials and put them into cute canvas bags with the girls names on them.  Once again, I am slacking on the pictures!  UGH!

Needless to say it was such a fun time!  It made Christmas seem more meaningful and made so much JOY around while we planned and created and gave with our hearts!

What Christmas traditions do you have that make Christmas special? OR what did you do different this year that made a difference?