TTA - Made by hand

Today's Tuesday Tell All (see my sidebar if interested) was about documenting some of the things in your home that were made by hand. Here we go!

This is a small assortment of quilts that my Mother in law has made for my kids. I didn't photograph them all as the kids are sleeping with a few of them! She is so thoughtful and my kids love their quilts.

This is a blanket that my mother did by hand for my babies. It is a treasure and I have wrapped my babies in it on their blessing days.

This is just the front cover of one of my scrapbooks that my Mom did for me. I still don't know how she did it. There were no scrapbook stores with fun papers and accessories. She made each of her 6 kids scrapbooks throughout their school years. Each one is a treasure in and of itself because of the artwork done by hand. Mine is literally falling apart, but I will probably just get it rebound. You can't tell from this picture, but it is huge. It is probably two feet tall and a foot and a half wide. I love having all her writing and creativity on the pages.

I must brag about the kids for a minute. I love our kids art wall. (it obviously needs to be organized and sifted through) It gives the kids a place to display their "made by hand" items.

Ella (7) is quite the budding artist. I really love a lot of the things she does. She has a HUGE blank wall in her room so I made some simple frames to display her artwork. I couldn't get a good angle to show all six frames, but here is a sampling. I am seriously impressed with her work. I can't wait to see how she grows and develops this talent.

Last and definitely least are some of the things I've made. I call myself the "fake" quilter because I was never formally taught. I usually just saw things I liked and copied them. I think I've made over 50 quilts and only have maybe three in my home. I give most of the things I make away. I like it that way. The pictures above are of the quilts I made for Ella and Jack when they were sharing a room. They were little and I needed something gender neutral. My SIL Sue had made the cutest little bugs out of paper for a party and I asked her if I could have them. I just copied her design and appliqued my version on the quilts. I then mounted the paper ones Sue had made onto foam boards and used them to decorate the walls of the room.

Some of my favorite quilts I've made are the chenille looking ones. I made one for several friends and siblings. I sure wish I still had the time to make a quilt for each new baby. That was back in the day when me and my friends/siblings were just starting to have them. I will now show you what stage I'm in...

This is what my table looked like a few weeks ago as I was trying to catch up on all the baby gifts I am behind on. If you are one of my friends who have had a baby in the last 9 months (yes, I am that behind) and haven't gotten a gift from me yet I AM SO SORRY!! I will try to get them to you soon.
I have a thing about baby gifts. They MUST be made by hand if I am the giver. I don't know why, but I have a very hard time giving a baby gift that is store bought. Funny thing is that I don't mind getting store bought gifts AT ALL! In fact I don't even think about it. It's just my thing I guess. I was in a burp cloth, onesie, thank you note, binky holder stage for a while, but I've moved on. I think I'm finishing my last batch of onesies. Burp cloths are so easy to do by yourself and they are just not that unique anymore.

I've moved on to wipes covers and necklaces for the Mommies. Although, I saw some of these wipes holders in a store the other day and realized that they may not be all that unique anymore either. I like to give a unique gift. Anyway, that gets me to my recent "thing".

JEWELRY!

The funny thing is that I have never really been all that into jewelry, but it is so much fun to make and especially give away! Above is just a few of the ones I've made lately. Again, I copy what I've seen. It's really very simple. I cannot come up with anything on my own. In fact, my good friend Lena gave me a necklace for my birthday like the one on the left and I've already made 3 or 4 replica's of it for other people.

These are super cute and fun bags that I have been making for a while. I've recently been making them for Ella's friends who are getting baptized to use as a scripture bag. They are SO EASY it's ridiculous. The bag is a place mat, then I use ribbon for the handles and a cute flower for decor. Voila!
So, there is a quick rundown of some of the things in our home that are made by hand. I wish I had pictures of the file cabinet and cedar chest that Paul made early in our marriage. They didn't make it to AZ from Wisconsin. We were in a MAJOR purge mode. He is so handy, and if our livelihood didn't depend on his hands I'm sure he would still be working with wood. When he retires he can build himself the best workshop ever...and I hope he does.