Handmade Holidays

As we celebrate both Hannukah and Christmas in our household, Greg and I have made the effort to diminish the kids’ present overload by offering them handmade-by-us gifts for Hannukah, and letting Santa bring a few toys, art & craft supplies & books for Christmas. For Hannukah this year I wanted to make Max something to decorate his room. This boy LOVES to accessorize, both personally (think bowties, hats & belts) and spacially. He tries to scotch tape anything he can to his walls, from lego magazines to stuffed animals to playmobil characters.

I opted to find a use for all those swatches of fabrics one needs to order to proof a design on Spoonflower. I waded through the huge pile and pulled any that seemed suitable for this “four and three-quarter” year old active, funny boy of mine. Bicycles, cars & planes, birds, spiders, anchors, fish, castles, dragons and hot air balloons.

I decided on modern, graphic bunting, each piece of which would be randomly sized and use 2 fabrics, stitched together and hemmed around the edges. I made a casing at the top to run a suede cord through.

I paired larger motifs with smaller geometrics; openly spaced designs with tighter, more overall ones; and intense colours with ones that are a bit easier on the eyes.

We celebrated and exchanged gifts on the last night of Hannukah, Saturday. Delighting his Mom, he pleaded that it be hung by lunch the next day.