Personal: A Crafty Little Christmas - Part III

Hi friends! I hope you all are enjoying Christmasing as much as I am ... it'll be here before we know it. So enjoy every thing you do to celebrate this season before it becomes a simple memory.

If you're a foody like me you know that there is Semi-homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee.

I think you can take that same approach with Christmas presents and get semi-handmade gifting.

Take for example a beautiful simple mug. You can wrap it up all pretty just as it is.

Or you can give it a little semi-handmade love.

What I love to do with mugs is crochet them little sleeves. Making each mug a little more personal.

If you don't know how to crochet HERE is a simple tutorial.

And here's my simple pattern:

Double crochet 7 stitches,

repeat that 16 rows.

{if you want a button as I've done}

Finish off your last row.

Start new row on the 3rd stitch,

then crochet 3 double crochets

Then ... TADA!!! All you need to do is hand sew a button on.

My pattern might not be perfect, nor can I promise that it will fit every single mug

... so test it out on your own mug then adjust my pattern as you see fit.

What I can promise is that giving any gift a little handmade love makes it a lot more personal.

There you have it. A semi-handmade present ready for it's Christmas debut!

If I had some cellophane on hand that's probably what I'd wrap this gift with then close it off with bakers twine and a handmade gift tag. But that's just me. Sky's the limit when it comes to crafting and wrapping so I sure hope you take this semi-handmade idea and share the love. Just think, a handmade sleeve wrapped around the new iPad you got for mom for Christmas, who wouldn't love something like that?

Happy Crafting!!!!

Still not done with Christmas Presents? Here's another idea I've got up my sleeve. Give the gift of music, *free music.
I love noisetrade so much I think I have already downloaded all the music available on it.
Email music out on Christmas and send wrapper free presents ... it doesn't hurt to think green when gifting right?