I'm feeling a little discombobulated by still not being caught up from Christmas. So, today, I'll just round that out a little by showing you the last of my Christmas gifts I made.
I'll start with the gifts I made for my neighbors. This year, I was so busy, I just couldn't afford the time to do a lot of Christmas baking. There were no Christmas cookies or candies made at my house. Instead, I decided a couple of mini loaves of bread would make a nice gift. We started by making some of these Triple Chocolate Quick Breads, which I blogged about previously. You can find the recipe over at Donna's blog, Sugar, Spice, and Southern Life. It is soooo good, and pretty easy to make!
I coupled it with this Cranberry Orange/Lemon Loaf. Wow, is this good bread! My friend Adrienne gave me the recipe. She also gave me permission to share it here! You lucky dogs, you! Get out a pencil or hit "Print." Yer gonna want to save this recipe, too. Here it is (you'll see some of my comments in parentheses):
I wrapped them in plastic wrap and put them in these little 6"x6" boxes I picked up at the grocery store. They barely fit!
Stick on a bow and a tag, and you are ready to go. This was pretty quick and easy. It made a nice presentation, too.
- I met a neighbor (Pam) who lives a couple houses up from us earlier this summer. (We all live on about 5 acres each here, so we all don't run into each other much.) So, I brought them some bread. Pam said, "Well, isn't that just the sweetest thing! Just like old times, when neighbors actually did this!" Made me feel good.
- We took a box to the grumpy old man across the street. We were a little nervous, because he's been grumpier than ever this year. When we first knocked on the door, he was grumpy...."Who is it?!" I told him who it was and why we were there, and his voice softened. The next day, Papa Pea's phone rang. It was him. Papa Pea was nervous, because the last time he stopped over, the man called him up the next day and hollered at him. Instead, this time, he left a nice voicemail that said, "I just wanted to call and say thank you for the Christmas bread. It was really delicious. It was very nice of you to give me a Christmas gift. No one else does that. Merry Christmas." Maybe we're making progress! ;-)
I also made more earbud pouches. I blogged about the pattern and did a pattern review here. These were for family members.
I made this one for my sister, to go with the iPad purse I gave her a while back. I fussy cut the fabric for it. Fun!
I made this one for myself, with my precious Lucy's Crab Shack fabric.
And some of my favorite fabric inside. I use this all the time and love it.
These were for a young niece and for Sweet Pea. For nieces and nephews, I tucked a little cash inside. :-)
This was for my nephew. He's a basketball fanatic. When Sweet Pea saw this one, she wanted one of these, too. LOL.
I like the "all-star" fabric I put inside of these.
I made this one for my mom, to match the tote bag I gave her a while back. This is such a great pattern for using up scraps. You only need about four 5" squares of fabric.
A nice surprise inside this one as well. :-)
This was a Label Crew project one month from Sweetwater. It's a fun little sewing jar made with Sweetwater fabric, Mama Said Sew. I gave it to my SIL, SisLH. Hope she liked it.
The lid is a pincushion, and there is a little needle book. And there are three pouches for pins, buttons, and other goodies. Fun. Get the labels here. Get the pattern here.
Throughout this photo shoot, Spidey kept getting in the way. He kept checking out all the Christmas gifts....
...and even chewing on some! LOL. He's a fun cat. He's getting pretty big. He dwarfs his mother, and he's not even a year old yet! (I was photographing these pouches, but I remembered I already showed them to you a long time ago.)
Okay, that about rounds out Christmas this year, I think. Now, I can move on to some of my other backlogged photos! haha!
Until next time,