Handmade Christmas: The Elves' Projects 2013

Hand spun and entrelac knit mittens

Every year our kids make Christmas gifts for one another. They arrange a "draw" and then get busy. Seeing their creativity and love for one another is one of our greatest highlights of the season. Here's what they came up with this year.

Kara's gift to Amanda (above) was more than a year in the making as she first spun the yarn from fleece and then knit the mitts. Don't you love how the colors worked out in the entrelac pattern?










 Ben, 10, who loves to paint, was pretty excited about the tabletop easel Faith made for him.




















 Speaking of painting, Amanda painted this one for our train buff, Andrew. Serendipitously, the painting is modeled after a picture of an Ohio train, appropriate for her brother who is new to the Buckeye state.













Ben made a shelf to hang on Peter's wall. Hopefully it will help a bit with the clutter. :)  Peter is quite a collector, and he's acquired some significant loot from all his running events.

















Paul built a guitar amplifier stand for his brother, Jonathan.















Peter's gift to Kristen is this quilt rack. Kristen is close to finishing a gorgeous applique quilt which I'll try to post one day.





Jonathan put together this keyboard stand for piano lover Faith. This allows her to play (with a headset) to her heart's content in her own room at all hours of the day when we might not want her playing the acoustic piano.









This one is a bit different. Kristen re-did this large bulletin board to the specifications of older sister, Kara. New burlap and paint certainly spiffed up this board which hung for years in our school room. I'm so glad it has a new life in Collin and Kara's lovely schoolroom!







Andrew built two frames for Collin to fit some botanical prints he has. He used African Padauk wood, which naturally has a lovely deep reddish orange color. (Happily for Andrew, the Wright Patterson Air Force base where he now works has a fully quipped carpentry shop which is open for employees to use!)








Collin assembled a mad scientist kit for Paul. It included a lab coat, goggles, and a genetically modified GloFish! plus all the necessary things to keep it alive.  The fish was left over from one Collin's biology lectures to his students





And after our Christmas Eve party, the elves shooed Mom and Dad off to bed while they worked some more together. What were they up to? They cleaned and refurbished my awesome test tube spice rack they made a few years ago, scrubbed the stove, and in general gave the kitchen a thorough going over! And they left us cookies and Tim's breakfast caffeinated pop on ice for breakfast.) Hurrah for the elves!!!



Elves' projects 2012

Elves' projects 2011


Comments

Collin Hobbs said…
Nice post Anne! It was fun seeing pictures of all the presents again.

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