Feeling Like My Old Elf Self

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I’ve been making crafts since I was a little girl.  I grew up on the same farm as my Grandma Frances and spent hours at her house.  She taught me to sew by embroidering flour sack towels and she would buy little craft kits for us to do together.   It carried on with me as I grew and when Christmas came around I loved making gifts for those close to me.

Here is a picture of me with some of the gifts I made when I was probably around 13 or 14 or so.

A Santa log, denim Christmas stockings, and it looks like some sort of angel doll.  Note the junior high awkward phase. I feel to many kids these days are skipping this character building phase and just going straight to beautiful.  They really need to do their time just like we all used to 🙂 – but I digress.

I’ve also made quilts, wall hangings, pillows, a wooden gingerbread birdhouse, fleece hats and scarves and countless other items through the years.

Chances are when I was younger and if you were a family member you got a homemade present whether you liked it or not.  Some turned out, some maybe not so much but I guess as they say it was the thought that counts.  When I got my first real job out of college I decided that I should make gifts for all my 20 plus coworkers too.  One year they got homemade Christmas stockings filled with baked goods, another year it was a button fabric tree, and yet another year clay Santa ornaments.

Once I became a mother though I just kind of stopped.  Overwhelmed by the demands of being a new mother I didn’t take the time to embrace my passions anymore.  For Christmas my children got their Christmas lists checked off with the store bought toys they yearned for.

But one day out of the blue my daughter said to me, “Why don’t you make us presents?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

She said “Well we make you presents but you never make us any.”

It kind of stopped me in my tracks.  For one, that even after all the store bought presents she would still want and appreciate something I made for her was heartwarming. And two she was right.  Making presents was something that used to be part of my identity and I had let that slip. I had never made my kids a present.  So this year I decided to give each of my kids one homemade present.  Nothing too big or complicated but something they can say “my mommy made this for me”.

I decided to start with Emma’s.   She’s been watching me make my aprons and I decided to make one for her.  I made it just a little extra special by putting some embroidery details.

I think she will like it.  I hope she will.   Over the next few days I’ll show you the other items I’ve made and tell you how I did them.   It’s almost Christmas and I’m feeling like my old elf self again.