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Fun & Games MLT Club

Day 6 – Get crafty!

Create a handmade Christmas gift!

Today’s challenge is going to be one for which we really don’t expect to see submissions for a while after this post goes live. We’re going to get a little crafty!

 

Handmade gifts are special. We still put up the cute Christmas ornament our little cousin made in Kindergarten (a decade ago). The acrylic painting of the Abbey Road album cover that a friend made for us back in high school still has a place on Lisa’s shelf. The painted flowerpot we got from a family member will always be our favourite.

 

These kind of gifts contain so much personality, love and memories, which is why we think that thoughtful handmade Christmas presents are the best 🙂

 

Over the last few months we didn’t have the time to get particularly creative outside of MLT related things. It’s been a while since we made something crafty simply for the heck of it or with the purpose of gifting it to someone – other than music, of course. 

 

We feel like this would be a very cute and wholesome Advent Calendar task that would get us, and everyone who joins us in this challenge, a chance to create something special for someone special.

 

Create something and share a photo with us here in the MLT Club! It could be a painting, drawing, a handmade ornament, card, picture frame, doll, some decorative cake art, something you’ve sown, bedazzled, stitched, a scarf you’ve crocheted or a statue you carved. We’re sure you can think of even more things! If you’re looking for ideas or instructions we often find Pinterest to be a good place for inspiration.

 

We don’t have to be the next Picasso in order to make the process fun and rewarding. And don’t forget that you have until the 24th of December to submit your creation and picture if this might be something you don’t get around to straight away. It will be worth big points and you’ll end up with a personal gift. A double win!

 

We can’t wait to see your creations, and we’ll share ours here with you soon!

DAY 6 – CRAFT A GIFT

Task of the Day:
1) Create something from scratch (painting, decoration, sculpture, knit, etc.) and post a photo of it in the comments.

2) Give it to someone as a present and let us know in the comments who it was for.

Achievable Points:
20 for Creating + 10 for Giving it to someone

61 replies on “Day 6 – Get crafty!”

I did not know the meaning of the 4 advent candles (hope, peace, joy and love). It occurred to me that it would be the gift for my 4 best friends here in Tijuana, I have known them for almost 30 years. (Elvia, Martha, María Elena and Dimas).
For a few years, once a month we met for breakfast or dinner, the meetings were very fun.
This year we only meet in January due to the pandemic.
Making the candles was not easy, but I finally succeeded. (although only one for each).
Today I gave Martha hers, Elvia, María Elena and Dimas I will give them to her on the 24th in the afternoon.
I will also give you a bag of dates to sweeten your life a little.

Hi Mona Hi Lisa. Unfortunately I have no manual skills for crafts and the like, so to participate I made a Christmas card with an unusual image. I’m trying to fish some points with this work.

I had been working on a project…time permitting..for awhile now and never thought of it as “crafty” until I was laying in the hospital bed with nothing to do for days when it dawned on me that it might be considered a craft….over the years I’ve taken many pictures of my kids…like we all have…and I’ve been piecing them together into a huge frame….I currently have. 7 frames worth…have not finished them yet and haven’t hung any yet….they will eventually be hung in my house…one per room…so that when the kids come to visit they know they are loved and always on our minds…so this picture is one of 7 …Mom and Dad with son Brooks and daughters April and Robyn and granddaughter Aimery.❤️

Ok. I’m finally posting my little contribution. I’d call myself a procrastinator. But I don’t know how to spell it. What I have tried to do here with my feeble talents is to send you all a Christmas greeting, but in the form of an old 1960s rock poster. So here it is. Excuse the colors, I did this with just paper pens and markers, and the markers turned out to be cheapy cheap. Sooooo…….it’s Christmas Eve, 1966, and our hero’s are fronting a Holiday Concert with a little help from their friends. Who wants to go? You get in free! May you all have a Very Merry Christmas!!

Not kitchen-table crafty but still a lot of work—a book of pictures from our glorious-despite-the-pickpocket trip from Oklahoma to Paris, Geneva (by rail), and the French Alps in January—which turned out to be just in time. A gift for my girlfriend and traveling companion.

OK, finally got my craft done. As you can see, I’m not crafty like a lot of these amazing people. I do a lot of things, but crafting isn’t one of them. This year is our two cat’s first Christmas, and my daughter was sad, but in agreement, that we couldn’t put all out traditional ornaments on the tree until we were sure that they wouldn’t break them. So I made 12 of these and gave them to her to hang on the tree. I’m afraid this is the extent of my craftiness.

My sister and I (not twins, sorry. She’s 9 years my senior) bake Christmas cookies from an old family recipe; frosting recipe, too is from generations ago. I decorated this batch personally for the club. I’ll gift some from my portion to my mail carrier and neighbors. I’d send you some, but they’d probably be just stale crumbs by the time they arrived!

This is a re-post, got the image to attach. Hooray!

First, I’d like to thank Team MLT for this challenge. My Mom is getting on in years and it is irritatingly difficult to come up with gift ideas for her, but I’m giving her my craft creation for Christmas this year and I believe she’ll love it.
Once I came up with the idea the engineering came fairly quickly, accompanied by some colorful mumbling regarding the construction of a hat cut from felt, sparking the earmuff substitution. However, I’m pretty sure the mumbling put me on Santa’s “Pass” list this year. I believe I achieved just the right level of cheesiness, and yes, that is the face of 5-year-old Dale.

Better late than never.
I Hope this qualifies for being “crafty”. I made a cherry cheese pie this year to take to one of my elderly neighbors. His wife is having health issues and with all that’s going on around us all in this crazy world I thought it would lift there spirits.I hope the photo get’s attached. Having problems seeing it in the post

The small red stones you might be able to see in this picture are rubies. Well, actually, they’re just red corundum that could be cut into rubies if I wanted to pay a large fee to have it done. I recently found them in a bag left behind by my father-in-law and was pondering what to do with them. My solutions was to use UV resin to make ornaments. I plan to give them to the descendants of my father-in-law, letting them know that the stones were acquired by their father/grandfather. I will also give one to my mother since her birthstone happens to be ruby. I think she will be especially pleased because she has always been into crafts and would love to receive something made by me.  

I feel more adept with a camera and photoshop than with the free flowing pen or paintbrush. Every year I make the Christmas cards from pictures I take around our home. Not everybody appreciates my “Beatles Tree” as much as I would like (what’s wrong with these people 🙂 ??!) It seems to be an acquired teste. However, this year in addition to my usual card, I’ve made more cards from the Beatles Tree and sent it to some who I think will appreciate it. Here’s a picture of it.
I always think a personal touch goes a long way. MLT seem to agree! They do everything with care!
Tomás

Better late than never.
I Hope this qualifies for being “crafty”. I made a cherry cheese pie this year to take to one of my elderly neighbors. His wife is having health issues and with all that’s going on around us all in this crazy world I thought it would lift there spirits.I hope the photo get’s attached. Having problems seeing it in the post

First, I’d like to thank Team MLT for this challenge. My Mom is getting on in years and it is irritatingly difficult to come up with gift ideas for her, but I’m giving her my craft creation for Christmas this year and I believe she’ll love it.

Once I came up with the idea the engineering came fairly quickly, accompanied by some colorful mumbling regarding the construction of a hat cut from felt, sparking the earmuff substitution. However, I’m pretty sure the mumbling put me on Santa’s “Pass” list this year. I believe I achieved just the right level of cheesiness, and yes, that is the face of 5-year-old Dale.

What you’ll need:
Green Felt
glue (craft glue, or hot glue)
yellow foam
beads and/or other assorted “ornaments”

Instructions: Roughly measure out a piece of green felt to see how tall you want your tree to be. You want the candy cane trunk to show. (Pic 1)

Keep the felt folded and cut out a Christmas tree shape.(Pic 2)

Cut slits where indicated for the candy cane to slide through. You want them just big enough for the candy cane.(Pic 3)

This is what your tree should look like (Pic 4)

Now it’s time to decorate. Pull out the candy cane and glue on a star and some ornaments. You can use Elmer’s Glue-All or hot glue depending on ages (and speed you want to go) (Pic 5).
Just allow time for the glue to dry before inserting the candy cane again.

Now it’s time to insert the candy canes… And voila!

Great stocking stuffier for our grand-kids !!

I am not at all crafty so the best I can do is sing Christmas songs with our church choir at area nursing homes. Oh they do love it. Of course we can’t this year which is sad.

I have been helping my wife Helen to create these Christmas Earrings & Wine Glass Charms for the past few years. She used to sell them at the local children’s school and charities around Christmas time. Now she mainly makes them for family and friends as extra gifts.

Perhaps Banana bread is not what you had in mind, but I DID craft it, and AM giving it as gifts to my inlaws and my BFF
I think I’m gonna craft some pumpkin bread too.
(in the photo are some of the crafting materials, and the foil and giftwrap for them 🙂 )

This one will have to be a big goose egg for me; I am just not a craft person. My wife however is very much a craft person, so I included a picture of some pillows she made, one of which is a twin of one she’s already wrapped for my mother.

Here is my humble crafty effort. When you don’t have a lot of talent or experience with this kind of thing, you can only work with what you have, so it was my fountain pens and ink, and some ideas from Pinterest as suggested.

This year for me, just to be able to give my dad a Christmas card is just incredibly meaningful as our loved ones who have to be at long term care facilities are the most at risk to Covid. Being able to give him this little card this Christmas is my Christmas miracle!

We are SO glad that your Dad has recovered! We were really worried but he seems to be a fighter 🙂 We love the Mont Blanc inc you sent us a while ago and we use it a lot when we journal (as well as the fountain pens!) ♥

Thanks Lisa! ???? My brother jokingly commented “with all the health books, vitamins and health diet dad was a nut about growing up, I doubt anything will happen to him”. The whole family is just so grateful he is recovering well. ????

BTW, I’m absolutely thrilled about your journaling and making use of the inks and pens, glad you enjoy them! Awesome. 🙂

I made these out of scraps from pallets from a simple idea I saw. Such a cute idea. It is reversible. Scarecrow on one side and snowman on the other. Very easy to make and a great personalized gift. This is for my daughter.
As you well know Spike creations and I send something originally made, and one of a kind to YOU each year. This year promises to be no different. However it will be unlike any year before. Something completely different. You will probably have to celebrate Christmas in January too. Darn the luck of celebrating Christmas Twice.????

I wrote this book about my career as a counselor and educator/trainer of counselors and got it published at the end of April this year. I will be giving signed copies of it for Christmas to my hair stylist and to a healing professional who helped encourage me along the way.

On another matter, Amazon.com accepted my review for Live at the Cavern Club. It can be found here: Fresh New Energy for Timeless Classics (amazon.com)

That’s fantastic! And the title is great ????  
You’re the second person in the comment who has released their own book! I find that amazing. What a personal piece of work and a great present!

My wife and one of our daughters put up our Christmas tree yesterday and also took out my wife’s growing collection of angels and put them on a cabinet. Perhaps they should be wearing masks, they said.

So in answer to your challenge today I “gifted” a few blue masks which I made with BluTack or elastic bands covered in small pieces of cloth. Making things is not really my thing ….

The reaction was mixed, but the masks remain, for now.

Okdokey, I will conjure up something creatively crafty, this challenge is up my alley though I may be going solo to spend Xmas because of Covid and its restrctions (literally not seen my family since last Xmas- one older brother does not do social media, other brother and his family do, so it maybe A Text and Zoom Kinda…I do have open invite from my oldest bro to go to his place to be with his family but I work with elderly, so I’m up 8n the air as to what to do ….the risk factor because I work with elderly.
I do every few Xmases….have made homemade Xmas gifts, especially cute little toque tree ornaments …. will post a photo of my creation once completed, it may be given cas a gift if not this Xmas maybe next Xmas or whenever I can see someone in person next to give to safely….

I wrote a book of 26 short stories. I got it published and I’m going give all my friends and relatives a copy. It solved my Christmas present problem for this year. I guess I have to write another for 2021…

A perfect gift idea, kudos on this…I’m eventually planning on a publishing a poetry book, and I’d do the same, give as gifts …do you have a website, perhaps in New Year, I could order a copy of your book…it looks interesting and the folks you’re gifting them to, are going to love it !

Wow, we have so many creative people here in the MLT Club! What a great gift and something truly personal that must have taken a lot of time and effort ♥

I have zero talent in crafting. Anything I would make would look like a small child attempted it. The only craft I have is songwriting. I have written many songs for my wife Margaret over the 35 years we have been married. I don’t know how I would share that on this forum. I could include lyrics. Or not. I may just have to skip this one. I am looking forward to seeing all the amazing projects you all come up with!

I’m in pretty much the same boat as you, Tom, except I write song parodies rather than original songs. I did once “craft” a Christmas song by stitching together little pieces of other ones. It was based on the observation that most Christmas songs are written from the same formula, so why not create a Frankenstein monster from them that would sound just as cheery? Imagine a combination of Burl Ives and Nat King Cole singing this:

Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock
Had a very shiny nose.
I don’t know if there’ll be snow
And two eyes made out of coal.

Rockin’ around the Christmas tree,
Everywhere you go.
A beautiful sight. We’re happy tonight.
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

Then one foggy Christmas eve,
That old silk hat they found.
Somebody waits for you
To go gliding in a one-horse sleigh.

The fire is slowly dying,
As we dream by the fire.
Everyone’s dancing merrily
Right within your heart.
So have yourself a merry little
Home sweet home.

My daughter and I try to create at least a few handmade gifts every year. This year, we created Advent gifts to give to friends early. Each tin was filled with little homemade lanterns – one for each week of Advent. The little gifts to go with each candle followed the themes of hope, peace, joy, and love. That way everyone could open something each week to bring them some happiness. We included a reflection to read with each candle – just our thoughts on each of the themes. I didn’t take pictures of each item but can probably ask friends to do so. I just have one photo at the moment of an angel ornament I made to include with the candle of joy for my friend, Mary. (She had given me the wool.) It was felted from one piece of unspun wool with little bits of yellow and pink wool felted on when it was finished. It was the first time I had tried felting an ornament. For those who have never tried it, it is very therapeutic to sit there poking a needle over and over into the soft wool as it takes shape before your eyes.

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