Six Ideas For Fast Handmade Gifts - Let the Holiday Countdown Begin

Can you believe there are only 43 days until Christmas? And if you celebrate Hanukkah, well that starts in a mere 23 days. Yikes! I am the world's worst at waiting until about this time to decide that it is time to get started on all those handmade gifts. I have to admit I sort of thrive on the chaos of a busy making season.

If you are in need of some gift making suggestions, here are a few ideas and tutorials.

ORNAMENTS

Ornaments are often a fast gift when you want to make something for a group, like teachers or coworkers. And why stop at bells? It is so easy to search out other shapes like trees, stockings, or stars that would also be fast and easy strip pieced ornaments.

What I love most about these is that if you make a plain back for them, you can add a personalized message. Learn more about making these strip pieced bell ornaments here.

DOOR HANGERS

You can upsize any ornament to make it a door hanger. Again, a plain back leaves room for you to further personalize an already special gift. Here is a tutorial for making this bell door hanger.

MUG RUGS

I love mug rugs. Bigger than a coaster. Smaller than a quilt. You can use orphan quilt blocks or bust into your scraps. It's hard to go wrong with a mug rug. I usually gift these along with a few cookies or a small snack. They can be made with a holiday theme or in fabrics that can be used year round. Check out this tutorial for a dresden mug rug.

If you like to quilt more than piece, this initial mug rug may be more your style. Here is a tutorial for making an initial mug rug.

BANNERS AND BUNTINGS

Banners and buntings are great to add some decorative flair to any room. They are easy to enhance with extras and can be themed or not. Here is a link to how this one was made.

COASTERS

I like to think of coasters as tiny quilts. There are a million ways to make coasters, and they are another great way to use up orphan blocks and scraps. While this picture has a Valentine's theme, they can be made in any fabric. These are made from leftover charm squares. Learn how to make these here.


SMALL QUILTS

Now, before you roll your eyes over how not quick a quilt is, keep in mind it doesn't have to be a big quilt. It could be a very small quilt, so small that it becomes a table topper, or mini quilt, or wall hanging. For example, in the quilt above, if I just made three columns of blocks, and shortened it a bit, wouldn't that make a cool table runner?

When you are looking for ideas, try to dissect the bigger projects a bit to see if something small, fast, and beautiful can be made from them. Go here to see how this quilt was made.

This blue plus quilt was also a fast one to make. Learn about it here.

This list is only a small sampling of fast handmade projects to get you started. Do some quick searching and you will find thousands of ideas for handmade gifts. What fast handmade projects have you made?

Banners and Buntings

 

Last weekend, I came away from a quilt shop outing to Anita Heady Fiber Arts and Sewcial Studio with some essential supplies and just one fat quarter that was at a fantastic price in the clearance bin.

When I saw the cute houses on the fabric, I immediately thought "Home Sweet Home". The black rectangles are plain wood rectangles picked up at a yard sale. Duane drilled a hole in each of them and Erica painted them with chalkboard paint.

I used my Tri-Recs ruler to cut flags and then decided that a little contrast was needed and cut more flags from this black and white Kaffe spot fabric.

With right sides together, I sewed and turned the flags. A bamboo skewer helped poke those points out until they were nice and sharp. Then I cut a long rectangle, three inches wide. The edges are pressed to the center, then it is folded in half again to hide all of the raw edges.

Somewhere along the way, Home Sweet Home became an awfully long phrase, so Create became the new mantra for this project.

Each of the rectangles is tied onto the banner with red, cotton string. Erica drew the letters for me.

I beleive my favorite part about this project is that it is totally reversible.

Create on one side and Love on the other. How fun is that? Wouldn't this be cute in a baby or child's room with their name written on it? Or in a classroom with the word Learn or Grow or Inspire. So many good words to use on something like this.

I love that it is so easy to change the word to suit the occasion, or maybe there's a time when there isn't a word at all and cute drawings or doodles can be added to each rectangle.

When I walked out of that quilt shop with just one fat quarter, I had no idea that it would inspire a new project so quickly. This was fast, fun, and just what I needed for a sewing pick me up. I "Love" to "Create"!