Homemade Christmas

I love making presents for Christmas, especially now that Miriam is old enough and skilled enough to help. I only wish I had remembered to take pictures of all the things we made! Here are some handprint pillows we made for the grandparents. I got the idea from cousin Rachel, who had forwarded a Pinterest link.

This pillow is for Nana, who, when I first started planning it, had 19 great-grandchildren and one little flower on the way -- by the time I finished it had expanded to four on the way! (for that reason I'm glad I didn't finish it before Christmas -- this way I was able to include everyone's Big News!)

tracing the handprint patterns

embroidering the hands.  I tried to use a different color for each hand.

I tried to think of ways to fit all the hands on one side of a pillow, but it would have been chaos!  This way I could organize them in family groups to help Nana keep track of who belongs to where.

what a clan!

The completed pillow!

The pillow form I used is 20x20.

Apologies to all the cousins who have been waiting to see the end result.  Hope it was worth the wait!

The grandparents on each side got a smaller pillow with just our kids' prints.

first sewing project ever!

ta-da!