Handmade Christmas gift for a little sister

Last year I tried to hand make as many of my gifts as possible.  And succeeded pretty well. I made all the children in our lives (and there are gazillions) freezer-paper stencilled onesies or t-shirts.  They were really popular. Here’s one I made recently featuring my current favourite theme: apples.

This year, I had great intentions and, as they say, the road to hell is paved with them. Yep, no handmade gifts but I did manage to help Sophia with one really important handmade gift, though: Sophia’s gift for Olive.

I am a bit obsessed with Sophia and Olive’s relationship as sisters (I can too force them to be BFFs) and decided it’s never too early to start helping them make gifts for each other. For the four year old anyway.  I’m going to give the 11 month old a free pass this year. Just this year, mind.

Sophia has recently shown lots of interest in my sewing so she decided she wanted to make Olive a soft toy. Here is the breaks-my-heart-with-its-sweetness result.

First Sophia drew her picture. In case you’re wondering, that’s me, Andrew, Olive and Sophia in our house with the Williams’ house next door  (who?).  Sophia tells me they don’t get out much as they don’t have a front door. And two butterflies.

We scanned the picture and brightened it up slightly then I printed it onto fabric. Soph chose a backing fabric and then she held the presser foot on my sewing machine down for me while I sewed it up.  She stuffed it almost all herself (with just a bit of help from her Grandmother) and then even helped me pull the needle through the fabric to close up the final hole.  She was delighted with the end result and has wrapped it up and written a card to Olive to go with it. Cute to the power of 10.

Did you make any hand made gifts this year? Love to hear about them.