Hand-made!

I'm not one of those crafty people who has time to make all my kids' clothes or enter a lot of craft fairs.  In fact, I do not sew.  But my favorite items and my favorite gifts are the hand-made ones.  As the kids get older, they are learning to do more and more of their own projects.

The girls made matching ponchos for themselves and their dolls:

And if you want to get a boy interested in sewing, download a pattern for a Jedi Robe!

For the ponchos, we got a kit to make a knotted blanket at Wal-mart.  They have them at fabric stores, too, I think, or you can use two scrap pieces of fleece.  The kit we got had a large hot pink piece of fleece with a "gymnastics" theme, and a solid, lighter pink piece of fleece for the back.  I cut each piece in half and gave one half of each piece to each of the girls.  They then cut fringe on the two short ends of their rectangles (you may want to pin the pieces together to hold them in place while you cut and tie the pieces).  They tied the fringes from the top piece and bottom piece together, and we cut a hole through both pieces in the center for their heads.  For the doll ponchos, we only used the top (hot pink) piece.  We cut small squares, cut holes in the center for the dolls' heads, and cut small fringes and knotted them on the edges.

If I can find the link for the Jedi robe pattern (which my husband downloaded quite some time ago), I will post it.

Happy crafting!