Handmade and Local Gifts.

The holidaze always seem to be a time of overwhelming commercialism. Although we are not entirely immune to it, we still like to try and support handmade and local businesses as much as possible.


Many of the gifts we gave and received this year were made here in Floyd county. i put together a gift basket similar to this for my folks, i found the basket at the Goodwill. Some of the items given and received this year were coffee from Red Rooster, local honey, local apple butter, homemade blackberry jam, homemade laundry powder, hand crocheted dish clothes, local handmade soap, locally made wooden utensils (including the honey dippers, apple butter spreaders etc). We also gave lots of homemade cookies, chocolate covered pretzels and glass icicle ornaments. :)


The honey is so good! It's just called Papa and Tara's and is raw honey from Check, which is at the other end of Floyd County. We can purchase it at both the Dugpur and Willis mini-marts (our closest gas stations). The honey dippers, apple butter spreaders and other utensils were hand made by local woodworkers and can also be purchased at Willis mini-mart. :)


The crocheted wash clothes were made by me. The soap is locally made and was purchased at the Floyd County Store.



Although my kids do get there share of store bought gifts, both my husband and i always hand make them something special for our Yule celebration. This year my husband made each of us our own glass loopity loop straw. i've seen the ones from Dharma Glass, and had asked him a while ago if he'd make us a set. My girls straw has an etched dichro butterfly marble embellishing it.


My boy ended up with yoda. :)



i got the mother of all loopity loop straws!! :) It has a beautiful etched dichro goddess marble.



i've been so busy this month with custom orders, i didn't know if i'd get anything made for my kids. However, one afternoon i got inspired to make my girl a Ruby Gloom doll. Ruby gloom is a cute show we recently started watching on netflix. She's just so cute, i had to make one! She came together so quickly that i made a Doom kitty to go with her. My daughter was thrilled with them. They are made using eco-fi felt and clean carded wool. i just used the basic blanket stick to sew them together. Doom kitty has a pipe cleaner in his tail so that it is posable.



After making the Ruby Gloom doll for my girl, i needed something for my boy. i thought a Harry Potter Lego mini-figure would be fun and slightly challenging. :) Here are the pieces before it was all stitched together. i wasn't happy with a couple of things after i stitched it together and stuffed it, and will be changing it a bit before posting pictures of the completed doll. My boy was still thrilled with it. Both kids have slept with their handmade dolls every night since they received them. :)

We were really, really blessed this year, and were able to give the kids a pretty amazing surprise (which i'll post about soon). It's still these simple handmade items that really make me feel the love and spirit of the season.

Reminder, the Tiemeyer Glass Pendant giveaway is ending on the 30th! i'll pick and post winners to all 4 of the giveaways on the 31st!!