Christmas Craft 2016!

This past weekend I honed in on what I will create as this year's Christmas craft for my family!  This is a tradition that started in December 2002 in which I create a home-made gift for each of my family members and once I had a paying job, also provided purchased Christmas gifts with said craft.  The craft that started it all was a candy jar I saw during my student teaching placement that one of the teacher assistants had created.  I can still recall the excitement of buying the supplies, painting the pots, and then filling each candy bowl with each family member's favorite snack (Skittles, Reese Pieces, and M&Ms were the popular favorite then).  I wish that each year I had thought to take a photo of the completed craft but this was before we lived in such a picture-happy society and took photos of everything.



Another year, with the help of a boyfriend at the time, I built from scratch picture frames (minus the glass)!  I then decorated each frame by holiday or season and gave one to each family member with a favorite photo inserted in it.  I kept a set for myself and am now rotating two frames out throughout the year in the new house.

Early on within this tradition, I had leftover foam board from my Big Book I made as an undergraduate and used the extra pieces to create an inspiration saying and picture board.  To this day, when I go see Monika from college, she still has it hanging up in her bedroom with the lyrics to Bryan Adam's song, "Star", printed on it too!  I wonder if she still has it and if so, I'll have to show Adam when we go to visit her in a few short weeks!

Another favorite was when I was inspired by a magnet set I purchased when in Montana in summer of 2000.  I used those magnets as a guide to create personalized magnets for family members and a few close friends who also receive the annual Christmas craft that were so cute!  I think one of the reasons I enjoy those magnets was because they were one of my favorite ways of packaging them when giving them as gifts.


In recent years, when in NC, money was super tight with being a poor PhD student at the time so bookmarks, a mason jar with inspirational daily quotes in them, and last year's craft which was undoubtedly the worst one yet was comprised of a pencil holder made from toilet paper rolls and decorated in the favorite sports teams' colors of each person (or favorite color).  Ah, how low my beloved Christmas craft sunk last year.  Fortunately, this year's craft will hopefully resurrect this tradition and I'm excited to try my hand at this particular project.  This was also the first year that I physically looked up ideas online.  It's crazy to think when this idea came to fruition so long ago it was before the Internet is what it is now and there was no Pinterest and DIY blogs weren't as popular as they are now.  Nowadays, one can easily be "inspired" to create something from scratch or hand by googling it.  I still prefer trying to be creative solo and only turning to the Internet for suggestions when drawing a complete blank.  Anyhow, if I decide to end this yearly routine during next year's holiday season, that will mean I've (sometimes more successfully in other years) created a craft for the last 15 Christmases for loved ones.  Maybe that will be a good number to end at or maybe it will continue....what do you suggest?!