handmade holidays - not necessarily my hands

I wanted to share some of the handmade goodness that went on here for the holidays. Not all of it was made by my hands, as they have been highly occupied loving on a little baby. But from etsy to crafty friends, the handmade goodness made their way to our Hanukkah/ Solstice/ Christmas celebrations.

First for the boy... my neighbor SuperJen once again did her thing. I guess she's one of the many people who have tripped over and found Zach's matchbox cars all over the marina. His normal protocal after scraping together his spare change and buying these little cars with his own money (I think he likes the buying of them as much as the playing, as they are just $1) -- is to stuff them in his pockets and bring them here and there to play outside. And many never come home again. SuperJen created a solution from an upcycled wool sweater.

Yes, a perfect little roll up car tote. Hopefully this will help him keep track of his cars, he's already been using it just to carry them around the boat.

But SuperJen's awesomeness doesn't end there. I have been bugging her for a while now (mind you, she works 40+ hours a week and is a mama too, so her spare time is... uh, tight) about this idea I wanted to make. Jen knows that's code for, "will you make it for me and I will stand and watch you?" :)

I've seen those silk/flannel blankies in the natural toy catalogs for a while now, and since we have, oh, 7-thousand or so playsilks on board the boat all I had to do was buy a yard of flannel. Jen sewed it together for me while I watched and voila!

It's SOsoSO soft, I wish you could all reach through and give it a feel. And I think I paid careful enough attention that I could make one myself now.

Naia also got a few other little gifties... an amber teething necklace (from here), a gorgeous set of personalized wooden keys from the amazing MamaRoots, a beautiful dolphin rattle (from this etsy shop), and this lovely little doll from, you guessed it, SuperJen. Zach sweetly re-gifted one of his playsilks to her as well.

I made Zach a little wallet and coin sack for his growing world coin collection (my hand work is not worth showing in photos!) But his favorite items aside from his new audio books (oh how we love audio books!) were a stack of CD's that I burned for him, each with a theme (rock and roll, pirate music, show tunes, sleepy time music, etc) that he can use in the radio in his room. And we made his very own first aid kit.

He's forever running about with bandaids in his pockets and antiseptic cremes up his sleeve just waiting for someone to need medical assistance. So we got this cool army med bag on EBay and my husband stocked it with real medical supplies for him along with weekly lessons on what to do, from wound care to handling burns.

Major father son bonding.

I guess his medical training is paying off, it seems we're all starting to feel better over here after a round of the coughs/sniffles. Thanks to all for the well wishes!