Christmas Crafts

I'm beginning all my preparations for Christmas crafts!  While in Indiana, I spent a lot of my time painting a bunch of different letters and shapes for my nieces' Christmas gifts.  I am keeping up my American Girl gift tradition and making more clothes and accessories for my nieces' dolls.  I tried to find pictures/stories about my gifts last Christmas, but I failed (either in the documenting or researching).  I made a bunch of clothes, purses, and a sleeping bag for their dolls last year.  I had grand plans of getting more done, but it didn't happen, so it's all on my list for this year!  My sister (their mom) found a way to make your own desks & chairs for American girls so we took advantage of me being in town to get the project started.

(You would not believe how long it took to paint all this.  It took even longer just discussing the logistics of the project, color schemes, and how to go about doing it.  I made some mistakes and painted the wrong items the wrong color, but it was easily fixed -- whew!  The round pieces and squares with the fancy corners will be assembled to make chairs, while the letters and plain rectangles will make desks)

(Here's a semi-finished desk.  Although the top still needs to be painted and then glued together.  I didn't get everything all the way done.  I painted as much as I could then dropped everything off at my sister's for her to assemble, but I wanted an idea of how it would turn out.)

Now that I'm back home, I need to begin the rest of the crafts.  I have some diaper bags to sew (for Bitty Babys); American Girl doll clothes, sleeping bags, pillows, slippers, hats & jackets; and I already completed some crochet booties & hats for their Bitty Babys.  So far I have no money invested in these gifts.  I have tons of fabric that I can use for the sewing and had yarn for the crocheting.  I will have to purchase some more fabric for the diaper bags and things like buttons/zippers.  Thank goodness for Joann Fabrics & their awesome coupons!