I'm not going to be falsely humble here; I'm typically proud of the gifts I've made (I have a bit of a perfectionist streak so I will keep working on something until it's pretty much how I want it), and I take pictures for my records and make notes if I ever want to do them again. I love crafting (and baking and cooking).
My favorites:
- Made personalized, themed family gift baskets for DF's family and my niece and nephew for Christmas 2009 and 2010. One couple is very fond of their pets so as a jokey gift-basket container, I used a brand new litter box and put in pet-related gifts.
- Scanned ALL of DF's family photos, made DVDs and a calendar for each of his cousin's families on his mother's side and for FBIL and FSIL for Christmas 2011. Each calendar had pics specific to that month (this was one of my biggest projects; scanning took many many hours then designing the calendar also took several hours)
- I'm making rosaries and chaplets for my wedding and each bead is individually wire-wrapped. I did several test chaplets and rosaries before I figured out my final design.
- My biggest gift project ever -- I turned someone's house into a giant advent calendar with that person's favorite hobby as the theme (let's say Hello Kitty -- but, really, it totally wasn't Hello Kitty; it was his favorite hobby) . It was a big house with lots of cabinets so I took red and green card stock (about a 1/4 page size), stamped them with each day's date (like Dec 1, Dec 2, and so on), stamped them with a Hello Kitty rubber stamp (I bought several). Each door had one card with the date on it. Behind each door, there was a gift bag with a Hello Kitty Christmas ornament (the actual hobby was really hard to find the ornaments for; I spent a lot of time on eBay shopping for the perfect ornaments). Each gift bag also had a card on it with that day's date and Hello Kitty rubber-stamped on it (I tried rubber-stamping the bags directly, but it didn't go well). The door cards' rubber-stamping was also etched (for those not familiar, you take glitter and put it on the rubber-stamp image then take a heat gun which melts the glitter onto the rubber-stamp image; it's a pretty cool effect). Before putting the ornaments in the bags, I mapped out on a spreadsheet which ornament would be given on what date so each week had a theme (Hawaiian Hello Kitty, Halloween Hello Kitty, etc.). I loved how this project turned out; too bad the person I did it for was not so enamored (not his kind of thing, even though it was totally based on his favorite hobby). It's okay; I'd love to do it again when DF and I have kids. It really was a fun project, and a lot of time and love went into it.
- I made a diaper cake for DF's cousin's wife. It was very simple, but I was very happy with how it turned out. Unlike most of the diaper cake images I researched online, the diapers were grouped in a spiral circle, not rolled up individually. I thought the layers had a better look as a spiraled circle.
Next Christmas (since I don't have time to do it this Christmas), I'd like to make the females in my life these adorable ruffled scarves (Red Heart has the instructions for both knitting and crocheting). I saw them at a holiday bazaar a few weeks ago and while I wouldn't have bought one there (they were about $25 each), I'm very interested in making them myself.
ETA -- I meant "embossing," not "etching" (I thought that didn't sound right, but I haven't done any rubber-stamping since 2007 when I did that project).
