this wasn't in the plan |but life is still pretty good

This year, there were several gifts on my list that I planned on making instead of buying.  I saw things that were just too cute to pass up, plus I thought I might save a buck or two in the process.  Now that Christmas is all said and done, I'm surveying the damage and thinking that maybe those gifts I made didn't really save as much as I had hoped.  So, here's a little rundown of what I think worked this year, and what didn't work so well.

For my nieces, I bought a pack of 3x5 notebooks and covered each one with felt.  This was not too time consuming and inexpensive.  It took a rather boring gift from plain and ordinary to pretty darn cute.  I had my boys decorate shirts for each other.  Though Monkey really was too young to "get it", he had fun decorating his brother's shirt and Bug was excited to give his brother something he created.  This too was inexpensive (especially since one of the shirts came from the one year old's closet, cheating yes, but he doesn't know).   It also didn't take hardly anytime at all.  Embellishing regular everyday things makes for a great gift

For my boys and my nephew, I made small car playmats that rolled up for on the go play.  These were somewhat time consuming, but really only because I was making three of them.  I was really excited about how these turned out, and though the kids don't really appreciate the handmade-ness, they do seem to enjoy them.  Since I had most of the materials on hand, these were rather inexpensive, but I realized after the fact that if I would have had to purchase everything, these would have cost more than I wanted them too.

I also made some little fabric bags for another set of nieces.  These bags were really inexpensive, they used just a small amount of fabric and thread.  They didn't take too much time to make, either.  Though this was a great handmade gift, I could have probably found something comparable for a similar price, especially considering the fact that the recipients were just a year old and wouldn't know the difference at all!

I love creating things, and I was really excited about all of these homemade gifts that I gave this year.  My point is not that you should buy all your gifts at Target, but rather when that you should make sure you consider all the related costs (and time falls into that category too!).  It may be worth the extra time and money, and there's certainly nothing wrong with that, but those are things that you should be aware of before you start your project.