Christmas Crafting

This holiday season we were forced to be creative and do some crafting (definitely not a strong point for me, Kirk on the other hand, never ceases to amaze me with what he comes up with).

It started with Kirk shooting himself with a nail gun while helping to build one of the houses for Christmas village.  Luckily the nail didn't hit any bones or nerves, but the tip of it ended in in the center of his palm.  An x-ray, a tetanus shot, and a good tug took care of it.  Imagine a salesman reporting that for worker's comp!  Next time you visit Christmas village appreciate the blood, sweat and tears (okay maybe not tears) that go into it.

I spent a day or two coming up with a quilt square to represent our family for a quilt we were giving my parents.  Kirk is generally the seamstress of the family but he was busy with the gingerbread house below, so the sewing was left up to me.  With the help of a good friend, the embroidery was done with a cool machine.  I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.  I kind of wanted to keep it.

This is the final result.  My talented sister-in-law put it together and my parents loved it!  It had a square representing each family and a hand print of each of the grand kids.

And this was the gingerbread house or office that Kirk spent way too much time on : )  He made it for the Have a  Heart Foundation to auction off.  It turned out pretty cool although, I think next year we will gladly just donate the money.

The details turned out pretty cool.  Kirk shaped everything, and I painted and decorated.  I was pretty impressed with his handy-work!

With all our leftover frosting and gingerbread, we made cookies and had so much fun decorating (and eating) them.

Jesse said his was a witch.  Still fixated on Halloween I guess.

And we decorated this little house with all the candy that was good for decorating, but not so good for consuming.

Last but not least, we have an ornament exchange with the Johnson side and Kirk stayed up til 2 am one morning making this bad boy.  I took this picture with my phone and it doesn't do it justice.  It was about  5 in. tall and 4 in. wide.  He drilled a hole at the top to add gold thread.  Yet another craft I kind of wanted to keep for myself.

 It was lots of work, but lots of fun and proof that we really can be crafty with a some effort.