Thankfully my family is very ok with the decision and we’ve made plans to spend Christmas together at a local ski hill. Our gifts to each other this year will be yummy meals and good times together. There are still a few people on my list, however, that I would like to give something. Mainly co-workers and a few close friends. They will be receiving festive pine cone bird feeders. I’d never made them before and I took photos, here we go!

Beef suet I bought from the local butcher, melting on low heat in a small saucepan.

Pinecones collected from the yard. I tried to find ones that had nice, wide open scales.

I tied a piece of twine around the tops of the pine cones to that I have something to hang them with

I found a shoe box to put the finished products into

Roll the pine cone around in the melted suet, be sure to have your birdseed bag close as it may drip a little.

Transfer suet soaked cone into the bag of seed and pack the seed into the cone, like how you would pack a snowball.

packed cone

Finally, place your box of cones in the fridge or cold place (I put mine outside) so the suet completely solidifies again. Hang in trees and watch the birdies enjoy, or wrap up and give as gifts.

I tried very hard to make all my gifts this year, and if I couldn’t make them myself, they were made by someone else.

The first gifts I made were tiny jars of mint tea for the teachers and staff at the school where I work. Last March we moved into a new home. It’s a beautiful house that was built in the 70′s that is huge and energy inefficient but we love living here. One reason I love it here is the yard. Right outside my kitchen door is a large patch of spearmint. In the summer is wonderful to have the mint right there, many-a-mojito was consumed in the scorching summer heat.

And in the fall, the vigorously growing mint was turned into tea. I chopped all the mint down in September, from what I’ve read it’s best to cut the mint right before it’s about to bloom. I washed and spun the mint and hung it upside down in our storage room to dry. It’s best to dry mint in a warm, well ventilated, dark place. Light can degrade the mint and therefore in the dark is best. Once it was all dry, about a week later, I stripped the leaves off the twigs and stored it in plastic containers.

The dollar store by my work is amazing, there I found cute little jars, two for a $1.25 and some Christmas ribbon. I had gift tag and snowflake punches from last year, I found them on ebay. Gotta love ebay.

Here is the final product;

Last April, after finishing my practicum, I took a knitting class at a local yarn shop. I had been in University for the past 7 years so to go from learning every day to nothing I needed something to fill the time and that’s when I discovered my passion for fiber art. I’d been crocheting since I was very young, my Grandma taught me how to make butterfly fridge magnets and I was “hooked”.

So I took knitting classes and loved them, I actually can’t stop thinking about knitting. I’m addicted to Ravelry, the patterns section of Etsy and the public library for patterns and tips. So for Christmas I decided to make knitted gifts. Most of those gifts turned out to be mittens;

These mittens were for my girlfriend in England. She was so excited to get them, she said she put off buying a pair because she had good feeling I was making her some for Christmas. She was right.

These were for my girlfriend in on the coast. I started a pattern that was for two needles on four needles so I had to switch patterns and make some adjustments to make them work. They turned out a little big but are still adorable. The snowflake is embroidered on.

These Bella mittens are for my youngest cousin. She loves Twilight and her favorite color is royal blue. This was the first project I did with cabeling and they turned out perfect. So perfect that I wanted to keep them for myself.

This pair I made for my brother. He lives in Edmonton and needed a pair of manily mitts. His only comment was that the thumbs were a little tight and they're not appropriate for snowball fights but overall he was happy to receive them.

Here are the patterns:

Owl Mittens

Snowflake Mittens – you need to log on to Ravelry for this one, it’s free and AMAZING!

Bella’s Mittens

Man’s Mittens -  this pattern is in a book I got at the public library called “The Knitting Experience: Book 2, the Purl Stitch”  The patterns in it are kind of dated but this mitten pattern is very good.