Camera Dump and Christmas Projects - three months late!

I'm a bad blogger, and I'm sorry.  Yes, my last post was in October.  I can explain.  I've been busy.  I got a part-time job (Any guesses where??? That's right, Trader Joe's!).  We had our Halloween party (Next year I'll post some how-tos for that.).  We did Christmas.  I made some projects and cooked a lot of food.  I've made some new recipes, mostly from blogs I found on Pinterest.  But nothing original, although I have lots of ideas spinning in my head.   Life happened.  School, work, doctor's appointments, blah blah blah.  And then I'm trying to deal with the sad fact that our church that we've been going to for almost 15 years is crumbling right before our eyes.  I haven't felt like blogging.  And I feel guilty for still having Thanksgiving pictures on the camera and not having done anything with them.

So here is the camera dump:

I was a sugar skull for Halloween, and I did my makeup with the help of some temporary tattoos.

We made our Hexenhaus at Christmas, and some glue snowmen that dried weird so I may try again next year to get them right.

The handmade portion of DD's Christmas gift was a set of play teabags for her tea set and this cute little bracelet purse.  I got the inspiration for the teabags from here, and the tutorial for the purse here.

For DS's gift, I made him a stuffed penguin (yes, still the penguin thing!) loosely based on this chicken, and this cool two-sided superhero cape I upcycled from a thrifted P.E. shirt.  The shirt was already two colors, and I added felt appliques with a tight zigzag stitch.  

All in all, I paid hardly anything for these gifts, because most of the fabric, except for the muslin for the teabags, was already on hand.  I felt pretty good about making some cool toys for next to nothing.  

 Of course, the kids liked each other's presents, maybe better than their own, and DD is off to save the world.

I will try to be a better blogger this year, but that means I need to do some original things that are worth writing about.  Hmmmmmmmm...