Holiday Wrap Up

Just how easy was it to stick to the handmade pledge? Ummmm....Well, let's just say that it worked out well because we are poor and have to think creatively anyway. However, if I was makin' bank, I think it would have ultimately been very difficult for me to avoid the typical shopping festivities of the season. For the second year in a row, we made our own *edible* gifts for our loved ones, including an apple-ginger organic granola mix and mint cocoa:



Of course, Dan did all of the hard work in the kitchen and I just made pretty packaging...

As far as our gifts to one another went, I didn't succeed in the handmade portion as well as Dan did. His handmade gifts included:

• 1 personally handmade conceptual painting (more on that later)
• 1 personally handmade terrarium, complete with a plastic deer
• Two handmade wooden art panels (We like to collect framed cross-stitches and painted wooden panels from Goodwill and he has a knack for finding the funniest ones!)
• Potatoes. Yes, a box of potatoes. I reckon they were hand-planted and hand-picked somewhere.
• In fact, the only thing he presented to me that wasn't handmade was an ipod adapter for the car. You just gotta let that slide because the CD player in our car has been cranky and I NEED music for my commute, PEOPLE!

My gifts for Dan were a bit of a stretch in the handmade category, but let ye readers decide:

• A book on the history of football from Borders. Obviously we can't count a book that was made in China. I lose.
• A membership to the Oregon Brewers Guild, complete with a handmade membership card, and a tshirt and bumper sticker--which could be considered handmade by the lovely beer fellows here in Portland. Discuss.
• My final gift is too explicit to share in this format, or really, in any format, but let's just say it was completely handmade, involving a santa hat, a few dance steps, and a mixed CD.

Other fabulous handmade gifts included a hand-painted card from Allyson (see above) and our favorite cookies made with love by Dan's mom...