Working towards a buy-nothing Christmas

I have long held a goal of giving gifts that are low-impact. Home made, purchased second hand, whatever, just so long as it isn't something straight from the pre-Christmas corporate madness. The Christmas season was 34 days long this year, meant not to increase our celebrations, but to ensure that you and I spent enough so that corporations could make their profit goals. I'm slowly working towards a Buy Nothing Christmas.

Alas, I was not able to make every single gift I gave this year, but I was able to make something for everyone.  I enjoyed it far more than shopping for these same items. I made a knitted bag for carrying books (in Gryffandor colors, of course), two toddler backpacks, and a superhero cape. I was up working on it all until the last minute, so I did not get before and after pictures. I did, however, get a little sample of a superhero man:

In front of him is one of the two backpacks I made, but since it was a toddler gift, it got tossed aside once a princess dress got pulled out of the gift pile. ;-) The cloth is left over from another project, the {unseen) trims came from a thrift store, and the straps and buckles on it were saved from an old back-pack style purse. I cut them off the bag 10 years ago, certain that such good straps would have a use someday. And they did!

That cape may never come off that boy's body. One of the most fun things about it is that the red material I used was the same material I used to make a cloak for his mom 20 years ago, and was itself purchased from a scrap bin. The blue ribbon was purchased from a thrift store.

I feel very happy about having given home made gifts that pleased the recipients and which were all comprised of eiher things that were purcased second hand or leftovers from prior projects.

When I have the opportunity to get pictures of everything, I will post it in my blog. Meanwhile, happy refashioning!

Have a great New Year!

Elise Too