Hi,
I wish I knew how to make those rag dolls - they sound really nice! I knit and I used to embroider and enjoyed it and can't even remember when I stopped. Used to sew too, but it's hard without a sewing machine! LOL I'd like to start knitting again though. It would be fun, so would embroidery!
Crocheting....OK, I'll be truthful, everyone and that's quite a few people, who've tried to teach me, have given up!
I'd love to see someone explain it on here though - maybe I could actually learn it!
I make my own perfumes with all natural ingredients (essential oils, etc's), and have taught a class online for that before. I started making them as everytime I went near a perfume counter in a store, I had an asthma attack! Not to mention, my eyes running, face bright red, sneezing like crazy - you get the picture (it wasn't pretty!)
It's almost July, not actually to early at all to make some holiday gifts. One thing we've done is buy a pretty basket and fill it up with homemade things. The closer you get to the holiday, or when it's really close, you can even put homemade baked goods in. Then we'd cover the basket tightly with plastic wrap, and sometimes; especially if we were making one for someone who'd been sick and had some time for recuperating, we'd attach a little note on each gift - we called those Sunshine Baskets and the person was only supposed to open one a day. Those baskets contained homemade things and funny or cute (and inexpensive), store bought things. ex: cute notepads, pretty pens, small sample sized things that you can get right from the Freebies section, etc's.
I've been making soap but I use a natural(not the craft grade type), and we use them and I also scent those with essential oils so it stays natural. You can also get some silk flowers (at the dollar store, it's usually a dollar for a bunch), pull the petals off - roses are nice - and dip them in the melted soap, and then put them in little baggies that you can seal - they come out really pretty and they make great-little-gifts that are used as one-time use, disposable soaps.
We also (Mark gets recruited in this one), make our own herbal potpourris, using either herbs that are around here or some that I order - we add essential oils to them and put them up in quart canning jars to age -- then get them out in the winter when it's cold and dry in the house and I have a couple little crock pots that I put some into (they go a long way), and leaving the tops off, just plug them in. They smell wonderful and (oops, forgot to tell you that you add water to this in the crockpots! lol), and they put much-needed humidity into your air.
It's also very easy to make your own "solid" perfumes if you have some small empty containers, using beeswax and scent and a little bit of either oil or I also use shea butter. You can make your own lipbalms the same way using exactly the same ingredients - I usually put spearmint in those.
That's some of the stuff I do, and I'm interested in the knitting, embroidery and lots of other things anyone else comes up with!
Hugs,
Kat
