Santa's Workshop: A DIY Christmas

Luke and I were elves this Christmas...that's right we made most of our Christmas presents this year and it was quite the adventure! Here were our top 5 reasons for doing a DIY Christmas:

5. It is fun to do projects together.
4. I am incapable of relaxing and was worried what I would do with my week off before Christmas.
3. We really love our family and wanted to do something special for them.
2. We are on a budget. I came up for a new term for people like us...OINKS (one income no kids, as opposed to DINKS).
1. We wanted to embrace the beauty and simplicity of Christmas this year and thought making our presents could be a good way to do that.

Sounds great in theory doesn't it?! But the reality of the situation...it was crazy and made Christmas even more chaotic! Here were the top 6 things that went wrong in Santa's workshop:

6. We decided to make corn hole sets. Not one, but three. Yes, three. This was quite the adventure considering Luke had never built anything before and I have not sewed since my 6th grade home-ec class. We forgot that we live in a townhouse. With minimal space. Walking around two weeks before Christmas went something like this: I realize I want a glass of water. I back up to get a running start and leap over one corn hole set. I land on a wine cork (for another project), slip, leap over another, land on a bean (for the bean bags), and finally make it to the fridge. Then I realize there is a set leaning on our fridge, so I lean that back carefully and grab some water. I take a few sips and realize that I had also stepped in paint and gotten it all over the floor. Our kitchen table looked a little something like this for most of December:

5. We had no tools. Oops. Would have been smart to think about that before deciding to build your own corn hole sets. Luckily for us we had not yet had a reason to meet our old creepy neighbor who had recently tried to hit on me while standing at the bus stop. But, turns out he had a drill and other great tools...so Luke spent a lot of QT time with that guy and discovered he had two pistols sitting by his front door. Not only is he creepy, but also dangerous...great. But thanks to him, we had a great drill!


4. There is no such thing as a good craft knife. My goal was to make cork coasters for all the females in the family, but as soon as I started cutting them in half, my craft knife broke. So, I had half the amount of coasters that I wanted. At least Maggie was there with me for moral support! Maggie is my friend from grad school who was also had a DIY Christmas:

3. Like I mentioned before, I had not used a sewing machine since 6th grade and somehow thought I could figure it out. After scouting out a friend's mom to teach me how to sew, I thought I was a master after simply watching her do it once. When I got home, I broke the needle within the first minute. I frantically called a few friends to try to find someone to help me and quickly found out Abby had taken sewing lessons all throughout her childhood! Praise the Lord! After she taught me, the process went much smoother...I only made myself bleed twice. I also had to use a piece of paper to funnel the beans in the bags...there were beans EVERYWHERE.

Yes, that is parenthood on in the background. My record was 9 hours in a row.

2. We ended up saving ZERO money on our Christmas presents this year. I may have had a little something to do with that...one reason why we decided to sew the bean bags ourselves was because each set of bags would be over $20 to order. The day after my last exam (I should have known better) I went to Wal-Mart to buy fabric. I ended up measuring incorrectly and came home with over 4 yards of each color of fabric. Yep, 4 yards of fabric for 4 bean bags. I meant to order 4 feet...the total cost was $60. I thought that sounded expensive, but my blurred mind went with it. I came home and rolled the fabric out and it hit me. I tried to return the extra fabric, it did'nt work. So, if anyone needs some gold, blue, black, white or red fabric...let me know. Yes, I am a grad student who made straight A's her first semester, I promise.

1. Day one was the worst day of all. We had gotten all our supplies and it was time to get busy. Luke had kindly asked that I let him begin the building because I can be a little type A. So, I headed out to the farmer's market and Michael's to get a few things. I came into our "townhouse complex" from the other side and pulled into my parking spot...all the sudden I hear a huge CRASH...yep, I had just run over the corn hole sets Luke had put together. For one minute we were both pissed. Luke came out thinking "You idiot, why did you not see them in the parking lot." And I thought, "You idiot, why did you build the sets in my parking spot? Why would you not do that in the back yard?" After being mad for one minute we laughed and headed back to Home Depot for more wood (reason #2 our projects were more expensive than we thought). The next time we got 2x4 ply wood for the sides even though it made the sets much heavier. The aftermath:

yes, those are tire marks.

So, we had a few mishaps to say the least. But in the end, we had a great time spending time together, laughing over our mistakes, and seeing our families open their awesome presents. They all turned out wonderful and everyone was thankful for their gifts. Here are some of the finished products:

Putting the sets to good use at the beach after Christmas!

We made a ASU cornhole set for Dereck, UNC for Matt, and NCSU for my mom and dad

The cork coasters for Connie and Register family secret Santa

The presents that we did not make, we got from local stores/vineyards in Harrisonburg as well as Ten Thousand Villages.

I also made scarves for the Logan ladies! Evan is wearing the one I made for Lila.

Will we do another DIY Christmas? Absolutely not. But, I would love to do a few items every year. Maybe next time I won't run over them.