$6.34 = 7 gifts and an hour of gossip with my mom

I love giving Christmas gifts. It is the best part of the holiday season, aside from the food! However, Mr. Mudpie's family is HUGE. Growing up, all holidays were just me, my sister, mom and dad. That's it. Now, the holidays consist of my family, his mom's family, his dad's family, his dad's extended family and our friends. Sooo, the gift budget is stretched incredibly thin each year. And getting even more scarily thin with the addition of our niece and nephew (and one more on the way!) in the past year.

My solution to this craziness? Homemade gifts! I have 4 teenage girls to buy for this year. Teenage girls are horribly difficult to buy gifts for. I love scarves, and hopefully they will too. So what I did was hit up Hancock Fabrics for their big fleece sale. $3.99/yd! I grabbed 1/3 yard each of 4 different prints that I am hoping the 4 girls will like...... Or at least not completely hate.

How to transform 1/3 yard of fleece into a fabulously inexpensive gift:

I cut each 1/3 yard of fleece in half, the long way. This left me with (2) pieces approximately 6" x 45". I then stitched the 2 pieces together (right sides out) down the middle, and again about 1/2" or so on either side of the first line.

During sewing, the fabrics shifted and moved all over the place, resulting in them not matching up exactly on the sides. No problem! Just trim those bad boys until they are about even on the long sides. They don't have to be perfect; you just don't want one layer to be a lot wider than the other layer.

Now comes the fun part! (I handed this off to my mom and we worked assembly line style) Cut little slits along both sides of the scarf about 1/2" apart. Just make sure not to cut through your stiched lines. In case you are like me and are wondering how many cuts that is.....

45" long scarf x cut every 1/2" x 2 sides = around 180 cuts per scarf (Thanks Mom!)

Once you finish that, you have one cute little inexpensive gift! The tater tot of course wanted in on the action, so she and little man each got a new scarf as well. And sssshhhh, don't tell her.... her American Girl doll, Elizabeth, is getting a matching one for Christmas! I made it from one of the little scraps left from trimming the sides. It took all of 30 seconds to cut a rectangle and add some fringe!

Project cost: $6.34 & some cheesecake to bribe my mom to help me

Yield:

4 adult scarves

2 child scarves

1 doll scarf