making homemade christmas gifts

so here's a little update on the gifts i'm making this holiday season, and just how far they've come...

i've made a whole 3 batches of crabapple jelly, which is pretty delicious, and all but 3 jars are gone (one even over to morocco with my brother!). it was extremely easy to make, even though there are a million steps...and it was totally worth it, as it is really really good!

homemade granola - this is still to be made, but i'm going to use this recipe from the Kitchen Sink Recipes blog, which looks yummy.

instead of the promised pancake mix, i decided to do some homemade biscotti, which i've made today, and which taste absolutely amazing, thanks to King Arthur. i made the first batch plain vanilla biscotti, and the second i added cocoa powder, chocolate chips and chopped pecans too, mmm.

the chocolate truffles will be in full motion on sunday, when i will be making and rolling a good load of chocolate. how terrified am i of attempting to temper the chocolate on my own? aah! i'm sure they'll be totally fine though, as long as i remain vaguely calm.

i've made all the cushions now, bar two tiny ones which hopefully i'll get onto tomorrow.

i've even embroidered names and initials on them to make them more personal (and the fabric is from ikea by the way), these really don't take long to make, apart from the embroidery which is fairly time consuming.

i made an apron for one of my best friends too, who will hopefully ♥ love it (for some reason the photo rotated on upload...):

and get how cute this is, it's reversible and it has her name embroidered into the corner! again, not too difficult a project as it's all straight lines!

and yes, i did make all my own christmas cards, which unfortunately left in the post before i actually photographed them. silly i know, but i could tell you that there was a lot of cutting and pasting involved in the process, and lots of wrapping paper and corrugated card, and you'll have more of an idea!

please let me know if you're pledging handmade, or making any of your own gifts this year, i'd love to hear about your ideas!