House-warming present for the person who hates their house?

So really, what do you get as a house warming present for someone who hates their house?! The back story is long and complex, but has ended up with an 18 month long renovation project with the hope of being able to off load it for as much as she paid for it. But the rapidly dropping house prices means that even after spending all that time on it, its still not really paying off. So while it now looks good, she still hates it for what it represents. But at least its finished, and that is a cause to celebrate!

The Boy suggested making a really horrible tea cozy, which slowly grew into this idea:

We composed a limerick to sum up the story, and I attempted to embroider it onto a tea towel.

Now, embroidery isn't my strong point, so there was no way that anyone was going to see the back! So I embroidered it onto some cotton... 

I transferred the words by typing it into word, putting the fabric over the screen and tracing with a chalk pencil. Easy way of getting neat, even words. Or fancy fonts if I were more skilled...

 This is comic sans, if you can tell ;) And do you know what- I ran out of thread for the last two words. 

Gutting! So a quick trip to the shop was needed!

The patch held in place by fusible webbing, then secured using bias tape.

I went around the edge of the store bought tea towel with a fancy stitch to tie it all together.

(Anyone know what the Y shaped stitch is for?!) 

And added a little bias tape hanging hook on the top corner

Wrapped up all fancy :)

She loved it. 

Brought a tear to her eyes... hopefully for all the right reasons.

I was a little worried she wouldn't "get" it, but I think she will treasure it.

I think I was more excited about gifting this than I have every been to give a present!

Which is what presents should be all about, right?

Mini Gathered coin purse

Last weekend I used Noodle-Heads idea to make these gathered coin purses to give as presents.

As coin purses they are OK, and you can just about fit a card or two in the pocket inside, but the zip across the top make it hard to get said card in and out. 

So any future ones will be just a little bigger.

They still came out very cute!

(Apologies for the bad photo! I was going to take more but packaged them up to post/give before realising I hadn't) 

The top one is a leaving present for a friend moving back to the northern hemisphere.

Its full of Australiana- fake tattoos, little Australian flags on tooth picks, and balloons with the southern cross on them. A little reminder of their time here.

The lower one is a birthday present. I was at a loss for what else to include, but then I found some pretty-decent-for-the-money nail polish in Target ($2 a bottle). I bought me one in blue, tried it that night and loved it, so went back the next day and got a glitter red, glimmer red and a black, and some nail-art transfers in black and white. They fit perfectly, so it ended up being a lovely little colour coordinated package. 

As usual, it cost more to post than to make, but I'm used to that!

My blue sparkles- it lasted at least two days without chipping, which is a miracle for me!

I plan to make another clutch following the tutorial more closely, as it will be perfect for uni. I already use a basic version, which started out life as a large pencil case, but something more organised would be very useful! At the moment it contains lots of loose cards, paper money, coins, pens, my phone, my inhaler and keys, all mixed together. A pain! But really handy to throw in my rucksack in the morning, then take it out with me for lunch or what ever and know I have everything important. 

I'm thinking I'll use the blue and black polka-dot combination, as I think its gorgeous.