Double duty

As I posted earlier, I decided that this year I was going to do a bunch of handmade gifts this year for Christmas. We did not solely make gifts, but I did considerably reduce the number of "Made in China" tags that were going to be brought into our home. Part of my motivation for this was to be frugal, and part was to avoid the endless clutter that always happens at Christmas.

I will be posting some of the gifts that I made here, and this is the first of those posts. I have been having difficulty lately in teaching my young boys the need for modesty when getting out of the bath. They like to get out of the tub, dry off in the towel, leave the towel on the floor, and then come out and ask me questions before going to their room and putting on their PJ's. Now I realize that as a parent I can continually tell them not to do that, and I can explain why, and I can even apply a consequence if they disobey, however I don't think in this case a consequence is needed. Instead I asked myself what tools I could give them to help them to remember.

So to both fulfill that need as well as my need to reduce waste, and clutter I decided that I would make them each a bath robe. Now because they are so close in age I aim to keep gifts similar or identical wherever possible. So I purchased red flannel and cream bias tape for both robes. I used a scrap piece of the flannel to try my hand at machine embroidery, which I failed at doing. So to distinguish one from the other I used the remains of some gold puff paint that was leftover from a previous project. Here are the results, and they are a hit with the children. They keep them hung up on the bathroom door so they are always convenient when they get out of the bath.














What do you think? Both functional and fun? These were a bit tricky in spots, but the came out well I think.