Christmas Gifts Made From Our Forest

Jay is a pretty special guy, creative in so many ways and great with his hands. So for this Christmas holiday season, Jay, Connor and Brooke made well over 50 homemade gifts!

It’s become a tradition for Jay and the kids to create handmade gifts for our family and friends together. This year, they made screech owl houses, bird houses, ornaments, candle holder centerpieces and bird feeders.

Check out the final results:

A screech owl house.
We have lots of nesting owls on our property, the Screech and Barred, and we are really hoping to bring in the barn owls too. These should help! We hope you like owls too.

Another birdhouse for the neighbourhood.

Connor & Jay made these cute little ornaments for all of his classmates.

Candle holders that Jay & the kids made for Jay’s parents’ cabin.

The candle holders were drilled out of logs from our property.

One of the bird feeders, ready for the Stellar Jays up at the Pynn cabin. The top or hat is supposed to sit on the jar, but we will fix that tomorrow, and add a new picture later!

Last year, Jay and the kids made bird houses (including more of the adorable hummingbird houses!) and bat houses.

Black-capped chickadees babies in the bird house Connor & Jay made for our neighbours!

We want our kids to learn the joy of giving, to be creative, to use what they have on hand and to master the skills of building. So Jay takes the time to cut & organize the projects and allows the kids to piece them together, while teaching them about tools. They use the nail gun, the chop saw, the drill press and they even try their hand at stencil spray painting.

Brooke really wanted a pink bat house! Not bad for a homemade stencil & a three year old with a can of spray paint.

I also helped out with some custom floral arrangements.

I (Becky) had a wonderful teacher Janis who taught me how to make beautiful arrangements.

I love using festive greenery that just happens to be in season.

More of the swags as Janis one of my favourite teachers calls them. Janis, myself and a couple other classmates made them to sell at the KPU plant sales.

I wonder what we will make next year?

We might even take orders! Stay tuned and watch for our online store.

Becky

Becky is a Clinical Hypnotherapist, Registered Holistic Nutritionist, Landscape & Production Horticulturist, Arborist and budding Herbalist, who recognizes and specializes in the link between healthy soil, the gut and the brain. She also loves being the mom to her two wild and crazy kids Brooke & Connor whom keep her and her ever loving, creative husband Jay on their toes.

Becky

8 Comments

Donna van Veen
December 30, 2019 at 2:07 pm
Nice work guys!…Love that you are passing useful skills on to your kids that make them feel accomplished and proud. Mother nature is an important ally, always offering up resources if you just look around. Hope you all had a wondrous Christmas making your new traditions and memories. See you one of these days?Take care, d
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Tamara
January 4, 2020 at 5:18 am
This is so special and such a wonderful idea. I love that each item was handmade.
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Sue
January 4, 2020 at 5:53 am
That’s fantastic that you all made so many handmade gifts!!!
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James
January 4, 2020 at 6:36 am
Wow! I love those! There’s nothing better than learning woodworking skills and making something beautiful.
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Heather
January 4, 2020 at 2:24 pm
Oh my goodness, these are all so creative and so cool!
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Tairalyn Ciulla
January 4, 2020 at 5:06 pm
Those bird houses and feeder are my favorite. I would LOVE some of those in our backyard! So beautiful. What a talent he has!
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Ladena
January 4, 2020 at 5:51 pm
Oh my goodness! These are all so great! I would have loved to receive any of them. The birdhouses are great!
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Heydy Lopez
January 5, 2020 at 5:57 pm
WOW! look at all those gorg homemade gifts. They turned out great!
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