Making Gifts

I have been cruising while making gifts for the holidays.  I am completely finished making my holiday stars - most of my friends are getting one of these, and I am now ready to start working on gifts for Chickie and my DH.  Chickie may very well not receive her gift on time.  She wants a Staff of Ra as used in Indiana Jones #1.  I have the pictures that I need to use, but I still need to work with the pictures, transfer them to the metal, and etch the metal.  Then, I should forge the metal into 3D for the central bird.  That probably won't happen because I don't do that type of metalwork.  I will have to do a small amount of raising to be able to set the rivoli, although I have options there also.  I think I can do this so that she will be happy with them, but I really have to get going on it. 

The Staff of Ra as used in Indiana Jones.  I really wish I
could do the raising of the metal on the bird's body, but
I don't have the appropriate tools to be able to do this. 
I can still make it cool, though. 

I wanted to make two pairs of pants for my DH.  I have the fabric and he wants them based on a pair that he loves that fit him well.  I won't have the time for this, but the money that I've saved for holiday gifts are getting directed towards gifts for him.  So I will take the fabric and the original pants to the tailor on Wednesday and have them make the two pairs for me instead.  It will be worth it to me.  He'll get something he really wants and my time will be freed up to work on the other things that I want to do for him.  He mentioned that he wants a "man bag" for the catalogs, newspaper, etc that he carries to and from work every day.  I think I can make him a nice messenger bag that will meet his criteria.  And I want to get the den cleaned as part of his holiday gift.  That won't be easy, but it is absolutely necessary.  So just because I'm through with one group of gifts doesn't mean that I'm finished for the season.  But with luck, I'll get a lot done on Wednesday.  The major focus for Wednesday is finishing my holiday cards so that I can get those sent out by the end of the week, and send out those gifts that I have ready to mail also by the end of the week.  Busy time, but I love giving gifts, so all is good!