2014 Christmas Project Countdown

Ho, ho, ho! It's that time of year again. Christmas project action has commenced. That means that it's time for the Christmas Present Project Countdown!

This is my 4th year of taking on the countdown. And...once again...the number has grown. I question my sanity in doing this. Last year, I undertook a total of 54 planned projects, resulting in a completion of 48 of those projects, the cancelling of 6 of them, and the alteration of 3.

For those of you who are new (or newish) to the blog, each year I make a majority of the gifts we give to friends and family members. The only people getting non-homemade projects are typically Darian and Collin (and that's simply because they're at the bottom of the list on homemade items because I can make theirs any time of the year). The projects range through all kinds of crafts. In the past, I've done projects involving: sewing, photography, knitting, glass cutting, and quilting. It's a project extravaganza. 

The countdown is all about the progress I make in tackling these projects. The items themselves aren't revealed until after Christmas in case some of the gift receivers read the blog during that time of the year. For the 2013 Christmas projects, I revealed them during this year's April's A-to-Z Challenge. That's the plan again this year.

For 2014, the deck is stacked high. There are 70 (yes, SEVENTY) projects on the list. Seriously, I must be crazy.

Each year, there is one family member who receives the "big gift". In past years, that has been my sister-in-law, my mom, my dad, and my mother-in-law. This year, there are two recipients. Why? Well...because this year Darian gets one of the big gifts. I'm hoping he likes it. I'm pretty excited for it. As for the other big present receiver, well...that will be revealed later in the month.

Project central is in high swing over here. I've been hard at it for about a week now. All of the components have been purchased. Some of them are still in transit. I should have everything I need for construction by the end of next week. I was actually hoping for one of the packages to arrive before the weekend since I have to mail presents for one brother and his wife, but I wasn't that lucky. It's slated to arrive around Wednesday, which means I can get their stuff finished by next weekend and in the mail by the 15th. That's the deadline for now.

This year, an unprecedented number of projects involve paint. I don't know how that happens, but apparently I get on a type of construction kick every year. Last year, it was sewing and ModPodge. The year before, it was knitting. This year, it's paint and a whole lot of sewing. Good thing I had my sewing machine tuned up earlier this year.

I'll be posting project progress updates weekly. This is where we are as of this morning...

A total of nine presents are fully completed. Another ten are in some stage of progress. With all this painting, there is a lot of downtime in between stages. The hope is that by the end of today, the total completed project number will rise by at least two and I'll have another seven projects started. That will mean a total of 11 completed and 15 in progress projects at the end of one week. If I keep up this rate, I just might squeak to a finish. I'll really only be saved by the fact that one type of project is a bulk construction that will result in finishing 12 projects in a couple of hours. I'm looking forward to checking those ones off the list, but I can't start them for another couple of weeks.

Now...it's time for me to get off the computer and get back to project construction!