How To Include Your Christmas Crafts In Your Christmas Decorations

How To Include Your Christmas Crafts In Your Christmas Decorations

Once you have started on the route of Christmas crafts you will need to find places for all your projects. If you are doing these with young children or toddlers you will either have just one or two items which they did, or you will have absolutely millions of bits of paper to find homes for. So where do you put them all?

With kids there is always a balance needed. I love having their items of the tree, but I still like it to look good, and there are only so many snowflakes before the tree looks like it has been somewhat attacked! So this is what we do now with the snow flakes.

I divide the snow flakes into groups. If they are very big, they sort of take over the tree, hence they go on the windows. You will want to put them really high up so that they don’t block the light. You can overlap them here, put a line of the biggest ones on first and then layer the smaller ones or those on different colored paper over the top.

I like the smaller snow flakes on the tree, partly because I love the way the kids point out to guests which ones they made. However, from my experience it seems that the smaller the child the more paper there is left in their snow flake. So, I combine two snow flakes. My youngest is only just getting competent with scissors, so his tend to be circles or squares with a few holes cut into them. My oldest on the other hand creates really intricate ones which are so fragile that they need support. Hence I put the two together. There are two ways to put snowflakes together, either with glue, but sometimes this doesn’t really work – you end up with a rather stiff looking snowflake. The other method, and my favourite is to add a few strategic stitches to hold them together, this just really seems to work. (I discovered it one year when I ran out of glue, but it was one of those great discoveries)

Now you have a home for your snowflakes – but what about your chain men, normally Santa or snowmen? Well, if the snowflakes are at the top of your windows, the obvious place for you characters is at the bottom. Every year our windows are lined with elves, Santas and snowmen.

In my books Christmas is all about family – and I like to show off the kids creations, but I like to get a bit of a balance with some style and order. I was really pleased this morning, as my 7 year old headed out to school he didn’t talk about presents he wanted to receive he talked what decorations he was going to make and how he was planning on decorating the whole house!

If you are looking for some more inspiring ideas for your Christmas crafts – then check out the book below.

A Homemade Christmas: Creative Ideas for an Earth-Friendly, Frugal, Festive Holiday

Making something with your own hands—whether it’s a plate of just-baked cookies, a handcrafted stocking, a homemade wreath, or a hand-folded origami ornament—is a great way to connect with the true meaning of Christmas.

From holiday decorating to gift giving, A Homemade Christmas is chock-full of projects, recipes, tips, and helpful hints that are guaranteed to add a homemade touch to your holiday season. Open this charming volume to any page and discover a wealth of practical and easy-to-accomplish ideas for a homemade holiday:

• create personal, distinctive holiday greetings

• deck the halls with festive, handmade trimmings

• cook simple but memorable homemade dishes

• make unique, handcrafted gifts

• share the joy of the season with friends and family

Packed with inspiration and how-tos for ideas that are family-friendly and eco-conscious, festive and meaningful, A Homemade Christmas will put homemade back into your holidays!

Christmas Decorating Ideas

Christmas Decorating Ideas

Halloween has been and gone and now it is time to start the preparations for Christmas. The first thing to do is make a cup of coffee and get together some Christmas decorating ideas. I like systems – so this is how I go about it.

Where do the decoration need to go?
To do this I think of a friend who I have not seen for a long time and imagine that they are coming to visit. I imagine them pulling up outside and seeing the house for the first time, I think about what they are going to see as they head towards the door. I write down what they are going to see and this is the basis for my outdoor Christmas decorations.

Then I imagine them coming into the house and I write down, not what they are going to see, but what I would like them to feel. That may sound a little strange, but let me explain further. I have a friend who I speak to or email most weeks, but I haven’t actually seen for five years, hence she has never met my youngest son. If she walked into my house at Christmas I would want her to have an immediate sense of warmth and family. There are some people who would want more ‘wow’ things, or most stylish – you have to find the emotion you want to create in people.

What decorations to use?
I am a big believer in not wasting things, so I always start with what I already have. Firstly, I divide up the good and damaged decorations. I never throw away decorations when I pack up in January. For example, if you are making a wreath, you only see one side of a bauble, perfect use for baubles which have got dents in them!

Once I have got my ‘good’ decorations in a pile I return to the effect I want to create. What do I need to add to these to make it more; family bases, kiddy, stylish?

Once you have made these decisions and define what you need to it is time to start collecting – and I don’t mean in a shop. I remember one year I had a great tree which was all blues and silver. My husband had a pair of pjs which I had moved to the rag box as they were getting old. When I realise what colors I would be using that Christmas, the first place I headed was the rag box. In it I found several blue rags and also these pjs. This is what I did with them:

• I cut out rectangles of about 18 x 10 cm.
• I then put two together, right side in and sewed around the edges, leaving a small space of about 1cm in the middle bottom.
• I then turned them back to the right way out – through the little unsewn hole.
• I then bought some silver ribbon of about an inch and a half wide. I cut a piece of ribbon about 25cm long for each rectangle.
• I then tied the ribbon around the centre of the rectangles and with a bit of arranging I had the most beautiful bows for my Christmas tree. The bows had blue (or pj plaid) ‘wings’ and silver ribbon tails.

Since the kids came along I find that I have a much more multicolors tree and home, but it works well with us as the kids love the run up to Christmas and are always keen to choose remnants in a shop and paper from their craft boxes. (Admittedly we did have one Christmas which was rather Mickey mouse dominated, it was not our most stylish Christmas but it is great to look back on).

So where ever you start with your Christmas decorating ideas you must look at who you are going to be inviting, what you want them to thinks, and also how you are going to achieve that with the most fun!

If you are looking for some craft ideas to use check out the book below.

Homemade Christmas Decorations

Homemade Christmas Decorations

There are so many wonderful ways to decorate your home and tree at Christmas, but some of the best decorations are the homemade Christmas decorations. Everyone always remembers when they have seen homemade ornaments. Also, if you have a family, then it is a great way to spend some evening together.

I recently came across an idea which I had never seen before – but I have just tried it out and what a success – I had to write about it!

Once summer has passed there are always some thing left over which we intend to keep for next year, but invariably misplace before we need them. In our household one of these is the spare icelolly sticks. I buy them by the hundred in the spring, and always have ones left over, and always loose them before next spring. This year – they have been turned into Christmas decorations.

They are very simple. We just used some standard kids poster paints, and a little piece of wool for the top of Santas hat and the bottom of his jacket. You can always add cotton wool for his beard aswell. There are obviously loads of different variations you can make of these, but this one is really easy and great fun. (Remember to paint the back red first.) I have a little hand craft drill I used to make the hole at the top, but you can probably use a kitchen skewer for this.

I have just had a quick go in Paint to try to create a little drawing of the these (I thought that would be better than the slightly sub standard photo I just took …) Here it is.

(for other Christmas decoration ideas check out our page.)

Paper Decorations

Fun with Paper Decorations

If you are not already using paper decorations at Christmas you should think again!

We are always reading about how families have changed and how our habits are changing, and often the news is not positive. I do not have the perfect family, but at Christmas we all manage to pull together and it gives me hope which I look back on when the kids are difficult and won’t do their homework.

What we do at Christmas is simple, we make things. I don’t want to have too much pressure on producing things for Christmas so I buy a few items in advance. Apart from the lights, our tree is pretty much decorated with paper. I buy some stars, I personally love the Froebel stars and I get them in lots of bright colors. I know that many people go for simple two color Christmas themes, but I still have plenty of colored stars. This gives us a good basis to add to.

Paper Chains
I saw that you could buy packs to make these, but we don’t. I buy gift wrap ribbon and use these. I always know that I am going to use the, so whenever I see any on offer I pick them up throughout the year. I think the texture and shine give a wonderful shimmering look to a tree. For paper chains I would never use a ribbon narrower than a 5/16” . If you have a preschool child then it is worth getting some of the wider 1-1/2” ribbons which they will be able to handle.  (Both of these can be picked up a really good prices on Amazon, here are the links: 5/16” ribbon, 1-1/2” ribbon ).

Snowflakes
Remember folding pieces of paper when you were little and then cutting bits out to make pretty patterns – that’s how we make our snowflakes. They are great fun and can be made from just about any piece of paper you have. We do sometime add to them by spraying some gold or silver paint on them.

Baubles (out of the Christmas cards we received last year!)
Ever wondered what to do with your Christmas cards after the 12th day of Christmas? Simple, you save them and the following year you make Christmas tree baubles out of them. Its really easy, you cut them into circles (all the same size) and then score a triangle one the back of each one so that all points of the triangle are on the edge of the circle. Then fold along the lines of the triangle and simply attached them to each other by stapling the flaps of the triangle. (I should really do a page on making those – will try to get one up in the next week or so).

Then of course we have to make cookies for the Christmas tree – but that is a whole other story.

So apart from the cookies and lights our tree is decorated with paper and either we have made it or we have supported a small business (here is a link to one of my favorites).

Handmade Christmas Decorations

Handmade Christmas Decorations

Everyone wants their Christmas tree to be special and to look that little bit different form everyone else’s! Here is one of the best ways to achieve this …… handmade Christmas decorations.

Unfortunately, not all of us have the time or the talent to produce major works of craft in the lead up to Christmas, working, family and social commitments, presents and general preparations are enough to keep most of us busy – so how do you get the handmade look?

Simple – you buy it. This is not really cheating at all. This is a great way for you to get exactly what you want and at the same time you get to support a lot of cottage industries. If we don’t keep small businesses and home businesses going then a lot of the skills behind them will vanish and in a couple of generations time there won’t even be anyone who still knows how to create these amazing things.

So, buying your handmade Christmas decorations is a perfect way to get what you want and to protect the crafts and skills for future generations. Whats more, most of these are non plastic, they last for years, they are environmentally friendly – in fact, there is absolutely no good reason not to buy these.

Please book mark this page as we are hoping to be able to start advertising craft shops soon on this site.

In the meantime, if you want to have a go at making some yourself here is a great book to get you started:

Fa la la la Felt: 45 Handmade Holiday Decorations

Outdoor Christmas Decorations

How To Use Your Outdoor Christmas Decorations To Create Something Amazing

Outdoor Christmas decorations seem to be so much more complicated than indoor ones – but why?

For our indoor decorations we have an idea of how to create a stylish look, but when it comes to outside it is harder, because it is looked at differently. Let me explain in a bit more detail. Lets say that you have just set up and decorated your Christmas tree, the first thing you do is stand back and look at it. You try to see it as others will, you walk in and out of the room ad make sure that you haven’t missed anything or got anything wrong. You can’t do what with outside decorations. Your next door neighbour will always see your decorations differently to the delivery guy who doesn’t make it beyond your garden gate. The result of this situation is that it is easy to try to impress too many people. If you display too many outdoor Christmas decoration you can guarantee to lose a lot of the impact of something smaller and well thought out.

So where do you start?
The first and most important decision you will make when it comes to your outdoor decorations is to choose your focus point. However, you decided to decoration your outside space, you must draw peoples eye to one place, this is stop you overdoing the decorations and ensure that people really appreciate your design.

How to Create a Focal Point
Since some of us are not lucky enough to have a perfect shaped space for our decorations we may have to draw peoples attention slightly off the natural line, this can be done quite easily with a bit of imagination. The most obvious way is with a trail of lights. But there are other ways. One year, I had a three foot Santa who moved gradually from my gate up to the front of the house. As he moved each night, I cut out foot prints so that the eye from the drawn from the gate to where ever he was that day. To make sure that people noticed the foot prints I scattered glitter on them to give them a magical look. The great thing about this was that whether you were visiting the house, walking passed or even visiting our neighbours everyone was drawn to the Santa figure and it was a great success.

In summary the only way to have a really get your outdoor Christmas decorations to work and be the talk of the town is to keep it minimal, but use your imagination to ensure that you create something which is totally unique.

2 Solar Christmas Path Trees

• Illuminate walkways while adding a festive display to your yard
• 5 white LED lights, 50 ft. cord between trees
• Requires one rechargeable AA battery included
• Powered by the sun, lights flash or glow steadily
• Set of 2. Plastic, 8 x 14 x 8″

Solar-powered lighted walkway trees illuminate walkways while adding a festive display to your yard. Trees feature 15 white LED lights, 50 ft. cord between trees, powered by the sun, that can flash or glow steadily. Simple to install and enjoy. Requires one rechargeable AA battery, included. Set of 2. Plastic, 8 x 14 x 8″.

Christmas Decorations

Do You Need to Buy Christmas Decorations?  What Should You Do With Last Years Decorations?

The shops are once again filling with Christmas decorations and we are all standing around wondering exactly how we are going to decorate this year. Well, before you get your wallet out and fill up your trolley or basket with new decorations, take time to review what you already have.

There are some decorations which can be used regardless of the color theme you have chosen. For example wooden, fabic or glass decorations are very versatile, so whether you are going for a single color or a more traditional splatter of color, these are guaranteed to look good and also to be used for many years to come.

Thus, your first step is to work out what you already have which you can use for this years decorations. The next thing which you need to do, if you have not already done so, is choose a theme. This is not just about colors. If you have kids or grandkids coming to stay then you will probably want something which incorporates Santa, and with kids there are the obligatory chocolate decorations. However, if you are having a more adult Christmas then you may want to choose two colors and some of the glass or crystal type decorations.

How you decorate your home and Christmas tree is a very personal thing and no one can tell you how to do it, however, you can be advised as to where to start.

Once you have separated out the decorations which do not immediately or obviously fit into this years theme and arrange them carefully on your dining room table. Now divide these up by size.

It may not be possible to use the larger decorations which are outside of your chosen theme, but the smaller ones can almost definitely be put to use.

There is one area which can always be decorated in contrast to any other part of the house (in fact, it can often look more striking if this is different) – and that is the table and dining area.

If you have a good selection of small baubles and other small Christmas decorations they can be a perfect way to decorate candle holders or create name plates. There are many way to use Christmas decoration other than on a Christmas tree.

The best way to have a stylish home at Christmas is to use your imagination and always buy the best quality Christmas decoration and then get the most of your investment by using them year in and year out.