Crafting for Christmas

Crafting for Christmas

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December 2017

author: Hannah Burgess

December is upon us - happy first day of advent! Did you enjoy handcrafting your mossy wreath with our kit? We've loved seeing your pictures! This year has truly flown by and the festive time of year has come back around. If, like us, you'd like to do things a little differently this year and avoid the hustle and bustle of last minute shopping, why not handcraft this Christmas? It's a wonderful time of year to cosy up with a cup of something warming and get creative. Taking time to prepare gifts, decorations or even hand-print wrapping paper means so much more and is such a rewarding (and fun) way to do it. To go alongside your handmade wreath, take a look below at some other little nuggets of inspiration for a slow and crafty Christmas this year...
Making your own tree decorations (or gifting them to friends and family) is a lovely way to make your tree stand out

Some Handmade Tree Decoration Ideas

Scented dried orange slices are a great addition to the tree, the vibrant orange against the green pine is really striking. They're super easy too..

Just slice up your oranges (around 1cm is fine). Lay them down onto baking parchment on a baking tray. You could add cloves into the slices at this stage for added festive scent but without works too! Make a hole at one end of the slice with a knife for your string later on. Put your baking tray in the oven at it's lowest setting (around 60 degrees centigrade should do it) for 4-5 hours. Leave them to cool and fully dry (they may feel a little tacky straight out of the oven but that should soon disappear). Once cool, thread your string or ribbon through the hole you made - et voila. Hang on your Christmas tree, gift a set to a friend or tie onto presents as a little tag!

As in our most recent wreath craft kit, we were painting the tips of some pine cones white giving them a charming snowy effect - this is a really lovely and simple way to bring a bit of Christmas into the home. these look lovely on the mantlepiece, in a glass bowl with others or attached onto your wreath!

As well, our kit this month is two little embroidery creature decorations for your tree or all year round, take a look here!

Edible Christmas gifts always go down well - truffles, biscuits, mince pies - the list is endless!

Edible Christmas Presents

Getting a bake on at Christmas is a great way to make your friends and family presents. There's an abundance of ideas but we love the idea of gifting little handmade packs of truffles. There's a tonne of recipes for truffles out there and most require only three very simple ingredients - good quality chocolate, double cream and unsalted butter. You can then roll them in coatings like cocoa powder or hazelnuts. Not the healthiest snack but if you can't indulge at Christmas when can you! Once made, wrap them up in cellophane and tie some raffia or string and a dried orange slice as a little tag..

Alternatively, a slab of chocolate with lots of added extras in is another lovely idea. Melt down some of your favourite chocolate (a mixture of white, milk and dark looks great). Find a baking tin or tray and marble and swirl the still melted chocolate into the tray. Now add in anything you like, goji berries, raisins, freeze dried raspberries, chocolate orange segments, chopped hazelnuts - the world's your oyster! Pop in the fridge to set then chop up into sizes you want and wrap in parcel paper or cellophane and stick with some festive washi tape.

Getting creative with your wrapping is another way to handcraft this Christmas - why not try linocut printing some personalised wrapping paper...

Linocutting Wrapping Paper, Gift Tags and Cards

If you got involved with our linocut craft kit you'll have the tools you need (and maybe some ink left over), you'll just need a new block of lino if you wanted to do a new design. Just grab some brown parcel paper and carve your lino, dab over some ink (metallics would be very festive!) and print your wrapping paper in repeat patterns- try a snowflake, some antlers or a Christmas tree! You could even use your lino block to create handmade Christmas cards for your friends and family or gift tags to attach with string.

A little spruce from your Christmas tree or some eucalyptus tied into your string or ribbon is a lovely little touch to add to a gift!

We hope you found a little inspiration in this for crafting this festive season. For more handmade ideas we're constantly updating our Winter/Christmas board on Pinterest so go take a look. Have a creative, homemade and crafty run up to Christmas one and all!

Jump in for a single kit, or subscribe and save...

Our next kit is Felt Christmas Baubles! These are a lot of fun to create, cutting out the felt pieces, adding embroidery, making them into little baubles, then adding shiny golden and silvery beads to glitter and sparkle in the light. Full templates and ideas for the patterns are included in the kit, or you can go to town personalising them with your own designs. Learn more...

December's kit will be shipped by Friday 14 December.

In a hurry? Buy one of our immediately available kits and we'll post out by the next working day.

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COME AND JOIN CRAFTIOSITY!

CREATIVITY, DELIVERED TO YOUR DOOR

Here’s the deal: we do the planning, you do the making. Go on, get creative!


Each month, we design a limited edition craft kit for you. It could be macrame, ceramics, book-binding – or something completely different!

In April's project, you'll delve into two exciting craft processes: crafting two candle holders from Fimo clay and hand-painting five taper candles with delightful fruity spring designs.

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