Crafting & Baking for Christmas 2012

It was a year filled with big changes! The sale of our CT home & purchase of our PA downsized home! Once the dust settled in late fall and our sanity returned - it was time to think about holiday crafting and baking once again - so out came the recipes and patterns...

Christmas Cupcake Cradle Purse

(Champygirl/Tapanga's pattern from Crochetville)

A "Bell Choir of Clothespin Angels"

(Leisure Arts Pattern by Anne Halliday's Clothespin Angel Ornaments)

And family favorites of Maple Butter Twists & Sugar Cutout Cookies too - - -

 

Hope your year was full of fun & surprises and that 2013 holds much happiness & time for crafting too!

Towel City 2011!

 

Towel City!!!! I made 16 towel toppers this year for gifts - the holiday towels are getting more and more difficult to find - but this year I managed to find them for the $1 price (each) at The Christmas Tree Shops. Walmart had jumped to $3 a piece IF they had any! I was unwilling to pay that - I appreciate frugality in crafting from the heart...

Each towel had a Christmas theme - holly - snowmen - ornamaments and St Nick.  The yarn was the same WW that I used in the Poinsettia Doilies in this month's blog postings.  Christmas colors with sparkle thread running thru it.  They took about a half hour each to make and were fun and fast take-along projects.

I have friends with large families that love and expect these and appreciate them every year when last years are threadbare from use! I also do NOT cut the towels in half the way some do - I leave them folded in half and begin the foundation row of crochet on the fold - once the towel is done you then have a "beefy" and thick hand towel that even the man in the family will appreciate when looking to dry off his hands.  

This years buttons of red hearts and stars - were purchased early last spring when I found them on clearance at a local Walmart.  I like to find fun and festive buttons either in clearance bins during the year or with the use of a coupon I have even got the Mary Engelbright buttons for pennies on the dollar! It's a fun little ongoing scavenger hunt when I visit craft stores and sections during the year to look for them! I already found next years at a random after-Christmas sale - they are cute poinsettias and snowflakes! My towels I spotted at a local Dollar Tree that got them in late in December long after mine were done...so next years materials are already tucked safely away in a crafting bin for the making next Fall in time for Christmas!

Gift tags from all your pretty Christmas Greeting Cards! Re-purpose & Re-Use!

We go to the trouble every year to send out holiday greetings that are opened and read once, possibly displayed for a short time and then trashed...

A dear friend gifted us a bottle of wine this year and lo and behold attached to the neck of the bottle was the gift tag - it was beautiful and I commented on it and she was quick to tell me that she cut up her Christmas cards last year saving the fronts for tags this year!

I had remembered years back doing this as a newlywed when times were very lean financially for my husband and I - and this friend placing one on my gift triggered that fun & frugal memory!

Inspired I went home and just after Christmas while sitting by the fire - I re-read each greeting before cutting and then salvaged the most lovely array of Christmas shapes and pictures from each card front.

Armed with scissors, hole punch and a partially used ball of thick red chenille sparkly yarn - each shape and picture was transformed into next years gift tags in the blink of an eye and it was fun!

Think about this re-purposing and re-using of something that is usually discarded and disposed of without a thought!

Pillow Talk...

Along my way in the last days till Christmas I had finished the doilies and then wanted to craft some more! We had a very busy year which included a hurricane both on the weather front and in the form of wedding planning right after my daughter's engagement last December as a flurry of preparations began for a "handmade" wedding!

With my energy sapped from the hurricane cleanup, house painting and recent wedding in October - getting it together to make holiday pressies seemed overwhelming - but somehow the week before Christmas the spark returned!

I spotted a remnant with the Madonna and Child along with the 3 Kings on it and just got so inspired to fire up the sewing machine and make couch pillow sets out of the motifs!

I made 10 pillows (5 sets) in all and was very happy with how they turned out! Pulled cream and purple broadcloth fabric from my stash to make the backing.  The bulk bags of 32 oz of stuffing made me feel like Santa as I departed the local fabric and crafting store with them slung over my shoulder.  I used coupons for what ever I had to buy - the fiberfill stuffing as well as the remnant material.  Each pillow only cost less than $2 to make! Not bad for a Christmas gift that will get used eh?

Christmas Poinsetta Doilies!

Along with the usual rush and clamour during the Christmas Season there was the urge to make those on my list a little signature crocheted Christmas cheer! So the inspiration came one day whilst looking upon my crocheted thread ornaments from years gone by hanging upon my tree...there I spotted a red poinsettia in thread amongst the threadie snowflake ones.  Then it came to me - I was going to be giving jug sized candles with a holiday scent - why not make that simple gift into a "scenterpiece"!
So I dug out the old pattern and began in earnest to make a yarn - not thread - doily for underneath each candle - 10 of them in all! I then made them in off white with green as well .  The yarn is worsted weight and has a sparkly thread running through it.
They were quick to work up - about an hour a piece and those who recieved them were delighted! After Christmas day into New Years I spotted several of these out on my friends kitchen and dining room tables with the candles on them!
The measure about 10 1/2 inches across.