Speedy Holiday Crafts

It’s Fifty Days until Christmas.

Begin weeping forthwith.

And then dry your tears, pick up your gluestick and get making!!

If you can forgive them the ignominy of having Christmas in the summer, the Aussies at this website have got some gorgeous little crafty tutorials. Have a wander and a wonder. Pretty!

Button hearts can be made in holiday colours, or the tutorial amended so that you can make a red and white button candy cane, or a green button wreath with a red ribbon to hang it from… There is certainly a smorgasbord of buttons at my local charity shop and I usually grab a bag full (well, meticulously sift is probably closer to the truth, but then that would make me a little obsessive… which wouldn’t do..) and I’m rarely charged more than a £1…Cox & Cox are selling pretty ones for £6 if you can’t quite bear to get creative on that front…

I’ve got a plan to decorate everyone’s presents this year with a Christmas ornament of some form (it started off being these birds, but will now likely be a range of bits and bobs)… and the buttons may very well contribute to this idea…

  Also, love it or hate it, Kirstie’s Homemade Home has returned to our screens. I’m torn on this one… I love that the craft revival is getting some serious airtime (about bloody time too, dontcha think??) but I much preferred Mastercrafts for actually showing the skill, diligence and time required to learn, perfect and maintain a skill. Kirstie’s ability to 'make’ a stained glass window by nipping a few panes of glass, playing with a soldering iron and then leaving the craftsperson to ‘finish it off’ rather riled last time and I’m pained to see that this series will be little different (scuse the pun…). Having said that, the show’s site is full of little tutorials with varying degrees of relevance and skill, but worth a gander nonetheless…Scroll down to the bottom of this page for a range of Christmas crafts as suggested by the original Property Porn Star.

Also enjoying The Royal Sisters blog for their grandma decorations. Got a bit obsessed with their hearts  earlier this year and though I’d combine snowflake and heart loving from last year with a bit of Evergreen crochet to make a cute little threesome of pressies.

 

The obligatory fudge-as-present recipe I suggest here is from the Foodie Porn Star, good ol’ Nigella…I have never quite mastered the faff of sugar thermometers (truth be told, I don’t own one, but the degree of accuracy (scuse the pun) required scares me to my nougat core. Pretty packaging and vintage tins an obligatory accessorising for this giftie… Gotta love a good boot fair for that. May be worth wrapping your food in greaseproof paper in the tin, though, if you’re not sure of its sterility!

With the recent fashion focus on tunics, too, I’m going to be running up a few tops for friends as the fit and the shaping is inherently generous and therefore there shouldn’t be any embarrassing issues… I’m delighted to have already modelled what I promised to finish in time for the holidays, and indeed it has been upon my shoulders for the last TWO nights out that I have enjoyed. Boden & Toast, I salute you, and then bow to my sewing machine powers. And acknowledge my terrible photography – and forgetting to take pictures in daylight. Pictures to follow. Post to be posted. xx