Christmas lanterns

I found this crafty idea on yet another craft site for kids: Christmas, 101 ideas full of love and joy. They took a few steps to make, and I hate waiting for stuff to dry so I was very glad to finish them last night.

 Theirs..

 

 Mine. Not quite as many but there are limited hanging options from the fan above the dining table anyway.

 A tip, I glued the glitter on with a pva glue which made the rolls a little stiff so a light steaming while I unfurled them helped relax the glue and cardboard..  and voila! sparkly Christmas lanterns. Now we're well on our way to looking a lot like Christmas at our house. xxx

Toilet rolls: (free),
Glitter: (from same 4 pack), + I already had the paint.
Still at $12.50 then. :)

Christmas origami

Even Steve isn't immune to my Christmas bug. Yesterday he made some awesome origami Christmas trees and Santa Clauses using wrapping paper. I bought the paper new ($2.00) for the extra colour it will add to our decoration-ing, so, not-so environmentally friendly but I'm determined to try and save as much as I can this year so Steve can make more beautiful origami!

While on the topic of wrapping paper (and Japanese craftiness), I found a great, eco-friendly alternative to wrapping paper known as Furoshiki, the art of wrapping and carrying items in square pieces of cloth. If I bought a few squares this year and wrapped presents in them, our gift-receivers could save them and use them for next year. There are a few websites around that detail the art of Furoshiki such as this one: Japanese Gift-Wapping and Furoshiki

In fact the Ministry of the Environment for Japan released thie below guide to Furoshiki on their website .

Total cost so far $12.50.

Snowmen

I really wanted to make some hand sewm decorations this year but I wasn't sure if I'd have the time. Luckily Dad and Myrna came over last night and I was able to recruit Myrna into knocking together one of these little guys with me from scraps that I forgot that I had because they were stuffed into my wool storage container. They're made from a fuzzy almost terry towelling, stretchy fabric with foam shapes for eyes and nose. We embroidered their little smiles on but you can hardly see them and the hats are black felt scraps from a velcro-dots-on the-back-of-the-remotes-to-a-felt-cushion idea I had to keep our remotes together when we watch tv in bed. The scarves are cut from an old Christmas napkin that I picked up at an op shop for a dollar ($1.00).

I love the way that they are mirror images of each other.. We had a lot of fun making these while we watched The Mask.

Total cost so far $10.50
Total cuteness factor 10 ++

Let it snow!

One of my favourite things about Christmas are Christmas movies. I particularly love 'Elf' with Will Farrel.

This movie just cracks me up every time and I think that I am just as excitable as the character is about Christmas, especially the decorating. He makes loads of decorations out of paper,  paper snowflakes, and chains etc.. lego, pillow stuffing, plastic forks and anything else he can get his hands on.

I wanted to recreate the snow look that he has used around the Gimbels store, you might be able to see a bit of it in this screenshot that I found on a cool website: Decorating Ideas from our Favourite Christmas Movies click here for the link.

I'm making my 'snow' out of an old cushion (free), and threading it together with cotton to make a garland so it'll be easy to move around and stay together. I think I'll use it as a table or shelf runner and will probably start to look right once I place some ornaments around it.

Here's one I made earlier..

Snowflake star

I made a snowflake star for the top of our tree based on one that I saw in Big W for $14.00. I've made my star with copper wire strands that came from a battery terminal cable from a car thanks to my father-in-law John who loves making scenery from odds and ends for his model railway.

After shaping the star I painted it with a white acrylic paint which turned out to be a mistake though! It never really dried properly and has a green tinge to it! I have some enamel paint however and its just a matter of picking a day in which it doesn't rain so I can hang it up outside and paint it again. After the paint has been sorted I'll glue silver glitter all over and then thread on some plastic crystal beads that I picked up from a discount shop for $2.50 (the glitter was $2.00 for 4 'shakers' in 4 different colours). So the overall effect should be a very sparkly, snowflake.. I hope :)

Total cost so far $9.50

PS Apologies for the photo quality. Taken with an iphone and an unskilled photographer.. :P

Got the Vintage Christmas Bug

I'm always the first one in our family to get the Christmas bug. This year I was hoping to combine my interests for vintage style and being eco-friendly in one. As you may already realise the two are somewhat related.

I am kind of starting from scratch in my new home but rather than buying new, expensive, decorations that just contribute to my carbon footprint for the year I've decided to recycle, re-purpose and basically try some more old fashioned, and altogether crafty, Christmas decorating ideas.

• One of the first things I decided to do was make some paper snowflakes for hanging from ceilings,doorways and on my tree. I used to love making them in primary school at the end of each year and after a few attempts and some googling for more advanced instructions my retro Christmas decoration-ing was well under way.

I love white as part of my colour scheme, to represent snow, icicles etc. so I've made these using recycled essays, lecture notes etc. that I've printed out during the year (Cost-free).

• I needed ribbon to hang these so while I was out op-shopping I found a really unnatractive dress (Cost - $4.00) that happened to be close to the right turquoise-like colour and slightly shiny fabric that I wanted to hang my snowflakes. I also bought a white satin mini-skirt with some stains on it ($1.00)  to cut up for white ribbon but it frays easily so I might have to use a sewing machine to hem the ribbons.

Total so far $5.00.