Christmas Crafting & Ideas

Last December we called time on ‘home educating normals’ for December as I felt that after years of me being immersed in business during the festive season, the girls deserved my full attention and some old fashioned fun. As it happened, we ended up, through a variety of add on conversations and the sheer joy of spending time together, learning a huge amount and having the most wonderful time together.

This year, I’m hoping to do better; it won’t be so last minute and I won’t be pregnant so I won’t need to keep hauling myself off for a sleep. We’ve yet to see if we’ll be snowbound of course, which was a lovely added touch last year, but hopefully we can get something of the magic back. Goodness knows I could live without Christmas this year (perhaps not commercially, but certainly personally) so I think anything we can do to make it easier on all of us will be a good thing.

Last year we bought lots of items from BakerRoss. I think we will still do some of their things this year, but less. The younger two are still young enough to enjoy them and some bits look incredibly pretty but suddenly and without warning, my girls are too big and sophisticated to be enamoured with too much glitter and foamy craft. I love their glass and porcelain though and their suncatchers are very pretty indeed.

We sell some Christmas crafty things too. I didn’t indulge in them last year (as I had over-provided from Baker Ross!) but I might crack open a couple this time.

One of the biggest hits on this site is a variety of searches for Christmas Hama Bead Designs which I discovered have fallen off BeadMerrily since it was redesigned. So I have started to put them back now and hopefully will get that set finished and a few new ones done too.

Hama is easy, but surprisingly effective as a craft for all ages of kid and adult. Mine are still not bored of  it even after all these years but I need to make sure we do something else this year too. This is difficult when it tends to be your own sites which come up in the google search 😆 but I’m hoping to try the threading version of Hama with them as I think they would all be patient enough now

I thought we could maybe have a go at some of these beaded ornaments, which look lovely.

Then of course last year we had a lot of fun with felting. I bought my supplies from Sara’s Texture Crafts and she, and her products, were really great.

I also bought, but didn’t do, some Pin Craft which we’ve saved for this year.

We made a gorgeous Christmas Pudding (use that recipe, it was perfect!)

We made Christmas Cards cheaply and quickly with stickers but this year I’d like to do something slower and more adventurous. There art has come on so much, I think they’d do very well this year.

We printed wrapping paper with sponges on brown paper and almost all our presents were wrapped in them.

We crushed extra strong mints and mixed it in chocolate to make quick sweets.

We used a kit to make crackers and paper snowflakes for the windows.

Making a holly wreath was a huge amount of fun and very satisfying. Fran did most of it and she was so pleased with herself.

I think we ought to get round to doing Borax snowflakes this year.

Zoe has done some beautiful sewn felt craft (Zoe, if you are reading, would you make that pic public, or could I nick it and put it here?) which I’d like to try out.

Our final craft was the orange pomanders which I wish could have stayed forever – they looked, and smelled, so wonderful.

I rather love these gingerbread houses, although I’d love to have a go at something bigger too. (Maybe small in biscuit and large in Fimo!)

There is, of course, the endless Fimo opportunities. We really must try something Nativity-ish this year, but I’m deeply tempted by also having a go at something more Pagan/Festival of Light style.

I do love this but it has managed to stay in our lounge all this year and actually I’m a) bored of it and b) thinking the baby is a bit raw for me now. My eyes glide past it but they might not on Christmas Day.

Mind you, if you look though Flickr, the Fimo ideas could keep you busy for a good while.

There is a great page of ideas over at Petits Haricots which has plenty to get your teeth into.

I would really love some suggestions of some traditional, harder to make/more likely to keep things to make this December. We’ve all got much better at our arty side this year and I think a challenge would be good. I tend to get quite frustrated by the endless advert overloaded ‘about.com’ pages that come up when I’m searching, so if you know of some winter/Christmas/solstice pages or websites or ideas, please let me know and I’ll add them to this post.