Cross Stitch Christmas Tree Ornaments

 

Another Craftster swap inspired these gorgeous cross stitch snowflake Christmas Tree Ornaments, and yes I know it's not even Halloween yet!

I like to get crackerlacking with the Holiday season as early as possible, like perhaps Summer, and sometimes those same projects even get finished before the big day!

 

 

 

 

I have a real obsession with all things Red and White for Christmas and definitely need to make a whole set of these. The 70's girl in me could not resist throwing some mini pom pom trim on for good measure.

 

The pattern for the large (2 inch) Hexagon comes from

 Cross-stitch  by Dorothea Hall

The teeny tiny snowflake design is courtesy of my favourite Cross stitch book A Rainbow of Stitches by Agnes Delage-Calvet, if you haven't had a sneak peek at this book yet then head down to your library and give it a thorough thumbing to. It's chock ful of the sweetest, most delicate, vintage inspired as well as modern designs. All in one colour which really showcases negative space.

 I literally cannot get enough of this beautiful book, the photography inspires you to recreate every one of the projects and although the book features Embroidery designs too I much prefer the Cross stitch designs. My one criticism of the book is that it doesn't give amounts of floss required for the projects in the book. Since you're going to be purchasing one colour to complete the entire chart it's important to buy from one dye lot, if you don't know how many to buy how can you do that?

 

Two more tiny cross stitch snowflakes even smaller than Milk bottle tops! There was just enough Aida fabric left over after mounting the Hexagon to make both of these.

Some recycled and refashioned sewing on its way x

Reversible Tree skirt side two

Excuse the phone blogging recently but getting to a pc has been hard work.
Side two of my tree skirt, patchwork from stash or thrifted fabric and still keeping with the Scandinavian style Red and White I am so in love with.
Anyway so much to do. This is not a drill. Christmas chaos in T-48 hours.

 

Reversible Christmas Tree Skirt

Christmas crafting myself into a frenzy of Rick Rack, Reindeers, Red Felt and of course Fudge. You know how I do.

Finally finished up my tree skirt this week. All made with thrifted, stash or Reuse centre fabric.  White Cord, baby Rick Rack and Scandi-chic minimalist trees.

What on earth posessed me to make it Patchwork, Appliqued, Piped AND reversible. I mean how often will I be using it white side down on my dusty wooden floors? Serious case of fabric misaligned with my housework avoidance policy.

Hope you are all loving this gorgeous season heapings more Christmas projects to pile on your plate before the big dayx

Creative Gift Wrap

 

Making jewelry for gifts this year? It might be what's inside that counts but that doesn't mean you should forget the trimmings.

Two sheets of music paper, (these were Christmas hymns). A button that curves inwards, a bell and a needle and thread will make one of these cute bell boxes.

The best bit about these is the tinkling sound they make, it's the very sound of Christmas memories for me.

Growing up we had a tiny candelabra with brass angels on, the heat from the candles rose and turned the angels making them fly and set of a circle of bells making the sweetest tinkling noise.


What makes it Christmas for you?

 

Best of British - Christmas Tree Decorations

 

Via A Bit of Home $7.99 (CAD) 

 

Furiously crafting for Christmas? check out these cute tree decs, would love some of these on my tree this season.

 

 

 

 

 

Via. A Bit of home $7.99 (CAD)

 

 

 

 

Via Selfridges STG 5.95

 

 

Via A Bit of Home $9.99 (CAD)

Popsicle Stick Snowflake Xmas Tree

Just finished my pride and joy. Made with hundreds of wooden craft sticks, tons of hot glue and a sprinkling of imagination. To get each snowflake to hook on to the picture nails I glued bottle tops to the back. Is there no end to the uses for those suckers.

 

Still undecided, should I leave as is or spray red? I think they look pretty au naturel non?

Advent Calendar Garland

 

 

So excited for Christmas to come I could squeal. 

 

This project has been a while in the making, and until it was finished and up I wasn't even sure it was going to work, and for a while it was up and still didn't work, but it does now, just don't let on to the little guy that the bags are only filled with polyfil for now at least.

 

Made from cereal boxes, Dollar store garden twine, clothes pegs, Can of Gold spray paint (Montana Gold brand) and assorted Christmas fabrics either thrifted or gifted to me (thanks Nan and Spidermom). 25 Gold stars fashioned from cereal boxes, 24 (for now) little drawstring pouches from 4 different Christmas fabrics and embroidered with it's own number on.

 

Such a fun project the whole clan had a hand in and using only things I had to hand, it felt good to finally bust this one out. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What's that? only 24? I'm making a special bag for Christmas Day with some Gold fabric I had earmarked for the big day.

 

 

 

It's pretty simple to make but I could put together a tutorial if you fancied having a crack at one yourself.

 

Lot's more seasonal goodness coming up...

Shared here:

Xmas Decoration Tutorial - Beribboned Trees

I am a sucker for handmade tree decorations, they don't have to be fancy, clever or time consuming, just simple suits me fine, and they don't come much more simple or quick than these. I've been trying this year to use up whatever I can of my scraps and my stash of, well everything. I'm sure I've mentioned it before but I collect even the smallest pieces of ribbon from anywhere I see them, handles from falling apart Paper and Card Bags, from the shoulders of new clothes etc etc, so I have a ton of too small to be useful pieces of ribbon in every colourway imaginable. I kept them in a shoe box just waiting for some idea to make them useful again, until now.

What you will need for this Tutorial:

Sheet of Green Felt or other non fraying fabric

Scraps of Brown Felt or other non fraying fabric

Old Cereal Box

Hot Glue Gun or a decent white glue

Scissors

A roll of 1/4 inch Ribbon

Scraps of assorted Lace/Ribbon/Trim of all sorts

Sturdy Needle

Chop stick/Toothpick/Skewer (will save you from burning your fingers if using Hot Glue gun)

1. Start out by cutting a template for your Trees from your old Cereal box, mine were roughly 3 inches high by 2 inches wide you could do them all free hand but as you'll need two triangles for each decoration you want them to match. Cut an even number of these from your Green felt, if you want 6 decorations cut 12 etc etc.

2. Now for the fun part, take out your ribbon scraps and decorate your trees, in one colour, multicoloured, however takes your fancy. Glue them down and leave a bit either side to wrap around the felt piece.

3. When all ribbons are stuck down, flip over the piece and glue down the ends of the ribbon. Using the toothpick/Chopstick/Skewer push down each ribbon end until they are secure.

Here you see the messy back part and the front looking all tidy with loose ends tucked away.

 

4. Next up cut a piece of Brown felt for the tree trunk roughly 1/2 inch by 4 inches, add glue along the back and fold it in half lengthways.

 

5. Stick the tree trunk to the messy side of your Tree piece and cut another card triangle just a hair smaller than your felt piece. If you made a template at the beginning use this to trace around then cut it smaller, trace the new smaller piece for other decorations, you need one for each tree. Take an undecorated triangle of Green felt and stick your smaller card triangle on to it, there should be a gap around it.

6. Glue both pieces together, making sure you seal up the edges (glue then press together) to stop the card showing. Next up Marvel at your creative skills then take a ribbon, thread your sturdy needle and pierce the top of the Tree (making sure you are poking the needle through the card), pull the ribbon all the way through and tie in a double knot. Knot the ends furthest way from the tree together to then hang your tree decs.

Done.

Other Ideas:
Make these as cute Gift Toppers, with Ink just stamp the persons name across one of the ribbons.
Then add a Card stand to the back and they could be Place cards.
pr leave as is but attach to the front of a card (using foam adhesive tape) for a reusable Xmas memento.

Hope you enjoy making these, I just kept going until I ran out of all my Green Felt leftover piecess.

Gift Toppers/Tree Decorations

So my sewing machine has taken a much needed breather and is on strike until I find her some decent Oil, I tried to temp ther with WD40 but Bessie only likes the good stuff ;) So that's a Serger down and now the sewing machine, thankfully I have a fully operational glue gun and plenty of bits and bobs to play with so may I present this mornings fun project.

Gift Toppers or Tree Decorations made from pipe cleaners, I'd made Holly last year for a good friends pressies but this year after running out of Green I 'branched out' (te he he) to include a few other fun motifs. My fave by far are the Rudolphs.

I'm sure you can work out how to make these but if anyone's particularly interested in a tute, hubby is off for 4 days from tomorrow so I could always wow you with another super professional video tutorial.

A quick easy project, especially to make with kids, and the whole bag of pipe cleaners cost a buck so you can make quite a few for your money. Only the Holly took 3 pipe cleaners, the stockings were made from two halves, gifts from 1 and a 1/4. The Rudolphs nose is just red felt glued on. For attaching to a Christmas Tree I would just loop a ribbon through them but for attaching to a gift I would use some double sided tape, then you can always whip them off and save them til next year. Wouldn't they make great name cards just attached to a folded piece of card with the recipients name on?

Next to a quarter for comparison.

The whole gang (almost) together for a size comparison.

Still working on the next sleeve variation so stay tuned, and I enjoyed playing around with these so much that I'll be coming up with a few more Christmasey/Holiday themed projects in the lead up to Christmas.