It is now only 20 days til Christmas and apparently, statistically today is the most popular day for putting up decorations in Aus (although not in my family, my family are slack and i tend to have to put them up when i arrive at my parents – often 2 or 3 days before christmas!). Not having a place i really call ‘home’ right now means i’m not particularly interested in decorating my space. Since i moved from SA I’ve tended to satisfy myself with decorating at my parents and having a token decoration at my own place.
But lately I have been aching to have my own place (which i will by next christmas I hope) so that i can start fresh with home made decorations! My good friends penelopewaits and redwren have both been posting tutorials for handmade garlands and buntings and other decorations and I helped PWs and her partner put up the tree this year and discovered her ‘colour theme’ system, where each year they pick a theme – usually a collection of colours, sometimes something else – to use only a selection of their many tree decorations. I’ve always just crammed ALL our decorations on the tree 🙂
I also had the pleasure of putting the christmas decorations up at the Wool Baa yesterday. What a great day at work! There’s definitely a pink and gold theme going on in the store :). Once I’d hung all our baubles and stars and stockings, I had the brilliant idea of going through our scrap yarn and making decorative pompoms. I found some red marled yarn and moss green mohair and created some ginormous pom poms and also some pink and purple novelty yarns to make one pom pom and some gold/yellow yarns to make a gold pom pom for the windows. I have never been a big pom pom fan generally, but as decorations i LOVE them! They’re like fuzzy baubles and they don’t break!
I’m also dreaming of felt stars, material birdies, crochet covered baubles, knitted mini stockings and australian bush garlands (although that would take a whole new set of skills :)) When I was little we used to use tree seed pods from a tree at my grandmothers and red dyed cotton wool to create little red robins for christmas cards. I only just remembered that writing this post! and pine cones to make owls!
So next year – watch out. There will be many many christmas crafted items! in the meantime, please, leave links to your favourite tutorials or handmade decorations – I’d love to see them!
and the obligoraty inspiration mosaic! (all from flickr)
1. navidad adelantada, 2. Reindeer Brooch, 3. Christmas tags #1, 4. Christmas Garland, 5. HOLOGRAPHIC CARD, 6. Christmas Stitchette pillow, 7. Little Bird Tree Decoration (Peach Sorbet), 8. Christmas Bunting (close-up), 9. stock1
Created with fd’s Flickr Toys
Armed with Needles in an Uncertain World 