Bead Decorations

String nice beads onto thin wire and bend into shapes. You can use these as decorations for the home or to jazz up giftwrapping. Some shapes are simple,

some more difficult than others.

Beaded Wreath

Bend silverwire into a ring and tie ribbon to it to suspend the wreath. Wrap a strand of beads around it (string beads onto nylon thread) - you could also add some ribbon wound around the metal.

You could also hang some drop crystals, decorations or small baubles from it.

St. Nicholas

While the dolls are nice (and handmade ), it's the slippers that are of interest today. My kids count themselves lucky as we have both British and German traditions at this time of year and one of them is St. Nicholas on the 6th of December. He (unlike Santa) was a historical figure, the bishop of Myra in what today is Turkey, and he was known to give gold coins to a poor mans daughters so they could be married. He is said to have dropped them into their shoes on one of his nightly strolls.
For St.Nicholas the children leave out boots or shoes on the night before and hope for sweets and treats the next morning - if they were well behaved...
This is a felt alternative.

The slippers are made of three parts: The soles,....

...the upper and the back around the heel.

The back is a long strip of felt, attached to the upper and both sewn onto the sole.

Vouchers

Last December I watched someone buy a fistful of giftcards (friends, family, secret Santa?) and it got me thinking that this might be a solution for an advent calendar for a teenager. Obviously this could get quite expensive, so a few (or rather a lot of) other ideas are needed too. How about a movie night in, a pamper session, breakfast, lunch or dinner of their choice, a picnic, a family night, cooking or baking sessions with Mum, a craft session, customizing clothes, cinema tickets (there are some cheap movies for kids in some cinemas), going to the pool (free in some areas), pizza night with homemade pizza,...
For adults the vouchers can be quite practical, like doing the laundry or ironing, washing windows, weeding, a meal, a day out, babysitting, helping with some unloved task,...
The main present is sharing time and skills with someone and can be tailored to the individual likes and interests of the receiver.

Stash

All those goodies came with some magazines over the last year. I picked the ones I liked and collected them. They will make a nice little gift for someone, stashed into a pretty box. Cover a box with nice wrapping paper, tie in cellophane and you're ready to go.

Fotoalbum





Coloured cardstock, enough for 24 photos





Cover and backing. Punch three holes through all the card.



Tie up with some ribbon. Don't tie it too tightly, the pages need some
room to "wriggle".

This is very quickly made and filled with photographs or personal memories and will be well received.

Wreath

Take florists' wire and twist it around the base of the cones.

Form a circle and twist the ends of the wire into a loop.
Disguise with a ribbon bow and decorate any way you like.

Again nature has generously provided part of the Christmas decor. This wreath can be reused for years to come.

Advent

I decided to give one person an advent calendar for adults this year and to tie one of the gifts under the tree in with it.
The envelopes could be filled with vouchers, little trinkets, tickets, money, jewellery, anything small and thin.

Candy

Take big candy canes and tie them to a rope or an existing garland, glue them around a votive with a glue gun or use short ones and stick the round ends and the straight ones together to make a heartshaped decoration for the tree. If you leave the plastic wrapper on the kids can eat them afterwards.

Yummy

Children always like to get something yummy, so if you have nice bottles or jars in the house, keep them and fill them with an assortment of sweet things, cookies or the dry ingredients for cookies or muffins and include the recipe and maybe a cookie cutter as well. Those have the added benefit of keeping little ones busy for an afternoons baking during the holidays.

P.S.: This was supposed to be yesterdays post, but blogger and the internet conspired to make it impossible to publish...mea culpa.