Easy-to-make crafts for Christmas decorating

Years ago, I couldn't wait to get my Christmas decorations up. When I was a young mom, we lived in Michigan, where we sometimes had snow before Halloween! It was easy to rush right through Autumn. Now that we live in North Carolina, we don't get to the prettiest of Autumn days until early November. I now find myself clinging to Autumn longer and longer, never wanting to decorate for Christmas until after Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving has now come and gone, so I'm in the mood to start decking the halls. I find myself decorating a little more simply every year, but I still want things to look festive. One of my favorite parts of decorating is using crafts I've made over the years. Of course, not every Christmas craft is worth keeping, but I've made a few that store easily and still look good years later. If you like traditional Christmas decorations, you'll like some of my favorite Christmas crafts from years past. These are so simple to make that there's still plenty of time to make them for this year.

If you were to come to my door, you'd be greeted by this large DIY Joy sign:

I made it from a 2' x 4' piece of plywood and 9 1/2" craft letters. All it took was some spray paint, glue, and a ruler! You can see the complete directions here.

Once again my kitchen window will wear this easy NOEL sign. Pottery Barn offered a similar sign a few years ago, but it was pretty pricey--so I created my own. Obviously it's modeled after the 1960's "LOVE" design--remember that tilted "O"?

Making your own version of the sign is a simple craft.  You'll need some kind of lightweight letters (I used pressboard letters in a shape similar to the Pottery Barn sign), balsa wood strips, and spray paint, and hot glue. The back will look like this:

You can see step-by-step instructions for the sign here.

I love to burn candles at Christmastime, but it can be a challenge to find pretty ones that aren't heavily scented. So these easy-to-make Christmas candles are a favorite craft of mine:

Would you believe that's a just a pretty napkin Mod-Podged onto a plain pillar? These are fun to display and make nice gifts as well. The full directions are here.

This next craft is so easy that it hardly even qualifies as a craft! Did you know you can make your own Christmas pillows from placemats?

Look for two-ply placemats. Just last week I bought a package of four at Home Goods for $9.99! Then simply open up the two layers of fabric with a seam ripper:

Fill with the stuffing of your choice or pop in a pillow insert, stitch or glue the opening back up, and you've got a cute pillow! If you need more explanation, you can see the complete instructions here.

Last year I captured a special memory by making a super-easy Christmas ornament out of one of my mother's favorite Christmas recipes. My mom died in 1999, so I love seeing this bit of her handwriting.

How about you? Do you make your own Christmas decorations? Have you started your Christmas decorating yet? I'd love to see what you're up to!

Joining Marty for Inspire Me Tuesday at A Stroll Thru Life

Kim for Wow Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style

DIY fun old-fashioned Christmas ornament

I had so much fun making a Christmas ornament from one of my mom's handwritten recipes (see that post here) that I decided to do a little more Christmas crafting.

I pulled an old technique from my Christmas memories and made this pretty stencilled ornament:

An ornament like this is super-easy to make and very inexpensive--perfect for gift-giving!

Here are the supplies you'll need (affiliate links provided for your convenience):

plain fabric
masking tape or painter's tape
small wooden embroidery hoop
craft paints in your choice of colors
stencil brushes
Christmas stencils
felt or fabric batting
sharp scissors

To start, you'll need a tiny embroidery hoop, like this 4" one.

You can usually find these at craft stores or sewing stores, or you can order them online. They should cost less than $2 apiece.

You'll also need a small piece of fabric. Unbleached muslin works well. I had a few scraps of grainsack cloth, so I used that.

Use your embroidery hoop to measure a square of fabric. You'll want your piece of fabric to be a bit larger than the hoop.

Next you'll need a Christmas stencil. To make this ornament, I used a stencil that I've owned for many years. But there are lots of Christmas stencils available; you'll just need to find some small ones. I found several at amazon.com that would work well for this project, like the ones in this little book:



If you can't find a stencil that strikes your fancy, you can always cut your own! Use a small piece of plastic or a piece of stiff cardstock (an old manila file folder works well). Use an exacto knife to very carefully cut out a design, and voila! Instant stencil!

I use acrylic craft paint for stencils. These are easy to find at craft stores, usually for less than $1 per bottle. No special paints needed.

One special tool you will need: a good stencil brush or brushes. I like the kind with bristles. You can use a foam pouncer, but I think the brushes with bristles are easier to control. The supply list above links to a great inexpensive set, or you can find them at your local craft store.

Tape your stencil to the fabric with masking tape or painter's tape. Be sure to tape the stencil down securely so that it won't wiggle while you're working. And cover all sides of the stencil so that no paint can escape over the sides of the stencil.

If you're using more than one color in your stencil, mask off the sections that you don't want to paint with the first color. For a project this small, you may have to tear tiny pieces of tape to cover up little bits of the stencil. For my ornament, I covered up the portions I wanted to be green and painted all the red parts of the design first. Then I removed the tape from the portions that needed green paint and taped over the red portions. Don't assume that you can carefully stay within the lines: you can't. Tape over anything you don't want painted with a particular color.

Squirt a bit of paint onto a palette (for this, I like to use an old plate). Dip your brush lightly into the paint, then brush off most of the paint. Seriously, this is the most important step. You want your brush to be almost dry before you start applying paint to the fabric. You might want to practice on a scrap piece of fabric first.

Now hold the stencil brush straight up and down and pounce paint onto the stencil. Pounce, pounce, pounce, pounce, pounce, straight up and down. You're adding just a teeny tiny bit of paint with every pounce of the brush. Do not stroke the paint from side to side; go straight up and down. If you need more paint, dip your brush again, but be sure to remove most of the paint before touching the fabric.

These three techniques—taping off parts of your design, removing most of the paint from the brush, and pouncing straight up and down—are the most important tips for ensuring that your image stays within the lines of the stencil.

Repeat the technique until you've used whatever colors you like and completed the entire image. Then carefully remove the stencil from the fabric and admire your work!

To frame the ornament in the embroidery hoop, first place the hoop on top of the design, like so:

Center the design in the frame. You can make a couple of small marks on the fabric if needed. (You can see that I really should have cut a larger square of fabric for this project; I barely had enough fabric to fit the hoop!)

Now cut a piece of felt or batting to place behind your painted fabric. This will make the painted fabric look nicer from both the front and the back.

Slide the larger portion of the embroidery hoop over the smaller portion of the hoop and tighten the screw so that the image is pulled taut.

Hint: if the screw is hard to tighten with your fingers, use pliers. You want to be sure that it's screwed together nice and tight!

When you're satisfied with the tautness of the image, trim away the excess fabric with scissors. Then tie on a ribbon or a piece of twine to serve as a hanger.

Ta da! You will have created a beautiful ornament in less time than it took me to write this blog post!

This technique is especially useful if you need to make several small gifts—you can get an assembly line going and make up a bunch of these in very little time. And they look so pretty hanging on the tree!

Do you like to make Christmas ornaments? I'd love to see your creations!

I'm joining these great parties:
Inspire Me Monday at My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia

Wow Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style
Fabulous Party at LouLou Girls
Sew It Cook It Craft It at Sew Historically
Creatively Crafty at Life Beyond the Kitchen
The Creative Circle
Thursday Favorite Things
Flaunt It Friday at Chic on a Shoestring
Share It One More Time at The Everyday Home

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If you make a purchase after clicking on these links, 

I will earn a small commission. 

Your price will not be affected in any way.
View my full disclosure policy here.*

How to capture a memory in a Christmas ornament

I know it's only the middle of October, but I've been doing a little bit of Christmas crafting, and I'm excited to share an idea for a homemade ornament with you.

I've had a good reason for my early crafting--I was delighted to be asked to join a group of bloggers who are creating handmade ornaments all month long!

Now, I'll have to give you some backstory for my ornament. I know it's not the most beautiful ornament you've ever seen. To be honest, my Christmas decorating follows more along sentimental lines than showy ones; you can take a look at my home decorated for last Christmas here to see what I mean.

But even more than that, Christmas is a time when I think of my mom. How she loved Christmas! From the time I was very small, when our family had very little money, all the way through more prosperous times, my mother made Christmas at our house a time to remember. She taught me to do the same in my own home. (Click here to read a very special Christmas memory of her!) She died back in 1999, and I miss her most at Christmastime.

Ever since my mom died, I've especially valued anything handwritten by her. I wish now that I'd saved every card and letter she ever sent me. It's not that her handwriting was special; it's just that it was a very particular part of her. I'd recognize her handwriting anywhere!

You can imagine how much I prize her handwritten recipe cards, like this one:

Her friend Bonnie gave my mom this recipe for Date Nut Balls, and my mother made them only at Christmastime. Can you see how the recipe card is yellowed? That's partly from age, of course, but it's mostly from having been used a lot!

I decided to make an ornament that would capture this wonderful Christmas memory.

First, I made a photocopy of the recipe; the original is in my recipe box, safe and sound. Then I found a simple piece of craft wood that was about the size of my recipe card. Nothing special here; any piece of wood would do. Since I made this I've found these pretty little wood plaques;I think they would work better. A piece of barn wood would be great, too.

The process for making the ornament couldn't be simpler. I just decoupaged the photocopy of the recipe to the piece of wood using Mod Podge.Since my recipe card was close to the color of the wood, I left the wood untreated; you could also paint the wood, especially if you had a piece a little larger than your card all around.

I added a Santa hat sticker in the corner for a bit of color and to commemorate the fact that my mother had a huge collection of Santas. The Santa hat I used was just a scrapbook sticker like this.To create a hanger, I hot-glued a piece of twine to the back of the card. That's it!

You can see in this photo that I used glossy Mod Podge, because that's what I had on hand. If I were starting over, I'd use the matte finish Mod Podge;I think that would look better.

As I said, it won't be the most beautiful ornament on the tree, but it will be full of the most beautiful memories!

You could do the same thing with a special note, a card, or any other precious memento. You could make it as simple as what I've shown here, or you could really make it fancy. Or to be even easier, you could just glue a ribbon to the back of the card and hang it on the tree! The important thing is the memory and the way it will warm your heart each time you see it.

Looking for lots of great Christmas ornament tutorials? You can follow the Handmade Christmas Ornaments Pinterest page so you don't miss a thing, or check out all the links here:

Here are all 31 Bloggers in order of their appearance:

Day 1 - Pet Scribbles | Day 2 - Yesterday on Tuesday
Day 3 - Cupcakes and Crinoline | Day 4 - An Extraordinary Day
Day 5 - Celebrating Everyday Life | Day 6 - Hunt and Host
Day 7 - Love of Home | Day 8 - Celebrate Creativity
Day 9 - Petticoat Junktion | Day 10 - What Meegan Makes
Day 11 - Atta Girl Says | Day 12 - Sweet Pea
Day 13 - Exquisitely Unremarkable | Day 14 - Imparting Grace
Day 15 - In My Own Style | Day 16 - 504 Main by Holly Lefevre
Day 17 - Inspiration for Moms | Day 18 - The Chelsea Project
Day 19 - I Should Be Mopping the Floor
Day 20 - My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia | Day 21 - Hearth and Vine
Day 22 - Shabby Art Boutique | Day 23 - Remodelando la Casa
Day 24 - Domestically Speaking | Day 25 - Swoodson Says
Day 26 - Stone Gable | Day 27 - My Creative Days
Day 28 - The Crafting Nook | Day 29 - Knick of Time
Day 30 - Lovely Etc. | Day 31 - Live Laugh Rowe

An InLinkz Link-up

Now, tell me: do you have a Christmas memory you'd like to capture in an ornament? I'd love to hear!

*This post contains affiliate links.

If you make a purchase after clicking on these links, 

I will earn a small commission. 

Your price will not be affected in any way.
View my full disclosure policy here.*

Christmas crafting

With every year that passes, I find myself more and more drawn to allowing Thanksgiving to occupy my thoughts throughout the Autumn. Years ago I would have wanted to charge into decorating for Christmas as early as possible, but now I'm content to leave my house dressed for Thanksgiving until after that holiday is past.

Thanksgiving 2016 is a memory now, so I'm starting to deck these halls for Christmas. This year I'm determined to keep things simpler so that I can focus on what's truly important. Still, I want my house to look festive and inviting!

One of my favorite methods of decorating for Christmas is to use crafts I've created in years past. I'm blessed to have attic space so that I can store these things from year to year. This year I'll be using these items from crafty Christmases past.

If you visit my house this December, you'll be greeted by this large DIY Joy sign:

I made it from a 2' x 4' piece of plywood and 9 1/2" craft letters. All it took was some spray paint, glue, and a ruler! You can see the complete directions here.

Once again my kitchen window will wear this easy NOEL sign. Pottery Barn offered a similar sign a couple of years ago, but it was pretty pricey--so I created my own. Obviously it's modeled after the 1960's "LOVE" design--remember that tilted "O"?

Making your own version of the sign is a simple craft.  You'll need some kind of lightweight letters (I used pressboard letters from Hobby Lobby because the shape is so similar to the Pottery Barn sign), balsa wood strips, and spray paint, and glue. The back will look like this:

You can see step-by-step instructions for the sign here.

I love to burn candles at Christmastime, but it can be a challenge to find pretty ones that aren't heavily scented. So these easy-to-make Christmas candles are a favorite craft of mine:

Would you believe that's a just a pretty napkin Mod-Podged onto a plain pillar? These are fun to display and make nice gifts as well. The full directions are here.

And this next craft is so easy that it hardly even qualifies as a craft! Did you know you can make your own Christmas pillows from placemats?

Look for two-ply placemats. Just last week I bought a package of four at Home Goods for $9.99! Then simply open up the two layers of fabric with a seam ripper:

Fill with the stuffing of your choice, stitch or glue the opening back up, and you've got a cute pillow! If you need more explanation, you can see the complete instructions here.

How about you? Have you started your Christmas decorating yet? Have you finished? Made any Christmas crafts? I'd love to see!

Creating a space for crafting

I'm so excited to share with you a new space in my home!  My friend Angie from The Country Chic Cottage is sharing tours of beautiful craft rooms this week, and I'm honored to participate.  I don't quite have a craft room, but I do have a special space to share!

Let me tell you how this little space came about.

First I should say that we're blessed to live in a large house, with lots of space for most everything.  There's room for reading, writing, working, playing, cooking, entertaining, exercising, relaxing--you name it, and we've got room for it.  Except for one thing.

There was no place for me to craft.  No place for my tools and supplies, no spot for me to perch and plan and create.  Let's face it--crafting is usually a fairly messy process, and there was no dedicated space for it.  So I kept my things stuffed into cupboards and closets and pulled them out to the kitchen whenever I wanted to make something.  Someday soon, when my boys are all grown up and out of the nest, I may have a dedicated room for crafting.  For now, I just wanted a place to work, store my materials, and keep my sewing machine set up!

And then one day, when I was changing the sheets on the guest room beds, it hit me.



See that door to the left?  Guess where that leads?



I had this large guest room closet, nice and bright and empty.



I've worked very hard create a welcoming space for guests, and I didn't want to mess that up.  But that was a lot of unused space!

So I measured and drew and schemed and planned and enlisted the help of the friendly wood cutter at Home Depot.

I removed the old closet rack from one side of the guest room closet and, aided by my trusty level, I mounted 1x6's to serve as brackets for a work surface and a shelf.  A pro would have mounted the 1x6's with nails, set the nails, and puttied over them, for a perfectly smooth surface.  I'm no pro, so I cheated: using my drill, I attached the 1x6's to the studs with screws. They're not pretty, but they're secure.



Holding my breath, I placed the sheets of wood that I'd so carefully measured atop the brackets.  Perfect fit!



Sanding and white paint finished off the job.  And now. . . I have a space for crafting!

While my electrician was here doing some work, I had him add an outlet to the desk area.  I was planning just to run an extension cord from the bedroom into the closet, but it's so much nicer to avoid that mess.  And my sewing machine is right at home!

You can probably tell from looking at my sewing machine that I'm not an expert seamstress.  Those lines of tape are there to help me sew straight seams!  But my little machine and I get the job done, and we have lots of fabric stored underneath the beds in the guest room.

I added baskets on the shelf to hold craft supplies.  (These are made by Sterilite--they're plastic and quite sturdy but look a little nicer than most plastic baskets.)  You can see a few things peeking over the tops of the baskets, but mostly things are kept neat and hidden away here.



And drawer units under the desk to hold more craft and sewing supplies:



I needed a few desktop organizers, so I covered some oatmeal containers with scrapbook paper from my stash.  Free.



I figured that a large bulletin board might come in handy on the desk top, so I created one by covering pieces of foam core board with batting and drop cloth.  Easy and inexpensive.  Among other things, I like to keep an ornament of the word "hope" hanging there, a reminder of one of my favorite verses, Romans 15:13:  "Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." 



My craft space isn't large--after all, it's still just half of the guest room closet.  But it's a sweet little space.  And there's still plenty of room for guests to hang their clothes:

Where there's a will, there's a way!

 

Thanks so much to Angie for inviting me to participate in her Craft Room tour!

I'm joining Sarah at Thrifty Decor Chick for her April Before and After party.