Christmas crafting

Since I can’t yet post pictures of the sewing I’ve been working on lately (I’m gonna have some great post-Christmas posts, though), I thought I’d show off a few Christmas crafts I worked on, you know, back when I thought I actually had time to craft and make a gazillion Christmas presents. Silly girl!

Anyway, I knew as soon as I saw the twisted felt garland over on The Purl Bee that I had to make it. It seemed so simple and yet so sophisticated. And it was — except simple does not equate to quick. I bought ¼ yard of white and red felt, like it calls for, but instead of just doing a few strips like they do, I cut the whole ¼ yard into strips, winding up with six or seven yard-long garlands by the time I was done (which was several days and episodes of Mad Men later). I decided not to string them together (after all, where would I put seven yards of felt garland? Our tree is decorated in blue and white, so that wouldn’t do.). Instead, I used several garlands to line our window sills and then several more to make a wreath for our front door.

A couple of years ago, I made a cranberry wreath that I loved, but it seems to have disappeared over the course of a couple of moves, and this seemed like a great way to use the garland. I bought a simple straw wreath from the dollar store and just wrapped the garlands around and around, tucking the ends into the wreath to make them stay. I thought about adding a ribbon (or more garland) to hang it, but in the end, I decided it looked better on its own. I think it turned out pretty cute.

My other new piece of holiday décor came about as a result of my Thanksgiving travails. I went to California for Thanksgiving to visit Matt’s family and ended up getting stranded at the Denver airport on Thanksgiving Eve. The next morning, I stopped at the airport’s Caribou Coffee before my flight and saw their super cute holiday napkins. I decided they would be perfect in a little frame. I bought some sparkly teal scrapbook paper, mounted the napkin, and put it in a white frame I already had. Voila! Cute new mantle decoration.

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