Craft Club Challenge - 3rd December 2012

Another week of Christmas Festivities

The Christmas tree is up and the sitting room is draped with traditional Christmas swags and glistening baubles...the full and warming scent of Christmas spice fills the air as candles flicker and dance to magic of Christmas anticipation. Stockings are hung neatly at the ready around the glowing fire....just a few more touches needed to embellish my dream of the perfect Christmas!

This weeks challenge is for your imagination to take you on your perfect Christmas dream.

Criteria:

Create a card or Christmas craft project using images that make your Christmas into that warm ideal celebration...it may be family that make your celebrations special, it may be the Christmas decorations....it may be a good glass of hot spicy mulled wine and warm mince pies...how about oranges studded with cloves and hung on decorative ribbons, or thoughts and photos of our family or friends who are no longer with us but at this time of year jolt our memories of good times and celebrations.

Here are a few ideas:

• A block of wood, adorned with decorative papers, ribbons and jewels with photos of Christmas past.
• Create your own Christmas fairy or a string of fairies to hang from the top of a cupboard.
• Create clove studded oranges to hang from the Christmas tree and include ribbons and beads.
• Make decorative wine glass stem rings to help guests identify their drinks.
• Buy a special bottle of wine and create a hanging display with a photo to be hung round the neck of the bottle then raise a toast to that person so that they will never be forgotton.
• Gather twigs, berries and pine cones and create your own wreath.

• Create a Christmas card display by visiting a charity shop and buying a small second hand tree and pegging the cards to the branches...additional ribbons and pine cones add interest whilst the tree is empty.

Remember that if you just want to create cards use some of the above for ideas. You may also gain inspiration from the following photos.....see where they take you!

(click once to enlarge these photos)

Over the next few weeks I will create more Christmas accents to decorate my cottage so watch out for the photos...here is one of my projects I will be putting together  (the stars and accents are created by using paper napkins glued onto mount board then die but using chuncky sizzix dies...close up photos and the finished wreath will be posted here shortly.)

 The clove studded orange is another of my favourites...more embellishments will be added and a lovely tassel hanging from the loop at the bottom.

 Here is my "Toast a Memory" addition for Christmas....we hang a plaque around a special bottle of wine with a photo in the centre, then on Christmas morning the bottle is opened and we drink a toast to that special person who is no longer with us and recount fond memories of Christmas' past.  This ensures our future memories include the ones we love and miss!

The photo is still to go in but this one is for my nanny and there will be another one for my Uncle Bert who passed away when I was 18.

Next week is my last working week till Christmas then I will be finishing off and adding additional pieces and accents to projects and will go back to past posts and up-date some of the photos, so take a look at our last year and reflect how busy it has been.

Happy Christmas crafting!