WARNING: The following post is picture heavy! 😀
I am not a huge Christmas Crafter – probably because up until May this year I was a serial renter which seems to suck the joy out of pretty much everything.
Last year, our first back home in NZ, I participated in the 2011 New Zealand Handmade Christmas Ornament Swap and again this year because I LOVE handmade Christmas ornaments, as our Christmas tree, in all its artificial glory, clearly shows!
Ours is a higgledy piggledy tree with no clear theme, apart from the obvious one, Christmas!
I used to admire those pretty colour coded, themed trees you see in the shops but really I find no joy with them.
Perhaps our tree does have a theme, handmade, because apart from the tinsel (and next year I have an idea to begin replacing that!), the lights, one buzzy bee and a handful of small sparkly baubles, everything else is handmade.
But I get ahead of myself because my 2012 NZ Handmade Ornament arrived late last week from my swap partner, Renee of KnittWhitt, and it is so very very cool.
Isn’t it amazing?! And sparkly! It fits our tree “theme” perfectly.
Basically it is pins stuck into a polystyrene ball with a sequin and bead under the head. Simple but so beautiful, and did I mention sparkly? I am really impressed at how neatly she spaced all the sequins, it took me a while to figure it out. During the day, when the sun hits the tree, it lights up and at night, with the tree lights on, it almost glows on it’s own.
I would love to have a go at making one next year!
For Renee’s ornament, I hummed and hawed and finally selected a little softie from How to Make Stuffed Animals by Jennifer Korff. When I saw her Deer Cake Topper I knew the stag would make a great Rudolf!
Deer Cake Topper – Jennifer Korff
They were a little bit fiddly to sew (only a little bit of hand sewing at the end) but quite satisfying and (believe it or not) relaxing to make, I am quite proud of them.
I was originally going to go very Christmas with my fabric selection but eventually changed my mind and went for a kind of vintagy feel instead, I’m glad I did. I also made two at the same time in the hopes that at least one would turn out nice enough to give to Renee.
They look very strange until stuffed
…and really creepy without any eyes!
In the end they were both a bit wonky, but in a super cute way so that made me smile.
For the nose I originally asked Nerdy Hubby what he thought of a big red button and he agreed it was a great idea. Later on, by myself, I overrode our collective decision and decided to go with a small red circle of felt instead.
I showed Nerdy Husband the final Rudolfs:
“What happened to the big red button noses?”
“I thought they looked too big so I changed them for a bit of felt instead”
“No, the buttons were perfect, they suit the wonkyness. Go get your unpicker…”
At least I can always rely on his honesty:
So finally I wrapped one of them up for posting:
And here is my Rudolf on my tree:
If you are interested here are a few of my other handmade ornaments (click an image for the gallery):
This year I also decided to make myself a Christmas table cloth so I bravely ventured into Spotlight where it was crazy busy but the “50% off all Christmas fabric” sign made queuing for a ridiculously long time while a single staff member served the entire store all worth it.
Our table expands to seat 8 in a square, it is high, like you find in a bar, and everyone who has sat at it LOVES it. I had to join two lengths of fabric together but the join is lost in the pattern…also I didn’t bother to iron it for this photo, sorries 😉 I will iron it before Christmas day!
I was aiming for Christmassy-but-not-tacky…
OK, last photo I promise, then all the Chrstmas craftyness is out of my system 😉 While I was sick at home I spent some quiet time making Christmas Crackers for everyone:
It was nice and relaxing and I am looking forward to giving them out on Christmas day.
I just want to finish this post by saying a (very late) thank you to Womaximum for nominating me for the Liebster blog award and Sewionista who awarded me the Very Inspiring Blogger award. I just recently posted about the One Lovely Blog Award so you can pop over and read that post for some new interesting facts about me. Thank you ladies, why don’t you go and check out their amazing blogs too?
the curious kiwi 