1. Make some Christmas cards. You may think that making your own takes up SO much time, SO much effort and SO much money. WRONG! All you need to start is some card blanks-[good card folded and creased in two, a basis for a card, without anything on it basically] and either a couple of festive stamps and ink pads in festive colours or some seasonal images[downloadable for free from the likes of pexel.com or pixabay,com] found on the net , cut out from last years cards, or buyable as sets from a craft shop or website, plus some glue[wouldn't recommend glue sticks personally as pictures sometimes don't stick well or curl.
2. Make and decorate a gingerbread house scene. This activity you will find is featured a lot in those American Christmas family/rom-com movies set in mid west small towns, the sort Jessica Fletcher from Murder She Wrote lives in , where the people never seem to watch tv but fill most of the film time having barn dances, running the local general store, decorating the town or partaking in some other community involving family friendly activity, in a town with only a sheriff and his assistant to keep law and order. Often a gingerbread house decorating competition is featured with the visiting hero and heart throb judging . Now Im not saying that you should round up all the residents of your local town and press gang them into doing something that involves the whole town turning out at the same spot in the town at exactly the same time but perhaps engage your family in this activity. Dad being the macho type could with the help of boy offspring assemble the house then daughter offsprings and mums could decorate with dad and son helping. Or maybe make and decorate one as an alternative kind of present for a friend. Perhaps an activity to include at your club or church Christmas fair as something different.
3 Decorate plain baubles for your Christmas tree. Nowadays you can get clear glass or plastic acrylic baubles that come in two halves so you can make a little scene with pictures or photos before putting the two halves together or do what you can also do with ordinary plain coloured ones and jazz them up with glitter or a glitter pen design. You could get some of those flat back faux gems and fix them on to bling them up or just simply stick a small picture on or write names on with metallic pen to personalize them for a totally unique look.
4. Crackers! No, Im not calling you nuts, honestly. But, I wonder how many of you made crackers at school when you were younger. It's not hard to take the same ideas as we did as children and take it to the next step. Yes, you can start with a good old fashioned toilet roll middle[what would we have done with them when we were younger to make all our crafty things,lol!] but these days we are not constricted to crepe paper wrappings, as these days there are so many different kinds of paper and card available that we can use. A few layers of different coloured tissue paper wrapped round can look good and with the trend being especially in these days of same sex relationship recognition, this would perhaps suit a Christmas table in a same sex household plus it would add a pop of bright colour to a plain white table setting. There are marbled papers, handmade paper, shiny metallic paper plus the way the trend wrapping wise seems to be moving towards at the moment, brown parcel or kraft paper with coloured string or ribbon. Fixing the papers on is easier to these days as one of my favourite crafty staple is the tape runner , or tape pen as it is sometimes called. It is basically double sided sticky tape on a roll and means you can stick paper and card together without the sitcky being seen. You can get them from most craft shops that have papercraft products. The Range, Wh Smith and even Poundland and Dealtz. As for things and ways to decorate well the list is endless and Dealtz, Poundland and The Works are treasure trove for embellishments for this purpose . Small items for the gifts inside them can easily and cheaply picked up from your local pound shop or places like Home Bargains or even charity shops. Cracker making doesn't have to be just a child craft activity and you can make yourself totally unique personal crackers that you know absolutely no one else will have anywhere!
Why not this year instead of buying a pound box of dried pastry, suet filled greasy tasting mince pies, make your own. This doesn't have to be a long drawn out thing and there are simple steps you can do to make shop bought ingredients taste a bit special and more homemade. Yes , buy your sweet mincemeat in jars but when you go to make your pies, put the mincemeat in a bowl and stir a grated apple or two into it, or add the zest and juice of a couple or oranges and a touch or dried cinnamon into it before you put it into the pastry bases. Shop bought pastry lie Jus-Rol has lost it stigma these days and its not thought a failure if you use it anymore, with even top tv chefs sometimes extolling its virtues so if it is good enough for them it is good enough for you. Perhaps before you pop the pies in the oven, brush them with a mix of milk and a coffee liqueur like bailey or orange liqueur then a bit of brown sugar or flavoured sugar for that little bit different touch. If your don't fancy doing that, well even a shop bought mince pie can look a teensy bit more homemade if you warm them in the oven, then before they have cooled, glaze with orange juice and sieve bit of icing sugar on.
More ideas tomorrow folks x
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