Made Marian: Oozing Crafty Goodness

Christmas is well and truly over at this stage but here are a few photos from a Made Marian Christmas.

I made this mulled wine to take with us when going visiting on Christmas Eve, I used a screw top bottle of wine and poured the yummy Christmassy-ness back into the bottle. To spruce it up (pun intended) I made a new label for the bottle out of some Christmas Fabric and decorated the top of the bottle with a piece of our Christmas Tree and a some festive ribbon.

These are vintage baubles, from the Christmas Trees of my childhood.

The old and the new, the pink one is also vintage, however the one on the right is made by Waterford Crystal.

To infinity and beyond, Buzz Lightyear comes from this American ceramics company.  He was sent over last Christmas, along with Tweetie Bird and a Snowman Band as an engagement gift from a family friend.

Candles lighting up our “Bar”.

If you don’t have the time to make cards this Christmas (like me), a good way to get crafty but save time is to make your gift tags.  I picked up a mixed pack of festive card making supplies at the knitting and stitching show so I used those to make lots and lots of gift tags.  Here’s a small selection……..

I don’t often praise Supermarkets but these foam Christmas Tree shapes were a real find in my local Tesco.  I can’t remember how much I paid for them but it was about the €2 or €3 mark for 16.

So, here’s what I did with them……

And here’s what I used to do it……

A box of buttons

A hole punch and some Christmas ribbon

And a pack of glue dots

Here’s what you do…

Stick your button onto the glue dot and lift it off carefully to ensure that the dot is on the button.

Then attach the button to the card

Keep going till you like the look of your tree

Then punch a hole in the top

Put some nice ribbon through the hole

Ta da!

Browsing through The Guardian’s Life and Style section is one of my favourite things to do at the weekend, they always have great articles about fashion, food and crafts.  I logged on this morning and found exactly the inspiration I was looking for in these hand made Christmas cards.  I’m particularly fond of the one on the bottom row with the tree made completely out of buttons.  It’s a new spin on my usual trick of using the buttons as decorations.  I’ll definitely be trying this out today.

Update:

I tried out the button card…..

I started by drawing out a light guideline for the triangle and then sticking the buttons down within my guidelines.

Then I stamped on the greeting and drew on the star, easy peasy.  Here’s the finished product…

What do you do with a load of Christmas fabric…

and some embroidery hoops….

you make festive wall hangings

I’ve held out for long enough, the festive season is around the corner so it’s time for some Christmas posts. These are some napkin rings that I started for last Christmas but only finished yesterday.

These gorgeous buttons came from Helsinki and they are just sewn onto a simple ring of crochet as follows:

• Chain 31
• Row 1 - 4 SC in second chain from the hook, SC across (30)
• Join the ends and sew on the button

After last year’s mammoth task of making nearly all my Christmas presents I wasn’t so brave this year.  I am making some of them but not as many as last year (phew!!)  I did manage this scarf for my other half’s Grandmother though.

This is a variation on my standard crochet scarf, I just did a few extra rows of double crochets and used a fine cotton yarn.

I’m working on some ornaments at the moment so I should be back soon.

This was Snoopy at the weekend……

I’m in the process of finishing him off as we speak however I am in fear at this stage he’s looking like a very cute white dog but not enough like Snoopy.  More pictures later in the week.

I recently bought a pattern for this Snoopy toy on Etsy and I’m about to make a start on it now.

The Etsy seller in question is on holidays at the moment so there are no patterns for sale but check out the blog in the meantime. Wish me luck

It was well worth the visit and if you’re interested in any crafts I would recommend it for next year.  They had plenty of card making and jewellery making supplies as well as fabric, yarn and other bits and bobs.  Here are some of the things I brought home.

Yarn from This is Knit - I plan to do some gloves and a scarf from this.

Ribbons for Christmas Present Wrapping.

Extra supplies for Christmas Card making.

Just a quick note to say Happy Christmas to anyone that might be stopping by.  Enjoy whatever the festive season means to you.  I have already opened many of my presents and there is definitely a crafty theme going on with my loved ones

Anyway, eat drink, be merry and crafty!!