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Making Christmas Crafts

Create Warm Christmas Memories By Making Christmas Crafts

Making Christmas crafts was always a big part of Christmas in Grandma's day. Store-bought decorations were expensive and not as commonplace as they are now. Most families made their own decorations using simple items they had at hand.

As a child, my mother and her siblings threaded popcorn to make garlands for the Christmas tree. Ornaments were handmade of crepe paper, and some were edible cookies decorated with colorful frosting.

I'll never forget the gingerbread houses when I was young. Mom baked sheets of gingerbread which she cut to her hand-drawn pattern. Then, we stuck the pieces together using white icing and decorated it with more icing, gumdrops, and peppermint candy canes. It always sat on the sideboard until New Years Day, when I finally got to eat it. And although it must have been stale by then, I will never forget how good it tasted.

Create fond memories of Christmases past for yourself and your children by making Christmas crafts.

Christmas Tree Pine Pillow

This is a wonderful Christmas craft idea you can make for yourself when the festivities have ended. Mom made a pine needle pillow one year and whenever we saw it, we remembered the fun we had at Christmas.

This old-fashioned Christmas gift idea is taken from Mom's handmade recipe scrapbooks, circa 1929.

When you take down your Christmas tree after New Year's Day, make a pillow of the pine needles. Strip off all its needles and spread them out upon newspapers to dry. From tan or gray linen cut two squares, making them large or small to correspond to the quantity of needles you have. The cushion illustrated is 15 inches square.

From a piece of writing paper folded lengthways cut a small tree with three branches on each side and a trunk cut into points at its base to represent roots. Using this for a pattern, cut a second tree from a dark green material and applique it to the upper left-hand corner of one of the linen squares. Mark a section of a crescent moon appearing from behind the tip of the tree on the right side and fill it with long and short stitches in deep orange floss.

Baste the top and back together and bind with dark green bias seam tape, leaving part of one side open.

Put the pine needles in a separate case made from unbleached muslin. Slip inside the linen cover and sew the latter up along its open side.

This Christmas pillow will retain its healthful woodsy fragrance indefinitely and may be used and enjoyed for a much longer period than the Christmas holiday season.

Making Christmas Wreaths

Learn how to make a Christmas wreath the old-fashioned way. A natural Christmas wreath will add a traditional touch to your holiday decorations. The same method can be used to make a door wreath for any occasion.

Instructions For Making Christmas Wreaths

Enjoy making Christmas crafts with your family for use as gifts or for decorating your home for the holidays the old-fashioned way.

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