12 Days of Christmas Crafting (Days 7-12)

Welcome to the 12 Days of Christmas Crafting (Days 7-12). Thanks for continuing this crafting journey with me. However, if this is your first time popping in, welcome! I’m sharing here ideas to help create a beautiful handmade Christmas. These are great projects that you can create with your kids or friends, so alongside finishing with some beautiful items, you’ll also enjoy a lovely time connecting. Check these out below, and then pop on over to see days 1 -6 HERE.

Day 7 – Christmas Baubles

Today’s project is all about giving a little personalisation to your Christmas tree, with the cutest Christmas Baubles.

I found some fillable baubles while I was out shopping, and immediately devised a plan to get my Cricut back into action with them. (In NZ / Australia you can get these at Spotlight, in North America I’m sure Michaels, Hobby Lobby etc will have them).

I chose two different images to use – Merry & Bright (#M3F847) from CTMH’s Artbooking cartridge (if you’re a scrapbooker, this is a must have cartridge). The Merry Christmas is from CTMH’s newest digital offering, Complete Creativity. I used just a simple white vinyl – although of course you could use any colour you like.

Using Vinyl with your Cricut

When using vinyl, it’s a 3 step process. First you design and cut on the cricut (using a vinyl setting). You then ‘weed’ your image – which essentially means you take away all of the waste that’s not part of the completed image. Once this is done, you cover your image in transfer tape, lift it off its backing sheet, and then apply it to your surface.

Because the baubles are round, it is important to not make your image too large – it’s much harder to adhere nicely onto a rounded surface vs a nice flat one. I cut mine at around 2″ (my baubles are around 2.5″ in diameter).

Once you’ve done that, you can then fill them. Because I have a very ‘traditional’ Christmas tree, I found the Holiday Loose Sequins to be the perfect fill. The pack includes a fabulous assortment of loose sequins, in various sizes and shades of each.

It’s also a great way to use up some of your stash, because boy those sequins go a long way.

So how easy was that?!! And they look so good right! This is a great wee project that you CAN do!

Day 8 – Utensil & napkin holder place setting

Thanks for checking back in for today’s project. I hope it’s another one of my 12 Days of Christmas Crafting’s that you’re going to love.

Today we see the return of the gorgeous elf – because how could we not have him come back?! I hope you all love him as much as I do.

I saw this idea somewhere (sorry I can’t find the original post), and thought that it would be a great thing to do for my table this year. It neatly holds your cutlery, a napkin, and it also doubles as a place name setting.

It was pretty easy to do too, you just have to make sure that when you adhere it, that you don’t stick ‘all’ of the edge down, because you need to leave room for it to take the contents. Hopefully this’ll make sense as we continue.

I created mine using Kraft paper – this seems to be one of my favourite Christmas crafting ‘tools’.

Here are the instructions if you’d like to re-create it.

Utensil and Napkin holder instructions

1. Cut your Kraft cardstock at 4″ and then again at 6″
2. Cut your 6″ piece to 6″ (so you’ll have a 6″ square)
3. Cut your 4″ piece to 4×10 (ie. take 2″ off the top)
4. Cut your elf, then stamp using archival/intense black ink
5. Score your 6″ square at 5/8″ from each side and the bottom and burnish
6. Stamp onto this now if you’re going to (ie. a name)
7. Run liquid glass or glue dots along the outside of the bottom flap and adhere to the 4×10″ strip
8. Run liquid glass / glue dots along the outside edges (from 6″ down) of the 4×10 strip and fold the 6×6 pieces onto it, leaving a gap. (You can see in the photo below that there’s a gap. The easiest way to ensure you do this correctly, is to run your adhesive along the edge of your base, and then adhere your ‘square’ on top. The square has been sized to be ‘too big’ which allows for it to ‘expand’ when you put your items in the pocket.)
9. Colour your elf as desired (I used tri-blend markers)
10. Paint a little swash under the elf’s feet, then adhere the elf using foam tape.

Day 9 – personalised gift wrapping

Welcome to day 9 of the 12 Days of Christmas Crafting. I have to start with a disclaimer here – well actually, two. First off, I’m not a fan of wrapping presents generally because the ‘greenie’ in me finds it very wasteful. I’m also really bad at it (I’d never get a job in a shopping mall wrapping), so prefer to leave it all to my husband.

However, because I know you can’t put unwrapped presents under the tree, I come to a bit of a compromise with myself, and try and use the most eco friendly thing I can.

I’m a big fan of a great big roll of brown paper. I bought a huge one of these donkeys years ago – it lasted me about 25 years – seriously! It is such good value, and the paper is recyclable, so it’s got to be a winner. But I know brown paper on its own could be a little boring for some. That’s where your craft stash comes in – stamps and ribbon to the rescue!

Get out your Christmas stamps stash, and random stamp images and sentiments all over your brown paper. (This is also a great project to do with kids.) The stamping totally brings it to life.

Use your stash!

I’m waiting on delivery on my next big roll of brown paper, but I did have this paper in my stash. It’s a beautiful soft print, that could be used for any purpose.

So I grabbed a few stamps from the No Peekin’ stamp set and just random stamped in Candy Apple ink.

It looks a bit random right!

But, wrap that around a present, add a bit of ribbon (I’ve used Candy Apple Striped Ribbon) and it starts to look really good.

If you’re doing this Christmas eve / morning, if you’re taking the gift to a friend, I think it’s also nice to add in a little something from your garden. If you’re like me, you’ll have an unending supply of rosemary (seriously the easiest thing ever to grow). A spring of this tucked under the ribbon looks great, and smells amazing.

At this time of year, I also have hedges of blooming jasmine, which smells just divine. I’m off to deliver this to a friend, so she’s getting the jasmine version.

So there you have it. Another quick, simple idea to make use of your craft stash this Christmas. And, it’s good for the planet – what’s not to love.

Day 10 – Christmas gift bags

Now that we’re at the gift wrapping stage, I thought I’d share another option. Gift bags can often be the simplest way to give a gift. Years ago I bought a box of little white gift bags in bulk. They’ve come in so handy, and of course, they’re environmentally friendly, so it’s another double win.

But a white bag on its own can be a little boring. Luckily, they’re very easy to jazz up, whether that’s just with some beautiful ribbon, a gorgeous gift tag (watch this space), or something else.

Today, I’m sharing that ‘something else’. Here’s what you can do with some paper scraps, and a very clever thin cut set.

How cute is that?!!

The thin cut set is on the left – this will show you that as clever as my bag looks, it was SO simple to create. All you have to do is cut the pieces and put it together. The image on the right shows cards make with the set – yes – the set is specifically designed to fit your standard card size.

Now – if you realise that you NEED this set, I have to tell you that I just checked on it, and stock is running low. So order it NOW before you’re sad you missed out.

Day 11 – Gift tags

As it gets closer to Christmas, and you’re wrapping gifts, it’s time for gift tags right?!

Close To My Heart must have been reading my mind, because yesterday on their blog, they did a post on gift tags.

These gift tags were all created using images from the Complete Creativity Cricut collection. To be more correct, the tags have been created by using and manipulating shapes etc in the collection. So they’ve created an entire new project, and they’re giving the design space file away for FREE. How cool and generous is that?!! Click HERE if you’d like it.

What about if you don’t have a Cricut?

If I’m not using my Cricut, I have used CTMH’s Tag Thin Cut set to create some simple tags. It is an amazing set, that sadly is no longer available.

Here’s an example, that was ‘cased’ from my clever friend Rachel at Creative Workshops. It uses a tag base, with a design created on a thin cut stitched circle. Super simple, so you could knock out dozens of these in minutes, and SO effective.

However, if you don’t have a tag template, over at My Moments and Memories, there is a free printable download, that has a Christmas tag as part of it, alongside a blank tag shape. This is really simple to use, as you can just print these out onto white or kraft cardstock, punch a hole, write a quick note, and attach. Click HERE to see them etc.

Day 12 – Christmas tree photo wall

Our last project in this series is one using photos. I’ve wanted to do something like this for years, but I don’t have any painted walls in my house (they’re all wallpapered). But, now I have my beautiful new kitchen, I have one teeny weeny painted wall (back of a cabinet if I have to be honest, but it’s enough).

This is a Christmas tree made up of photos from Christmases’ past. It has been our tradition from when the kids were little, to take two photos of the cousins. One is in order of eldest to youngest, and in the last 10 years or so, we started another one – in order of tallest to shortest! That has been the funniest thing to record and watch. Not all the kids are happy about ‘moving down the ranks’!! Naturally, we also take a full gathering photo, and 1000’s of others to document the day.

So my tree shows a snippet from the last 15 years of Christmases together. I know it’s going to generate a lot of looks and laughs. I was giggling the whole way through when choosing the photos. It’s so funny to look back at how small the kids were, how their personalities showed, how hair styles changed (did you all have the battle with long hair?!), and for us oldies, how our <cough> bodies have changed. The photos also tell the story of our homes, it’s fascinating to go back like this and see how they’ve changed. It is a good way to see progress.

Make your own photo tree

Would you like to create your own tree? Let me give you a few hints on how to go about it.

1. Find a wall and measure it out. Because mine was so small, I printed my photos as 3×4’s. (Standard size is 6×4). If you’ve got a larger wall you could well do 6×4’s.
2. Choose your photos – you’ll need around 40. Hopefully you’ve got a great system for storing them. I use Historian – this is simply the best, easiest and most functional photo sorting software I’ve ever come across. (You can download a free 30 day trial if you’re interested. Register here first, and you’ll receive a $10 coupon to use if you decide to purchase it.)
3. Print your photos. Because I needed 3×4’s, I first formatted them to fit two to a 4×6 page. Why? Because most times, printing 4×6’s is your cheapest option. I use Artisan software to do this, but you may be able to do this yourself at many photo booths.
4. Once you’ve got your photos printed, plan out your wall. You’ll start with a single photo at the top, so it’s a good idea to measure and get this one centred in your space. If I had a larger wall, I would have done rows from 1 to 8, ie. first row 1, second row 2, …. eighth row 8. I used blue tac to attach them, so that I can easily remove it after Christmas.
5. Finish your tree with a star. I cut mine on my Cricut, using some beautiful gold glitter paper from CTMH. Because my photos were only 3×4, I made my star 3″. Size yours appropriately for your photos.
6. Et voila!

Here’s another photo, this time with my kitchen in the background, so you can see the scale of it.

And there ends our 12 Days of Christmas Crafting. I do hope you’ve enjoyed all the projects, and have had a go at one or two. Or perhaps you’ll squirrel away the ideas for next year? Don’t forget to pin the post now if that’s the case, so you can find it when you go looking next year.

I’d love to hear which has been your most favourite project / day? Pop it in the comments below.

Best wishes for a Christmas filled with all the joys of the season.

PS. PIN this post so you can find it easily later.