It's "Almost" The Most Wonderful Time of The Year

It's the season to be jolly, there's just something about the Christmas season which fills your heart with hope, joy and make just maybe the odd Christmas Miracle.  

I'm a Christmas person, I love the season, and yes to me it is a season, which kind of starts just after my Birthday in September.  That's when I start my planning; mind you I usually start my Christmas Shopping in January in order to spread the cost!  

Right now, I'm planning my Christmas decorations and starting to work on some which are more craft based.  I'm a bit of a traditionalist, my tree tends to be red and gold, and although my tree is artificial as I have a rather excitable golden retriever who would probably chew or try to drag a real one in to the garden, it's green, I'm not a black or multi-colour tree type person.  

Over the next couple of weeks I'll be working on a few craft projects, which I'll share here and hopefully it'll help get you in the Christmas Spirit! 

One of the focal points of my decorating is my fireplace, it's the centre of my living room and draws the eye especially on cold winters night when the fire is roaring away.  So, in previous years I've had small Christmas tree decorations, which have stood, on either side of the mantel, unfortunately last year they showed their age and I started thinking I needed to replace them.  

Now, I find a great place to go for ideas and inspiration these days is Pinterest and that's where I got the idea for my new Ribbon Christmas Trees.  Basically I usually have two sizes of candle stands on my fireplace, for Christmas I replace one Candle with a tree and these trees are a great look.  

To make these trees you will need 

•   Polystyrene Cone 

•   Ribbon 

•   Pearl topped dressmaker pins. 

•   A stand (Candle stick stand or something similar)

I started off purchasing a polystyrene cone from a fabric supplier and two reams of ribbon in my choice of Christmas Colours (Red and Green), I also purchased a whole load of Pearl top dressmaker pins from amazon.co.uk.  My candle stick stands are from Sainsbury's but I've had them for several years.  

To start your tree place your cone on your stand, you should ideally size the cone so it fits the width of the base comfortably.  The first layer of ribbon is a bit of an experiment as to how large you want the loops to be.  I've found once I have the size of ribbon I'm comfortable with at the bottom of the tree I tend to trim it smaller as I move up the cone.  I wanted a ribbon length which would just hang over the base of the cone, hiding the top of the candle stick.  Once I had experimented a bit with the length of ribbon I then decided on how I wanted to fold it.  You can either fold the ribbon in half and pin it or as I have in this one twist the ribbon round to make a loop.  

Once you have your loop and you've decided on where you Ribbon should fall pin the loop in place with your dressmaker pins.  Once you have your first loop in place and you're happy with it you repeat the process until you have one level  complete.  At this point I took my second colour ribbon cut to the same length as the first and started my second layer.  I made sure to cover the pins of the first layer with the loops of the second.  I then repeated the process layer after layer up the cone.  

When you get to the centre of the cone depending on how your layers are falling and your personal preference you can start trimming the ribbon shorter to give you that tree like look.  

As you get to the top of the tree make your ribbon slightly longer again to cover the tip on the cone and your finished article will look something like this; 

You can customise this tree any way you want, there are multiple ways to fold/wrap the ribbon, mix colours and texts and even add decorations.  I'm currently looking for a star or something to put on the top and will update when I find the right thing! 

My second Christmas Craft Idea for this year is framed Christmas Printable.  This idea I got from my vision wall which is something I use in my writing, taking pictures that inspire me and putting them together as a sort of mood board.   

So I adapted my Vision Wall to incorporate my favourite Christmas quotes and pictures, I printed them out and found some nice and not too expensive picture frames.  I plan to dot these around the house once I have the rest of my decorations in place.  

My last piece of craft work this weekend has been an idea for my kitchen decoration.  Last year in the sales I came across this glass jar in the shape of a Christmas tree, it was a bargain purchase and one I wasn't sure what I would do with save fill it with sweets but then I saw something similar in a store window and adapted the idea.  

I purchased some snow effect dust from the Range and poured it in to the base of the jar, I then found light up Christmas tree which I've stood in the snow.  Currently I have my Santa and Christmas Tree salt and pepper set sitting in there but I'm looking for other ornaments at the moment.  I also have a favourite quote in an ornate frame to finish off the scene.