A Homemade Christmas

A Homemade Christmas

A Homemade Christmas

Creative Ideas for an Earth-Friendly, Frugal, Festive Holiday

Tina Barseghian

Illustrations by Alison Kendall

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter One: Greeting

Chapter Two: Trimming

Chapter Three: Cooking

Chapter Four: Giving

Chapter Five: Celebrating

Resources

About the Author & Illustrator/Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION

The idea of a homemade holiday sounds appealing: taking the time to create handcrafted gifts and decorations, making home-baked goodies, and enjoying quality time with family. But too often, our busy and over-committed schedules don’t allow us to slow down. Our consumer culture encourages us to spend the holidays in a frenzy of wasteful buying and materialism, and the countdown to Christmas becomes fraught with expense and anxiety instead of fun and anticipation. This book is intended to help you find a new approach—to break the cycle and create a meaningful, modern, family- and earth-friendly homemade holiday.

The philosophy behind A Homemade Christmas is simple: Giving part of yourself—your time, efforts, and talent—will help you get into the genuine holiday spirit. And with personal gestures that come straight from the heart—by way of a handmade gift or a home cooked meal—you’ll not only discover new holiday meaning, you’ll also demonstrate your appreciation for those you love. Involve family members, including kids, friends, and even colleagues, in your plan to have a homemade Christmas.

But rest assured, a homemade Christmas does not require an inordinate amount of extra time, it does not call for much financial outlay, and you don’t have to be a highly skilled crafter or cook. All you need to do is make the choice that this year you’re going to take a new approach to the holiday revelry. Relax, step away from the frenzy, and head into this Christmas season with the knowledge that it’s all about your attitude.

A Homemade Christmas shows you how to take back the holidays with an easy-to-follow blueprint for adding a homemade touch to everything you do. You’ll find it’s not only easier than you thought, but also much more enjoyable. Each of the five chapters in this book covers one aspect of traditional Christmas celebrations and provides a wealth of ideas, projects, tips, and advice for going homemade.

Greeting: The holidays offer a great opportunity each year to reach out to friends and family. Here are a number of ideas to create personal, artful cards that are also green, quick, and fun to make.

Trimming: Express yourself and show some flair by decorating your home and trimming your tree. This chapter is packed with ideas for making decorations and ornaments, projects for handmade embellishments, suggestions for quick homemade touches, and earth-friendly tips.

Cooking: Delicious meals, delectable sweets, mouth-watering aromas wafting from the kitchen—holiday cooking is the very essence of Christmas. Here are simple suggestions for cooking and sharing the bounty of the kitchen.

Giving: It’s the heart of the holiday spirit. Find creative ways to put your talents to use in this chapter. Choose from a variety of clever ideas and easy instructions for handcrafted presents and thoughtful alternatives for gifts that draw on your unique skills and enthusiasms.

Celebrating: Traditions give the holidays context and meaning, and draw people together. This chapter offers ideas for creating new traditions, cementing old ones, and making connections with the community.

Children’s uninhibited joy is what makes Christmas delightful for everyone, so within each chapter we offer suggestions for kid-friendly projects, ways to include little ones in your preparations, and ideas for fun, homemade family activities. You’ll also see the recurring theme of finding ways to green your holidays with eco-conscious choices.

We hope the ideas in A Homemade Christmas inspire you with a sense of renewal to enjoy the holiday.

Chapter
ONE
GREETING

Send a Photo Card

Make a Holiday Stamp

Stitch Up a Greeting

Fashion a Felt Card

Reuse Paint Color Chips

Construct a Pop-Up Card

Collage a Card

Recycle Cards of Christmases Past

Go Hi-Tech

Share the Christmas spirit with heartfelt holiday greetings.

The holidays provide the perfect occasion to send warm wishes to all those we care about. Busy months speed by, and between work, school, travel, and the distractions of life, we may not have the time or opportunity to reach out and catch up with friends and family as much as we’d like.

But the holidays give us the opportunity to slow down and take the time to make and send personal greetings. With written notes and photos, we bring people back into our lives. The process of deciding on the idea of the card, assembling the elements, and writing a heartfelt message connects you to your loved ones, showing them that they’re on your mind and that they mean a lot to you.

It’s also a way for you to express yourself artistically—even if you don’t necessarily think of yourself as a visual artist. Homemade holiday greetings can take the form of art, collage, photos, videos, essays—or whatever appeals to you and works within your budget and time constraints.

“Homemade” in this context means that you put some of your own handiwork into creating your greeting—but it does not have to mean that you must create each element from scratch, eschew technology, or reject anything manufactured. The effort you make and the personal connection you forge in sending the greeting are what make it special. A holiday card amid the stack of catalogs and bills is sure to be the first piece of mail opened; a personal message in your email in-box (especially if it comes complete with photos or video) will be opened with equal anticipation.

This chapter offers homemade greeting ideas for every level of time and skill. If you’re excited to exercise your crafty muscles, you may enjoy making your own stamps, creating collages with different types of media, or embroidering a Christmas message. If your time is very limited or your skills more technical than crafty, you can create a different type of homemade greeting: check out the section on digital greetings, consider writing a holiday blog, or use your camera to make a video. Making holiday cards is a great activity to share with children, too. There are also plenty of suggestions for reusing, recycling, and repurposing materials to help make your Christmas greetings earth-friendly.

Reach out and connect with your friends and family, and get yourself ready to enjoy the holidays!

Send a Photo Card

Embellishments make photo cards extra-special.

During the year, we rarely have the opportunity to share print photos with our friends and family. Most of us have gone fully digital and have learned to negotiate the digital process: download photos from the camera, upload them to photo-sharing websites, and send the links to our loved ones. If we’re lucky, we can pull this off a few times a year.

Seeing the images online is fun, but it doesn’t give the same satisfaction as holding an actual printed photograph in your hand. There’s the delicious anticipation upon spotting the envelope in your mailbox, followed by the thrill of opening it and seeing the photo for the first time: the children’s goofy smiles, the pet’s hilarious outfit, your friend sipping a margarita in Mexico. Stick it on the fridge, and you’ve got an instant reminder of someone you love that can make you smile on a daily basis.

Take the time to turn a simple photo card into a special holiday greeting. Here are two easy options:

If your Christmas greeting list is long: Use an online photo site to create unique cards that you can personalize with a special note or decorative embellishment. Just choose the photo(s), upload them to the website (see Resources), and select a design for the card. You’ll find every imaginable theme and variation in color, number, and arrangement of photos; background design elements; and greeting copy. A week later, you’ve got 50 to 500 photo cards in your mailbox, ready to write in and send out!

If your list is short (or you have more time): Get simple, nice quality, blank cards, then attach your photo using photo backing adhesive or photo corners (both available at most art supply stores). You can also find blank cards that already have four slots cut into the cover for a standard-size photo, or layered cards into which you can slide your image, which then shows through a “frame” cut out of the front.

Make a Holiday Stamp

A stamped card makes an artful and unique handmade greeting. The best part about using a stamp for Christmas cards is that you do the labor-intensive part just once—the rest is simple stamping.

You can choose to go with the elegance of a single image or a mash-up of multiple designs. Experiment with different colored inks, or add color with markers, pencils, or paints to get the design just as you imagined it.

Potato stamp: Cut a potato in half, draw or trace your design onto the flat surface, then carve out the outline with a paring knife or carving tool to cut around the image.

Simple foam stamp: Use a Christmas-themed cookie cutter to cut out a design from a piece of foam. You may need to use scissors to clean up the edges. Glue the foam onto a block of wood, and after it’s dry, it’s ready to be used as a stamp.

Lino-block stamp: You can take it up a notch and create your own linoleum-block stamp (which, by the way, can be reused—and for different purposes). Draw your design onto a piece of linoleum block, which can be purchased online or at any art supply store. From here, you can either carve out around the outline of the design, as with the potato stamp, or carve deeply into the block itself. Then, using either paint or an ink pad, press the design onto your card. Carving the outline will result in just the carved shape appearing on your card, while carving into the stamp will cover your entire card with color. You decide what look you want to achieve.

Those who can’t imagine carving out a stamp of any type will be happy to know that every imaginable design is available at craft shops and online stamp purveyors. You’ll find all manner of Christmas trees, angels, reindeer, snowmen, snowflakes, Santas, holly, bells, and much more.

Stitch Up a Greeting

Use simple needlework to make an exquisite and unique holiday card.

For those with even the most rudimentary sewing skills, making a hand-embroidered or machine-sewn card is a cool, crafty alternative to the standard holiday greeting. Think of the surprised smile of the recipient who opens this card.

All you need to get started is a blank card made out of heavy paper or cardstock, an embroidery needle, embroidery floss, and a little imagination.

1. Draw your design on the front of a blank card. A star is simple yet festive; if you’re feeling artistic, try a snowman, reindeer, or the words “Merry Christmas!”

2. Choose the color of your embroidery floss and decide if you’re going to use the same color on the entire design or different spots of color in different places.

3. Thread your embroidery needle with the floss. If you’re a beginner, use a straight running stitch to begin sewing along the drawn lines: the simpler the stitch, the cleaner it will look. If you’re confident of your stitching ability, try other stitches, such as whip stitch, stem stitch, chain stitch, or cross stitch. You may even want to have some French knots scattered across the card to look like tiny stars or snowflakes.

4. When you’re done stitching, use tape to secure the end of the thread to the back of the card.

For the more advanced sewer, slip the card underneath the sewing machine, and sew over your drawn design. Just make sure your needle is strong enough to sew on heavy paper or cardstock.

Don’t be intimidated by the amount of time it’ll take to make all of your cards. While keeping your hands busy with the embroidery, catch up on your favorite television series or listen to an audiobook.

Fashion a Felt Card

Felt is a fabulous choice for a holiday card—its warm texture, bold colors, and three-dimensionality are guaranteed to give any card project a tactile appeal.

Easy to use for all ages, felt is a versatile material that is inexpensive, cuts easily, does not fray or tatter, and adheres to cardstock or paper with liquid craft glue. Enhance an existing card design with felt or use a blank card to make an original work of art. Here are a few suggestions to get you started.