Christmas Crafting


I have always wanted to do more crafting at Christmas but I never seem to find the time and, before you know it, it is too late.  This year I started early -- like in the summer -- but I can't show you photos of those endeavors as they are gifts -- that will be a later post.  However, I did decide to do a little crafting for our Christmas Village.

As you might know, I have been collecting Christmas village houses for absolutely years and years and it was always a joy to play with at the holidays.  The last couple of years, though, I have gone apathetic toward it --probably because of my former cat -- (he is still a cat, he is just not mine anymore).  This year, however, because the Hubs is home, we decided to get an early, relaxed start on it so we could actually enjoy the process.  You can see earlier photos of the village here. 

There is a tree in the middle of the village that we decorate -- sort of like Rockefeller Center if you use your imagination!  The year Hubs had his surgery, he couldn't really manage the big tree so we opted for this little one and it served the purpose nicely.  In fact, I am considering not putting the big tree up this year at all.  I digress.  Anyway, this year I decided to go with a "natural" look for the town center tree and this is what I came up with -- pine cones, paint, glitter, rusty jingle bells, ribbon and candy canes.  I think it came out rather nice, actually.

Adding little eye screws to the pine cones wasn't easy

All done

creamy white paint to add "snow"

that was a quick snow storm!

Added a little gold accent to the rusty bells -- later added white paint

clear glitter

never have used clear glue before -- it worked really well

can't see the glitter but it is there

wasn't really happy with this but it was done so I left it alone

added the ribbon hangers to the glittery pine cones

Hubs in the beginning stages of the "process" -- it takes a while to build a village

Uh - oh , the book props are coming out

Next blog you will see the finished village! We have added things from those first photos a couple of years ago and we have tweaked it until we think it looks "right".  Can't wait to see what you think!