Photo Friday: Scenes from a handcrafted Christmas

Happy Boxing Day! As we unwind and recover from all the holiday festivities, I am sharing some images from my handcrafted Christmas celebration.

Christmas tree with hand-crafted ornaments

Craft Day is an annual tradition where my sister, sisters-in-law, some friends and I spend the first Sunday of December handcrafting Christmas ornaments together, usually while drinking copious amounts of champagne. Here’s what 20 years’ worth of handcrafted Christmas ornaments looks like on one Christmas tree.

Pinecone ornament

My Craft Day project this year was making pine cone ornaments using a big bag of beautiful pine cones I picked up during a family vacation to the Black Hills of South Dakota last summer. I simply hot-glued a gold cord to the flat end of the pine cone for a hanger, painted the tips of the pine cone gold, added a little glitter, and glued on a few decorative sprigs clipped from a holiday floral pick.

Pinecone tree topper

Taking the pine cone theme one step further, I also made this pine cone star for the top of the tree. I wrapped an old CD in gold wire-edged ribbon for the base and hot-glued pine cones to the CD in a star shape.

Candy sleighs

I made these cute candy sleighs for my nieces and nephews this year. Simply hot glue two candy canes to the bottom of a full-size Kit Kat bar, stack six Hershey’s miniatures in a pyramid shape on top, tie with a ribbon and top with a tiny bow. Super cute! They make great trim for presents.

Handmade industrial desk lamps

Bob and I had our teenage nephews’ names in the handcrafted family Christmas drawing this year. We made them these cool industrial-style desk lamps using clamp-on spotlights we found at Menard’s (with the clamps removed) and loosely following the instructions found here. (For those who might be interested in trying this project, note that the instructions call for “fork joints,” which apparently are impossible to find in the U.S. We followed the suggestion in one of the comments to the original blog post to substitute turnbuckles.)

Painted plate

My talented brother had my name in the handcrafted gift exchange and painted the nature scene on this plate for me. I was thrilled!

Beaded bracelet

Meanwhile, on Bob’s side of the family, I had my sister-in-law’s name in the gift exchange and made this beaded bracelet as part of her gift.

Sunset on Clearwater Beach

In between all the crafting and decorating (not to mention end-of-semester grading), I managed a long weekend, mid-December escape to find some inspiration on the white sands of Clearwater Beach, Florida. Now that’s my idea of a white Christmas!

Hope you all had a lovely holiday, as well. Did you or your family get crafty for Christmas? If so, I would love to hear your stories in the comments section below.