For the Christmas Market stand today I'm adding wreaths. I love fresh greenery in December. We don't usually put up wreaths and I haven't had a chance yet to go out and cut the swags for our front door, but I did make a little felt penguin carrying a wreath as a stand-in.
Today's addition to the Christmas Market is a candle stand. Whether for gifts or seasonal decor, candles seem to be a common element in holiday shopping. To go along with the stand I found this cute cartoon picture of a candle that I colored and hung in my room.
When I was a kid a major part of the Christmas season was my church's Sunday School program where each class would sing a song or do a little skit or something. At the end of the program everyone got a candy cane and each kid was given a paper lunch sack with some fruit (usually an apple or two and an orange) and a handful of peanuts in the shell. I looked forward to that treat for weeks, so for me fruit is an important aspect of holiday celebration. With that in mind, today I'm adding a fruit stand to the Christmas Market. For an extra, I made some fruit themed bookmarks that I will probably put into books that I gift.
Today's stall in the Christmas Market is an ornament stand. I decided to decorate this stand with some glass beads.
You'll notice all of our market stalls so far have been green or red. The Sunday and Christmas Eve stalls are gold. Not only are they a different color, these stalls are also not selling anything. These are activities, putting emphasis on experiences and doing positive things in the world instead of just consumption. So today's stall is a caroling booth. You'll see little music stands all ready for any singers to come along.
Today we're adding a skate rental stand to our Christmas market. It seems like ice skating is something you might do on a weekend while doing some Christmas shopping. Making something skating themed seemed really complicated but I found this little Care Bear Cousin figurine that we've had for as long as I can remember.
Today's addition to the Christmas market is a jewelry stand, a mainstay of craft fairs and markets. I really struggled with an addition to this stand. I have plenty of ideas for jewelry but one of the goals with this year's countdown was to reduce clutter. I already have a fair amount of jewelry and a job where I can't wear it. It would be wasteful to make something I'm never going to wear. Instead, I went through my existing jewelry and found some earrings that I don't wear. I bent the posts into loops so they can be repurposed as pendants or maybe charms for a charm bracelet.
Today in the Christmas market we have a stand selling nuts. Whether it's roasted chestnuts (which I've never actually seen - are they good?) or candied cinnamon nuts there's something festive about them and they feel like they belong in our little market. I suppose I could have made a batch of candied nuts but we have a collection of walnut shells floating around so I thought I'd made a decoration out of one. I decided to use some little scraps of yarn to make this mini knitting basket.
Today's addition to the Christmas market is a snow globe stand. Making a little snow globe to put inside the tube was an appealing but ultimately impractical idea. So I settled for adding a couple of glittery snow globe stickers that I found in my stash.
Today's market stall is the music stand. I had considered making a little drum or something to go with this one but when I got out my peg dolls I spotted Emmet Otter and I knew he was perfect. I suspect he's looking for a guitar.
I'm doing something a little different for my crafty countdown this year. Between work demands and the desire to reduce clutter and waste, 24 distinct crafts seemed a bit much. So I've decided to go a little simpler and do variations on the same thing for each day. I'm making a little Christmas market. Each stall is made from half a cardboard tube with details drawn on. I'll probably be adding some extra little surprises along the way.
Today's stall is knitwear. If you've been to a holiday craft sale you've seen a couple of booths selling hats and mittens and things. There's nothing quite so cozy as a hand knit stocking cap. For extra fun I've made a little ball of some of my rabbit fur yarn that tucks inside.
We always grow pumpkins in our garden and if you know much about pumpkins you know they have a tendency to spread. And to climb everything. That's how this happened:
And here's my version:
I have loved Wallace and Gromit since I first saw the shorts in the early 2000's. And my absolute favorite character has always been Feathers McGraw. It should come as no surprise, then, that when I got a Wallace and Gromit amigurumi book for Christmas, Feathers was first on my list to make. And the reality is exactly what I would have hoped.
I made the decision to be a vendor at our local farmer's market this summer. I've been spending a lot of time this spring spinning my rabbit fur and I have a stock of yarn. I knew I needed a band telling people the basic information about the yarn. It could have been plain but I wanted a catchy name and a little picture. And this is what I came up with:
I learned to knit in college and spent a couple of years satisfied with small projects - hats and mittens, that sort of thing. And then I decided to try a sweater. After all, isn't that the pinacle of knitting? That experience taught me a couple of things: 1. I hate seaming a garment and especially setting in sleeves. 2. It's okay to enjoy small things. I resolved at that point to stick to small projects from that point.
Fast forward to now. I got this idea for a sweater, using a variegated yarn in a colorwork pattern. It was ridiculous and felt like a lot of work. And it would not leave me alone. Not only did I want to do a colorwork pattern, I wanted to invent my own chart. I started it right after Christmas. And when I got it done it was wrong. I had to take out the whole top and try again. When I had it nearly finished I discovered a major error and had to rip out the top for a second time. It's finally done. The fit isn't quite right but I refuse to redo it again. And this may well be the last sweater I ever make. Still, it matches my imagination pretty well.
I live on a sixty-some acre property that includes a fair number of maple trees. So we have occasionally tapped the trees and made maple syrup. The sap is running now so this week we cooked up our first batch for the year. Here's the result of cooking down the first run sap.
I decided I wanted to make Valentine's Day cards this year. I had some cards I'd made some errors on, so they seemed like the perfect base for some fun cards. I figured I'd just draw over the old designs. Because the cards I have are nice vibrant colors I thought I'd make them Pokemon themed. And that's where things went a bit off the rails. It seems I am incapable of being sincere when writing the sentiment on the card and I wanted these to be clever. So the result isn't exactly Valentines themed. Like, at all. But they are fun.
Over the summer, a friend of mine gifted me with a rabbit. Galactus the Devourer of Worlds is a fuzzy French Lop and while she was still a baby when I got her she's now around 10 pounds of attitude and fur.
I had a plain t-shirt in my craft supplies that I decided to decorate for my mother for her birthday (which is today - Happy Birthday to Mom!). I decided on this fellow from Animaniacs for the theme:
Here's my take on him, painted with silver fabric paint.
Now that gift giving is done I can share with you some of the things I made as gifts this year. I did a fair amount of knitting and crocheting this year.
First we have fish slippers for my mom. She'd had a pair of these that I made years ago in orange that finally completely wore out. So I made her new ones in this soft blue wool.
Next, for my gamer brother, a Link hat.
And for my sister, a pair of waffle weave mittens in woolease.
