Christmas is a good time to get crafty. The cold weather discourages going out, particularly when it involves several layers and boots. The nights are long and there is a reason to make things.
Why winter suits craft
A practical explanation rather than a sentimental one.
You are indoors more, and evenings are long. There is an obvious purpose – gifts and decorations – which makes a project feel worth doing. And you want the finished object: a scarf made in December is wanted immediately.
Craft also fits the pace of the season. Repetitive handwork in front of the fire is a genuinely good way to spend a dark evening.
Decorations
Worth more effort than gifts, because they return every year.
Salt dough shapes, baked and painted, with the year written on the back. Make the hole for the ribbon before baking – this is the step everyone forgets.
Crocheted or knitted ornaments. Small, quick, made from oddments, and they store flat.
Paper chains and snowflakes.
Dried orange slices and cinnamon, which smell wonderful and cost almost nothing.
A wreath from foraged evergreen on a wire ring.
Gifts
Be realistic about time. The commonest mistake is planning to handmake everything and then rushing the lot.
Small knitted and crocheted gifts work well: a cowl, fingerless mitts, a hat, a set of dishcloths. Each is an evening in chunky yarn and each is genuinely used.
Edible gifts in decorated jars – biscuits, fudge, spiced nuts, layered dry mixes with the recipe on a tag – cost very little and look far more impressive than the effort involved.
Wrapping and tags
Underrated. Plain brown paper printed with a potato stamp, string, and a sprig of greenery looks better than most bought wrapping and costs almost nothing.
Tags cut from last year’s Christmas cards.
With children
Christmas is the best craft season for them, because everything made has a real purpose – it goes on the tree, gets posted to a grandparent, or gets wrapped and given.
Start early, prepare everything before you begin, and resist improving their work.
Store it properly
Decorations flat, in one labelled box. The point of making things that last is having them all come out together next December, and the ones stored separately are the ones that go missing.
