Week 32 – Crafty Christmas

Hello, and welcome to Week 32 of our Giving Tuesday campaign.

Are you spending lockdown #2 planning your Christmas shopping or getting the house ready to decorate? We’d like to say we’re doing that, but sadly it wouldn’t be true. Instead, we’re spending lockdown planning our Giving Tuesday offerings, and the next three weeks are going to be fantastic!

This week, we’re offering a selection of Christmas-related skill swaps.

Paper Folded Christmas Trees

Cathy, our lovely Events Manager, is a dab hand at crafting and is particularly proud of her paper folded Christmas Trees. These look great on a festive table, as decorations in the window, along the mantelpiece. The choice is yours!

All you need is an old book (2nd hand novels from charity shops or old music books work really well). You’ll need around 200 pages, or slightly fewer, so if your book is a big one, be brave and rip it in half (it’s quite satisfying in a slightly rebellious sort of way).

Lay the book flat in front of you and tear off the stiff front and back covers.

Take the first page, and fold the upper corner of the page in towards the spine. Press it flat with a finger. Fold it again so that the whole outer edge of the page sits against the spine. Fold up the little corner at the bottom to make a neat base. Then turn the page.

Repeat for the next page. And the next one. Until you’ve reached the end of the book.

You can decorate your Christmas tree book with buttons, paper stars, fairy lights or anything else you fancy. And if you want to give it a trunk, a small candle holder inserted into the folded base works really well.

Here’s a little video to show you how it’s done:

Homemade Christmas Crackers

Christmas crackers are great, but they can be quite expensive and often the toys inside are not up to much and thrown away with the wraping.

Why not make your own Christmas crackers this year – you can tailor them to each individual and make them really special.

Before you start, you’ll need to gather some toilet rolls (or if you’re planning on a bigger gift for inside, a kitchen roll tube will do just as well, simply trim it to fit), A4 paper, some ‘Christmassy’ wrapping paper, some ribbon and tape. You could also add some glitter or stars to the inside of your cracker also, so they sprinkle out when pulled – creating a wonderful display!

Here’s a quick video tutorial:

Snow Globes

Who doesn’t love a snow globe hey?

Making these are relatively easy, all you need is an empty jar with a lid, some old Christmas ornaments, some glitter, some glycerin and a hot glue gun.

Start off by unscrewing the lid off the jar and turn it upside down (so the inside is facing upwards). Using your hot glue gun, place your ornaments, however you want them to appear, onto the inside surface of the jar lid and wait for the glue to dry/set.

While waiting for the glue to set, fill the jar with water and a small bit of the glycerin, adding glitter for effect (as much or as little as you wish).

Carefully place the lid of the jar, with ornaments affixed, back onto the jar and screw shut. Turn upside-down and watch the snowy scene come to life!

These are just a few fun ways you can craft your own Christmas decorations this year. Why not get the kids involved too… you could even extend it to making gifts for loved ones!

Whatever you decide to make, we’d love to see your creations! Why not drop us a message with a picture, or post your creation on our Facebook site?

Happy crafting!