Holiday Gatherings are Gaily Wrapped Gifts

Lovely holiday luncheon yesterday.  Dear Lady put on a sit-down holiday luncheon for about 20 women in our community.  If  it had been 1950, the luncheon might have looked like women wearing shirt-dresses with petticoats to make them flounce, hats and gloves, and a fashionable purse.   But it isn’t 1950, and that is not what the women looked like at our luncheon yesterday.  Although, our dear hostess, bless her heart, had a gift for each of us at the close of the luncheon --- individual hand-sewn aprons that she had been making since the previous summer.  She made them specifically to gift to each of us at her holiday luncheon.

 

I would share photos, but I haven’t obtained permissions from the women, so in respect for their privacy, if I have photos that don’t reveal faces, I’ll post those later. 

 

I’m just tickled with the holiday festivities this year right here within our small little village.  Open house party, holiday luncheon, church potluck, Women’s Club potluck coming up next week, annual Christmas play put on by the children, Open house party on New Year’s Eve, chili dinner – bring breads later in January.  Perhaps these gatherings have been the norm here for several years, but I’m just entering into all the festive fun this year, so it’s all new to me.  And as such, it’s like opening a lot of gaily wrapped presents, different in form and shape.

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Holiday Canister from plastic coffee containers

Click on photo link above to get to Folgers link for 'how to' and downloadable prints to decorate your holiday canister.

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Project; Any Day Wreath using paint chip samples

The project shown is Valentine's Day wreath using pink paint chip samples. Why limit it to Valentine's Day with so many beautiful color paint chip samples? Greens, lilacs and lavendars, blues, yellows, and as many colors as there are so can be the wreaths you design.

So here is finished wreath;



made from



by gluing or taping to cardboard wreath shape




Follow the step by step tutorial at Handmade Detroit blog.

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Projects; Not just for Holidays

These kinds of ideas really belong more to my Skinflint Curmudgeon website and blog, and as I find the time to refocus my energies, I will loop Skinflint Curmdugeon, Everything Old is New Again, Wonderwander, our Bay Tower House at houseblogs, Wee Garden, and I will need to make a new blog for converting to Vegetarian. I think Skinflint will be good place to proffer 'green living' along with thrifty, frugal tips.


Holidays - why not all winter long!




-- from The Homespun Heart blog

Use one pint size canning jar (not the wide mouth) and one glass votive holder . The votive holder should be shaped like a flower pot or have enough of a lip to sit on the top of the canning jar steadily.

Place sprigs of evergreen in the jar. Fill about 3/4 with water. Top with fresh cranberries.

Place votive holder with candle in the top! So pretty and festive.



A clever garland - not just for holidays!



wooden beads, spools, calico ribbon, wire hangers

Spray paint one package of small wooden beads red. How I did this was to unwind a wire coat hanger, thread all the beads on and poke one end of the hanger into the ground outside - then just walk around and spray. Very easy.

Glue homespun/calico fabrics around wooden spools. I also decided to wrap twine around some.

Thread beads and spools onto twine into desired length. Tie bows in between to stretch the wooden items. Hang!

Note: two packages of spools and one package of beads made this length, plus two smaller ones that would equal this much again.


Not just for Autumn!



Stand a bunch of ears of corn that are tied together in a wide-mouth canning jar. Raffia is a natural choice for tying them together as it blends in with the husks so well and looks very appropriate for Fall.

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