Easy Christmas Crafts
From LoveToKnow Crafts
This article is about easy Christmas crafts, but first I want to tell you a story. My favorite television personality these days is Rachael Ray. I love her because she isn't afraid to be a little low-brow. She says it's perfectly OK to not spend hours every night making dinner; you can come up with something just fine in 30 minutes or so.
What does this have to do with easy Christmas crafts? Well, while I was trying to come up with projects for this article, one of her signature phrases kept popping into my head: take some help from the store.
But Aren't We Talking About Crafts?
Yeah, I know, the whole idea behind crafts is that they are homemade. But if you're talking holidays and you're looking for easy, there are all sorts of things you can pick up from your local crafts store that will help make your easy Christmas crafts that much easier.
Consider the holiday wreath. Sure you could go tromping through the woods, gathering fallen pine boughs, then take them home, fasten them to a wreath form and decorate it will all manner of holiday trinkets and a big red bow.
Or you could just buy a wreath at the store and decorate it in exactly the same way. Sure it costs more and isn't as much fun, and your house won't get that piney smell, but we're talking easy. If you're pressed for time, you don't want to be stressing yourself out about where your wreath is going to come from.
This is the spirit with which I approached this article. You'll still get to craft with these projects, but they will be a lot easier for when you are pressed for time. And they make great gifts, too.
Painted Candles
Instead of making your own candles to give as gifts or to decorate your home for the holidays, buy ready-made candles and paint them with holiday motifs, stripes or anything else you like.
You can use stencils to guide your hand to make it a little speedier and nicer looking, or just freehand. Remember to use paint that is safe for candles (and that will stick to candles) for this project.
Christmas Greetings
This is a great fake-out easy Christmas craft. You'll need a picture frame, some little holiday baubles like little red ribbons, candy canes, stockings or whatever you like (miniature ornaments are great for this), and some Christmas cards (if you want to do this as a gift). They should be pretty cards with a nice sentiment printed on the front.
If you start with a plain wood picture frame, sand it and spray paint red, green, gold, even black. Once that's dry, glue your little Christmas trinkets to the frame, either in the corners or wherever looks good. You could also use stickers, holiday tissue paper or even wrapping paper decoupaged onto the frame. Slide the greeting card into the frame, trimming if necessary. Give the frame as a gift or use it in your home with your favorite greeting card of the season featured inside.
Quickie Quilts
This one isn't necessarily a "take help from the store" easy Christmas craft, but it can be. There are all sorts of holiday printed and colored fabrics available at your local crafts store or fabric store. Some of these will even be printed like a whole quilt; all you have to do is buy the quilt top, some batting and some backing fabric and then sew the whole thing together by machine.
If you want a slightly more homemade holiday quilt, buy fat quarters of eight different fabrics (or larger quantities of a smaller number of fabrics, adding up to two yards) as well as two yards of another fabric.
Cut all your fat quarters into squares of whatever size you would like. Larger squares mean fewer seams to sew. Then either devise a pattern or just sew the squares together randomly. Use batting if a warmer quilt is desired and sew the quilt top to the extra two yards of fabric your purchased (an easy way to do this is explained here.
These quilts are so simple, you could make them as gifts and everyone will think you spent ages working on them, when it really took an hour or less to make each one!
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