...yes, Christmas is fast approaching and when I was invited by Stitch Craft Create to take part in their handmade Christmas decorations blog hop, I jumped at the idea because I thought it would be a nice way to ease myself into all my preparations for this wonderful festive season which has to be my favourite. ("Ease" being the key word here because the last week of November usually finds me in disbelief that Christmas is only a month away and I've barely started to think about my pre-Christmas to-do list!) Now, joining in on Stitch Craft Create's blog hop was a no-brainer for me because it's all about crafty Christmas books which I absolutely love; I have a healthy little collection of these, some lovely recent ones and some very yummy vintage ones, which I always love to browse through before Christmas to get ideas from, to inspire me and simply to get me in a very warm and cozy Christmas-y mood! So, from the list of four eBooks Stitch Craft Create generously offered to all its blog hop participants to choose from and post about, I opted for Handmade Scandinavian Christmas by Hege Barnholt. Honestly, it was a very easy decision for me to make because as soon as I saw the cover of Hege Barnholt's book, I didn't have to look any further as I love all things Scandinavian and, well, isn't Christmas a Scandinavian specialty?!...
Handmade Scandinavian Christmas is all about preparing a Christmas in a very simple, homespun way, being with family and drawing from lovely natural surroundings for inspiration as well as materials for crafting. As I was browsing through the book, it struck such a nostalgic chord in me as it brought me back to my childhood Christmases which we always spent in our snowed-in family cottage (or called "chalet" in Quebec) just north of Montreal. While the photo above is from the book, it could have been just as easily taken in the snowy forests just around our chalet back then and it absolutely reminds me of coming home at dusk from a full day of skiing, shivering from the cold but warm and happy inside because of a great day spent outdoors. (Canada may not be "nordic" by definition as in a country from Scandinavia, but we are definitely "du nord" or "from the north"!) The book has lovely shots of children playing in the snow and there is one in particular showing children pulling a sleigh with a little tree on it which made me smile; in the fall, I used to go with my father in the forest by our chalet to look for a tree for Christmas and when we found one, my father would tie a red ribbon around it so that we could easily spot it just before Christmas in order to cut it down and bring it into the house to decorate...
As I looked through the book, I couldn't help but imagine myself being in the charming wooden cottage above, set in a lovely forest, getting ready for Christmas with my family by crafting with little treasures we found outdoors in the fall, or could still find despite the snowy blanket covering everything,...
...pulling out my embroidery supplies...
...and definitely some yarn amd my crochet hook...
...and odds and ends like single socks, red and white ribbon and paper supplies!
Handmade Scandinavian Christmas has a great little section on Christmas crafts for kids with the same easy-to follow instructions which can be found throughout the book for all the projects; I especially like this section because the finished crafts in the photos actually look like they were children-made and not glossier versions clearly made by adults just for the photo shoots! In fact, the whole book has a very homey, charming look to it, from the gift ideas section to the gift wrapping one, which make it all seem so very achievable! I love the photo below, partly because it is nicely styled and the wrapping is creative, but mostly because the corners on the wrapped boxes are not perfectly done!
A big part of our Christmas is all the tasty food we make and eat during this festive season and Handmade Scandinavian Christmas definitely does not overlook this part of Christmas preparations; recipes are included for yummy treats like this apricot cake...
...and these lovely traditional Goro cookies which are so simply yet beautifully wrapped with red twine...
Now, the really fun part of this blog hop was that we were asked to make a decoration inspired by our book of choice and, well, guess what caught my eye in all the photos above?... Yes, of course, the crochet candle holder cover! As you can see below, I didn't quite stick to the pattern given by the book to make the lovely cover, but spun off a bit on my own... (I tend to do that with a lot of ideas I find in books!) I was inspired by the book's lovely nordic Christmas red and white theme and, of course, Santa's hat and garb and came up with the idea of a bobbled crochet candle holder cover in red and white. I used store-bought straight-sided or cylinder-shaped candles in a glass holder (not tapered at all so as to keep the pattern simple), but you can just as easily use straight-sided glasses with votive candles placed inside.
I have to say that they were so much fun and fast to make that I think I will make more and gift them to family and friends! And, if you would like me to, I can definitely write up a quick pattern and post it next week; simply write me a comment or send me an email saying so.
A very sweet benefit of crafty blog hops is discovering some lovely new blogs filled with tons of creativity (which I guess is what a blog hop is all about!) and I've been doing just that since this blog hop started at the beginning of November; if you haven't been following it and would like to start doing so, check out the full list of participating blogs here. I've also been exploring the rather extensive Stitch Craft Create website throughout the last little while where I've been finding lots of crafty goodies such as free eBooks and downloads; if you're interested in taking a peek at these, you can find them here. I'm also quite excited about their eBook bookstore here as I got an iPad a couple of Christmases ago on which I now read all my fiction via my local public library and would love to start a little crafty eBook collection on it as well... Hmmm, I might have to put that on my Santa wish list as well as any other goodies I might find in their Handmade Christmas shop! (Happily, they do ship all over the world!)
I do hope that this post has sent a little Christmas crafty inspiration your way as well as a few daydreams of a white Christmas if you're like us in Vancouver and rarely have one... Now, if you've already been busy crafting for Christmas and have been making Christmas decorations or are planning on doing so, you might also be interested in entering Stitch Craft Create's Handmade Christmas Decorations Competition here which has a first prize of £100 to spend at Stitch Craft Create (that could definitely be fun!). I'd like to thank Stitch Craft Create and Rosie from F & W Media International for inviting me onto this blog hop and also thank all of you for popping by for a visit!
