Homemade Christmas

It's been tough for me not having a Christmas tree this year, but really I know it's a waste since we're not going to be around. And I know I'll be grateful that when we get back we don't have a tree to clear up and pack away!

I have still decked up the house though. And when I was putting all our stuff out I realised how much handmade decorations we have now, all since moving to Canada - love that!

This banner I made a couple of years back but this year is the first time hanging it upstairs on the mantle - I think it looks great here. I cut all the banner pieces and the letters with my Silhouette machine and threaded them all onto some red & white bakers twine.

The clip stand on the far left is the project I made in Teresa Collin's class back at Inspired Journey (you can see the original project when I blogged about it here) when I attended in May down in California. Again the designs were all cut with my Silhouette - though I don't recommend ever cutting that title out again - it was way too fine to suit being cut! You can see a better photo of it below.

The tree I made with lots of strips of Christmas papers pinned onto a polystyrene cone - it was time consuming but I do love it - my only small regret is that I didn't pick traditional greens and reds for the papers - I do like my traditional colours really - but when you're shopping for scrapbooking papers it's easy to get caught up in the 'fashion' of the latest collections and that year was blues, greens and pinks - ho hum!

My hanging 'mobile' of Christmas 'balls' I used 8 pre-cut circles (cut with the Silhouette machine of course!) and folded them in half and stuck the halves back to back then stick the final one to the first - then you can fan them out into a complete ball. I then threaded them onto embroidery threaded and topped and tailed each ball with some silver beads. 

And finally I whipped out the Silhouette (again!) for my Reindeer on the window - cut from white vinyl - it's a bit of regular decorating spot for me, in the past I've had snowflakes but this year it's a little herd of reindeer!! And look outside the window - sunny blue sky days in Canada and not an igloo in sight!!