Christmas craft and tutorial links

As a child, I would stare in awe at the hand made/sewn decorations my mother had made for the Christmas tree. I thought she must be some kind of magical creature to be able to have completed so many time consuming, yet beautiful items.

A few years ago, she told me that she'd been making just one or two items a year, over many years and that is how she came to have such a lovely collection now. It may sound really dense - but it hadn't crossed my mind just to make a single decoration - I have always felt like I have to make a set of at least six - and this is why I haven't made that many permanent tree decorations over the years.

My tastes for tree decorations have always been quite traditional - I like the combination of red, green and gold - but a few years ago we bought some Indian decorations that had a bit of blue in them which worked really well with the decorations we already had and so this year I thought I'd add a few more blue things.

I had a go at a variation on these snowflake pendants that I found via Sarah at Geek+nerd (love that blog!). I couldn't find a needle I was happy with for working with the felt and the weird sparkly embroidery yarn that I'd bought so I did my own, less fiddly version of the design but am still very happy with it.

Next I had a try at these felt circles ornaments from Craftzine. It turned out to be a lot easier than I thought it would be, although I would go with eight circles, instead of six, if I were to make another.

I found so many great ideas whilst I was searching so I'm sharing a few here.

I love this advent calendar idea from the red thread blog - although I'm a little late sharing it! With the leftover paper, the same blogger made this beautiful wreath.

Debs made this fantastic wreath out of milk cartons, which I think is fabulous.

Another wreath here from Hazelruthe, made out of Christmas baubles.

If felting is your thing, checkout Christmas and Winter felt tutorials from the Felt Cafe.

I think these Christmas tree ribbon shirts from Just a Betty trying to be Martha are really cute.

There's a sweet, easy (and free) Christmas apron pattern at Phyllis Dobbs.

There are some really lovely ideas on the free patterns page of the Living Crafts site.

I've also put a clicky picture link in the sidebar so that you can find my Christmas post archive easily.

I'm so behind on my blog reading at the moment, but am really looking forward to getting the chance to put my feet up with a cup of tea and read about all of your festive preparations!