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Published in 2014 by Stewart, Tabori & Chang
An imprint of ABRAMS

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014930833
ISBN: 978-1-61769-056-3

Editor: Dervla Kelly
Designer: Kay Schuckhart/Blond on Pond
Production Manager: Erin Vandeveer
Photography Direction & Production: Karen Schaupeter Creative
Photographer: Dane Holweger
Digital Tech: Chris Nowling
Prop Styling: Lauren Machen

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CONTENTS

THE MEANING OF HANDCRAFTED

THE PROJECTS

Little Village House

Christmas Corsages

Needle-Felted Snowman

Lucky Pinecones

Tabletop Tree

Christmas Crackers

Pinecone Wreath

Sparkling Snowflakes

Little Snowman

Santa Star Ornament

Trinket Box

Candy Stripe Christmas Stocking

Christmas Bells

Noel Blocks

Santa Napkins

Diorama Ornament

Holiday Charm Bracelet

Cookie Plate

Chenille Candy Canes

Rustic Candle Holders

Chenille Poinsettia Garland

Sparkling Christmas Trees

Bejeweled Balls

Fantasy Birds

Holiday Drink Charms

New Year’s Party Hat

THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS COOKIE SWAP

PROJECT TEMPLATES

SOURCES

The Meaning of Handcrafted

I was lucky enough to grow up in a family of crafters. On my father’s side, the men built things. My grandmother, aunts, and even my busy mother took classes in whatever skill was on offer—enameled jewelry, Japanese flower arranging, interior design, and a strange 1950s craft where you drilled a three-dimensional flower into the backside of a Lucite or resin block, painted the hollowed-out parts, and ended up with what, turned right side up, appeared to be a blossom floating in a block of ice. If anyone knows what that was called, I would love to know.

On my mother’s side, my Swedish grandmother was so accomplished with a crochet hook she could have made lace of plain sewing thread if asked. Our birthdays always brought embroidered sheets and pillowcases edged with delicate crochet, undervalued and taken for granted then—now among my most treasured possessions.

Christmas, of course, was the highlight of the crafting year. Sequins and glitter flew like a multicolored blizzard. Fabric was cut, paint sets were purchased. One year my mother made and costumed a choir and orchestra of heavenly angels, each holding sheet music or a miniature instrument. They hovered above our fireplace around a fairly grand pipe organ my father made from black lacquered wood and tiers of pencils spray-painted gold. The next year, we spent several Saturdays helping an aunt cover sections of cardboard tubes with white felt and gold ribbon to make small drums. She didn’t tell us what they were for, but when we arrived for Christmas Eve, there was a magnificent white flocked tree, the first I’d ever seen, adorned with small white bears in red British jackets, each playing a drum. That was the same year my grandmother, born on an Iowa farm in 1886, surprised us all with marzipan fruit fit for a Fortnum & Mason display table.

The value and meaning of “handcrafted” has changed often throughout history. During hard times, handcrafted items serve as stand-ins for gifts one can’t afford to buy. Or, with the help of a purchased pattern, they become the solution when the toy shelves are picked clean. In better times, handcrafted means someone cared enough to spend time rather than money to provide something uniquely created, something that could not be bought.

If you’re a crafter, you have no doubt had the experience of someone telling you, “You could make those to sell.” But, of course, you don’t make them to sell. These items can only be made to share with people you love. If I had my way, every Christmas would be a handcrafted one.

A WORD OF WARNING

A few of the projects in this book call for Twinklets Diamond Dust, an old-fashioned glass glitter which is beautiful but highly dangerous to pets and children. Glitter has a way of scattering about while you’re working, and when animals pick it up on their paws and fur, or children get the lovely, candy-colored stuff on their fingers, there’s a tendency to lick it off and—well, it’s ground glass. When crafting with pets or children in the house, substitute kosher or epsom salt, or modern glitter which is made of small plastic particles and is, by and large, gorgeous. The trade is a small price to pay, and we don’t want anyone injured through an excess of vintage spirit.

The Projects

LITTLE VILLAGE HOUSE

The tradition of setting out small houses and village scenes at Christmas derives from the custom of displaying nativity scenes in front of churches, a practice introduced by St. Francis in 1223. By casting living people and animals in the dramatic Biblical scene, St. Francis hoped to remind worshippers that Christmas was more about the birth of Christ than it was about gifts and revelry.

Within a few centuries, statues replaced living actors, and the scenes grew larger and more elaborate. Royal courts and the very wealthy collected figures for their own scenes. For ordinary folk, small wooden figures or inexpensive ones made from clay made it possible to enjoy miniature scenes at home. Of the many traditions associated with nativity displays, one of the oddest was the British custom of baking the Christmas dinner minced pie in the shape of a manger, in which the figure of the Holy Infant rested until it was time to serve the pie. Among the many yuletide festivities the Puritans banned, the minced pie merited special attention; it was outlawed as “idolatry in a crust.”

The Moravians in particular established a tradition of arranging small nativity scenes beneath their Christmas trees. When they came to America and settled in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, they brought their tradition with them. Over the years, the scenes became more secular. By the late nineteenth century, small villages and farmlands, composed of the children’s toys, were more common than nativity scenes beneath the tree. In the 1930s, Germany produced mass numbers of small cardboard pieces for export to the United States. Known as putz, or glitter houses, the pieces were varied and elaborate. In addition to homes, there were churches scaled to match, and whole villages could be created and adorned with drifts of cotton snow and small bottlebrush trees. Japan also made putz houses, especially after World War II, but in general theirs were not as elaborate as the prewar German structures had been and were often smaller and meant to be hung as ornaments rather than displayed as part of a street scene. Today, Christmas villages are usually made of ceramic and collected piece by piece. We think it’s fun to make our own, and the ways to alter a single pattern and the finishing process ensure plenty of variety.

MATERIALS

Tracing paper

Pencil

Lightweight cardboard, such as from cereal or cracker boxes

Ruler, preferably a clear, graphed one

Craft knife or scissors

Contrasting-color cardstock, such as light blue, for the door

White cardstock or index cards for window frames and door frame

Dry embossing tool

Craft mat

Scotch Positionable Mounting Adhesive

Brayer or rolling pin

Clean, unused printer paper

Glitter, your choice of colors

Bone folder or table knife

White acrylic craft paint

Paintbrush

Duct tape

Mod Podge

Paper towel tube or toilet paper tube (optional)

Bamboo skewer

E6000 glue

Twinklets Diamond Dust

Length of green tinsel craft stem

Red Stickles Glitter Glue

HOW-TO

Copy all the patterns on this page. Include the lines for the door and windows on the sloped piece, which will be the front and the back of the house. Cut out the patterns.

Flip the sloped piece over, so the swoop is on the right when the pattern faces you. Lay the pattern on the unprinted side of a piece of cardboard. Trace and cut out. This will be the back of the house, so you don’t need to mark the door or windows.

Flip the pattern right side up, with the swoop on the left. Trace the outline onto the unprinted side of a piece of cardboard and cut out. Trace the door. Make a dot in all four corners of each window. Set the pattern aside and use a ruler to connect the dots in each window. Check measurements against the side and bottom of the house to make sure the windows are straight. If not, redraw to make the adjustment. You are going to cover this side with glitter, so your lines won’t show. Cut out the door and windows.

To make the door, place the contrasting cardstock (light blue on our house) under the front piece of the house and, with bottom edges even, trace the inside of the cut-out door onto the cardstock. Do the same with a piece of white cardstock. On the white piece, make a series of small marks all the way around the door, measuring about ¼ inch (6 mm) out. Connect the dots to sketch a larger version of the blue door. Cut out the pieces (using the larger outline as your cut line on the white cardstock) and set aside.

Trace and cut out the two side pieces. Draw the windows as described above and cut out the spaces.

On another piece of cardboard, draw and cut out a rectangle that measures 4½ by 7 inches (11 by 18 cm). This will be the roof. Turn it over so the printed side is up. On the long side, measure off 4 inches (10 cm) and make a mark near the edge. Do the same on the edge directly across from the first mark. Draw a line connecting the two marks, so the piece is divided into a 4-inch (10-cm) section and a 3-inch (7.5-cm) section. Position your ruler edge on the line and run the bone folder along it to make an indented line.

The next step is to apply glitter to the four sides of the house. Place one of the pieces, unprinted side up, on a clean, washable surface, such as a craft mat. Cut a piece of mounting adhesive large enough to cover the piece. Position it over the piece with the exposed sticky side down and the protective liner up. Press firmly over the adhesive, smoothing with your hands. It’s important to get good and complete coverage, so go over the surface with a brayer or rolling pin.

When you are satisfied that the adhesive is firmly in place, use a craft knife or scissors to trim off the excess liner. Cut away adhesive from the doors and windows.

Peel away the covering and lay the piece, sticky side up, on the printer paper. Cover liberally with glitter. Cover with a second sheet of paper and press down with your hands, a brayer, or a rolling pin to really push the glitter into the sticky adhesive. Let set a few minutes, then pick up the piece by the edge, shake off excess glitter, and set aside to finish curing. Return unused glitter to the container.

Cover the remaining three sides of the house with glitter in the same way. Let cure a few hours.

Meanwhile, make the roof. Fold the printed sides of the cardboard together along the indented line to make a peaked tent with one side longer than the other. Go over the crease with a bone folder or the handle of a table knife to make a sharp crease. Paint the surface of the roof white, starting at the top along the crease and making brush strokes down to the eaves. Allow to dry, then turn the roof over and paint a border on the underside, from each edge to about ¾ inch (2 cm) in. Let dry. Apply a second coat if needed and set aside to dry completely.

To join the walls together, you’ll need duct tape. Lay the front of the house and one of the side walls face down on a clean surface. Push them together face down so the edges of the walls meet perfectly. Make sure the bottom edges are perfectly aligned. Cut a length of duct tape the height of the joining walls and adhere it, lengthwise, over the place where the walls join. Press the tape firmly to get a good, tight join. It doesn’t matter if there are a few wrinkles in the tape; just press them flat with your fingertips. When you pick up the joined pieces, you’ll see that you’ve formed a hinge.

Lay the joined pieces flat again and join the other side wall to the front of the house in the same way.

With the joined pieces flat, join the side wall nearest to the swoop to the back of the house on the side with the swoop.

To make the final join, lay the back of the house, glitter side down, on a flat surface. Run a length of duct tape down along the unattached edge of the back wall, leaving half of the tape free to attach to the side wall. Then, with your other hand bracing the side wall and pushing the two edges close, adhere the free edge of the tape to the inside of the side wall.

If the outside corners where the walls join look a bit rough or expose any cardboard, use a small brush to paint the area with Mod Podge and sprinkle on more glitter. Mod Podge dries clear, so it won’t matter if you get some on an area that is already covered with glitter.

While touch-ups are drying, prepare the roof. Our roof obligingly curled on the side that will cover the swoop. If yours didn’t, roll the end halfway around a paper towel tube or toilet paper tube for a few minutes to encourage a curl.

Use a bamboo skewer to apply a line of E6000 glue to the top edges of all four sides of the house, wherever the roof will touch. Position the roof and hold it in place until it sticks. This is a temporary bond, so cut tabs of duct tape and join the roof to the house as you joined the walls on the inside of the house. Four tabs on a side will do it.

Paint the roof with Mod Podge and liberally sprinkle with Diamond Dust.

To make the window frames, use white cardstock or index cards. For the four side windows, draw four 1-inch (2.5-cm) squares on the wrong side of the cardstock. Measure and draw a line a little less than ¼ inch (6 mm) in on all four sides. Cut out the frames.

To make the lower front window, draw a 1-by-2-inch (2.5-by-5-cm) rectangle. Again, measure and draw a line a little less than ¼ inch (6 mm) in on all four sides. Cut out the frame. Make the upper window in the same way, starting with a rectangle that measures 1 by ¾ inch (2.5 by 2 cm).

Use a bamboo skewer to dab E6000 glue around a window, then attach the frame. Finish each window this way.

Dab a bit of E6000 glue onto the back of the smaller door and attach it to the larger door. Use a bamboo skewer to dab E6000 glue on the front of the house around the edge of the cutout door and attach the door over it.

For the finishing touch, make a wreath by winding a section of a green tinsel craft stem around the barrel of a pen. Twist the two ends together and trim off excess craft stem. Use red Glitter Glue to make clusters of holly berries. You might want to practice first, as it takes just a tiny drop to make a berry. Set the wreath aside for a day to let the Glitter Glue dry completely.

You’re ready to move in!

VARIATIONS