There are 47 posts filed in Christmas (this is page 3 of 5).
I ordered this poinsettia brooch. I often find things I’d like to order but settle for an image saved to my blog. But, I love a poinsettia or Christmas tree brooch to wear each year around the holidays. So I bought it. There are rhinestones in the middle and the shade of red looks really good, at least online.
Source: Poinsettia Pin with Gift Box | Hudson’s Bay (No longer found on their site).
via – Vintage Royal Albert Fine Bone China Yuletide by Sonupsales.
I like the poinsettia and Christmas rose (helleborus niger). I have a Christmas teacup and saucer with the Christmas rose, no poinsettia on mine though.
We save (or I do) my Christmas decorations, tree ornaments and even the leftover wrapping paper and cards, for the next Christmas holidays. I like to save the cards people have sent me too. But, what can you do with broken ornaments, decorations you weren’t that fond of or when you just have more decorations than space to store them?
Recycle Christmas Ornaments
Use Christmas ornaments or cards to decorate a picture frame. Use a large frame for a painting or smaller frames for photographs. Cut and paste the images from the cards and turn them into a collage of artwork. Use the photo frames for photographs you took during the holidays. Family photos or something beautiful you saw one day – like the perfect winter scene.
Broken decorations are also nice to use on a frame. But, be careful with anything sharp. Some broken ornaments are very thin and are not easy to work with. If you have broken fragile ornaments and don’t want to try gluing them back together for next year, then glue them to something else. Add some glitter and shine to a plant pot. Press the pieces deeply into the glue so you won’t have them falling off as the pot gets moved around.
Recycle Christmas Lights
Ornaments and lights which are not broken can be used to upcycle an old light. Pick a light you already have or have fun decorating a vintage (or secondhand) chandelier from the bargain bin. Paint it some groovy colour. Add a string of Christmas lights looped around it. Hang ornaments from it. If you have the old Christmas light bulbs you can even use those in place of the light bulbs in the light itself. Live in blue, green, red… pick your colour for the evening.
You can reuse strings of Christmas lights for many occasions. If you have strings in one colour twine them together with plain white and wrap them around stair bannisters, outdoors or indoors. Quick and pretty decorations for a birthday party, Valentines Day, St. Patrick’s Day, depending on the colour of the lights. A string of multi coloured lights can decorate and give you extra light downstairs (if you have a basement, laundry room, etc.) A string of lights can colour your world and they are made energy efficient these days so they don’t take a lot of power to stay on as long as you would like.
I noticed this snowman brooch on eBay. Really like the colours and style of it.
How to Write Holiday Greeting Cards Better
Christmas cards are a big part of the holidays for me. I love to find a package of cards, with enough to send to everyone on my list, something creative and cheerful on the card front and a sentiment inside which isn’t too sappy.
It is possible to keep your poinsettia alive into the Spring season when it can flower again for Christmas holidays the next year.
Of course, flower is the wrong word when dealing with poinsettias (Euphorbia pulcherrima, from the spurge plant family). They don’t have flower petals. Those red leaves are called bracts. The red leaves are just more leaves on the planet but they turn red as they grow from the top. The actual ‘flower’ is that knobby looking part in the centre of the plant. This is why poinsettias are propagated through grafting in commercial nurseries.
I’ve never tried growing one from seed either. I just do my best to keep my live plants going from year to year. I did have one which I kept for several years. It finally caught a white fungus during one of my moves from place to place. It couldn’t be saved that year.
The plant needs 12 hours of daylight followed by 12 hours of darkness in order to bloom – get the leaves to turn red. With some fussing, you can induce your poinsettia to bloom red again after the holiday season when the leaves usually begin to drop off and leave you with a pretty bare and barren looking plant.
Prune the plant. Take off the red leaves, if there are any left. After the last of the frost is gone from outside, take it out for some fresh air. Don’t rush to get it out there. The poinsettia is not hardy for being out in the northern climate. They are native to Central America and Mexico.
You can leave the poinsettia outside all Summer. It will grow and look much healthier than it has since Christmas. Bring the poinsettia indoors in the Autumn. It really does not want to catch a chill outside. Bring it in before the first frost. Place the poinsettia in a room which you can give it darkness (complete and uninterrupted) after sunset. The plant needs those long, dark periods for at least two months if you want to get the red leaves developing in time for Christmas. Any light during this stage will set it back.
If you only have dim light, not full dark, try putting a cardboard box over the poinsettia for those 12 hours of full dark it needs. Another idea, put a tomato cage in the plant pot and cover it with a cloth/ fabric tablecloth to block out the light. Don’t use plastic, or anything else which will cut off the air as well as the light. Don’t forget to uncover the plant at dawn so it can also get the full 12 hours of light it needs. We tend to have longer nights than days in the Autumn so it will need all the daylight you can give it too, the balance of light and darkness.
Keep the poinsettia on the dry side when it comes to watering. Set the pot on a few pebbles, marbles, beads, something which will make sure it is getting good drainage rather than holding excess water inside the pot. I also pot them with a few rocks at the bottom of the pot if I give them a new container, other than the one they came in from the store. The poinsettia likes moist soil but it does not like to be sitting in water or have water poured over it. The best thing is to let it be just a bit dry and then give it a soak in a bucket (or some other container) of water. Then take it out to drain out any extra water before you put it back where you have it growing.
Why Should you Regift?
There are good reasons to be a regifter.
First, if you know you won’t use it, can’t wear it, don’t have room for it, then don’t stick it on a shelf, at the back of a closet or somewhere else it will be forgotten and just take up space. Pick someone who will really want it, can use it. This way you don’t have clutter and someone else gets a gift they can use.
Second, it saves you money and time. Instead of buying more gifts or spending time making gifts (which can end up costing more than buying a gift) you can regift something you already have.
Third, it saves all those gifts from being added to the landfill. Not many gifts are made from 100% recyclable materials and most could be used by someone if you take the time to figure out just the right person.
The item must be kept in brand new condition. You can’t have unpacked it to try it or use a little. If there is a guarantee or instructions they should be with the item. If you did open the packaging to take care in closing it up again. Dust it off, don’t regift an item that looks like it sat on a shelf for a year, or longer. If a book has an inscription you can’t regift it.
Wrap the item all over again with fresh paper, bows and whatever accessories and extras you usually use. Also, don’t mess up and leave the old gift card on or inside the gift. Some of the simplest things are the easiest to overlook.
Don’t regift the item to the same people who gave it to you. This is a reason for not hanging on to a gift for very long. You may forget who it came from. Also, you don’t want to send it to anyone the original sender knows, especially if it is easily identifiable, unique.
Never regift a handmade/ homemade gift. If it really is something you can’t use (wrong size, for example) find a gentle way to let the gifter know. Make sure they understand you value their work, their thoughtfulness and the time, energy and resources that went into the gift.
The gift should be desired and suit the person you are giving it to. If something really is unwanted by yourself or anyone else you can think of take it to the thrift store, or try selling it online. What you give to others is a reflection on yourself. Don’t regift something you know will be unwanted, just to get rid of it or save a buck. Consider age, gender, style, size, etc. when choosing who will get your regift.
You can make a felt poinsettia to wear as a Christmas pin or put on your tree as an ornament. I’ve seen poinsettias used in many ways and styles to decorate for Christmas or the winter holiday season. The red flowers are cheerful and pretty simple in style.
Put together a simple felt or paper poinsettia pin.
Cut the flower out of red felt or red construction (thicker than standard paper) paper. The flower shape just needs to be five petals (with pointed ends) around a circular shape. Cut out a few of the same flower shapes in red or shades of red and layer them one over the other with petals overlapping.
In the middle of the flower sew tiny jingle bells, coppery coloured beads or something else small and round-shaped which you can gather in a cluster and use to pin and sew the flower together.
To the back of the flower add a safety pin which you can use to pin the flower to your coat or anything else.
As an extra you can cut one flower shape just a little larger from green paper or felt and set it as the backing before you pin everything together.
Both of these jangly little trees I found at Sewgood. No, they aren’t especially glamorous but they are really cute and fun and cheery and bright. What else do you want for a Christmas day?
We send out Christmas cards each year, sometimes we get them done with enough time for them to be mailed and even arrive by the big day (sometimes I don’t). One thing I wish I had more time to do was actually write a note of some kind along with the card. So, I went looking for some ideas I could use. I wanted something more interesting than the typical newsletter style. Though that can be fun too if you design it like your own zine. A zine is a non-professional (amateur/ indie) magazine, kind of a retro thing.
Anyway, here are the ideas that appeal to me (along with some of my own ideas). I have written this for people with family but these could all work just as well if you are single and have only yourself to talk about (as I am myself).
If nothing on my list really works for you, at least it may give you inspiration for ideas of your own. Let me know what you think of in comments here. You may have just the right idea for someone else.