Christmas crafts roundup 2014

Now that it's 2015 (happy new year!), it's safe to post all the images of my various present-making activities from the festive season.

First, cards. Here are some from this year, on white. I think the most successful ones were the ones on coloured metallic backgrounds but those don't come out so well in photos.

I made these by printing, just using black printing ink, and a block cut with lino-cutting tools. I didn't actually use lino, it's the rubber stuff that you can get. Here's the cut out designs, on top of the doodles used for planning purposes. Halfway through cutting the snowman, I went for a swim and while I was doing it I realised that even though I'd taken care to do it the right way round, I was still about to cut it so that the snowman would come out black. I rescued it, but it's not quite the way I wanted it to look. Lucky I went swimming just at that moment! 

Here's a scarf I made for a friend's birthday present (on Boxing Day), the same as a previous one but in two solid contrasting colours rather than with a colour-changing wool.

In the photo above you can also see the corner of a little crochet purse I put chocolates into for another friend, and here's one with earrings in for a Christmas present.

This wasn't exactly Christmas-related except that I did it recently: I used this washi tape to make my ipad cover prettier. It's easily removable so I can change it if I get bored with it.

This is a necklace made for my mother, a straightforward bead-stringing affair but quite effective, I think. They're glass in the centre, and then there's malachite chips interspersed with a few metal ones and some bamboo coral (ethical version of coral).

But this was the most time-consuming thing: stiffening crocheted snowflakes. Making them is fun to do because it's relatively quick (maybe 20 minutes for a small one and a couple of hours for a big, complicated one), but then they're all floppy. So you dip them in some kind of solution (I used good old PVA glue and water) and then pin them out to dry, like this.

You have to use pins that won't rust and you should be a bit more careful than me about pinning them out neatly - not all of mine were very even because I didn't spend the time doing it properly. But some of them came out really well, and those made it as Christmas presents (the one that's large in the photo above is on our tree though, as it was not quite perfect enough but I like the design).

Here's a successful one, demonstrating the stiffness by holding it up.

 That was fun. I got a kit to knit little animals for Xmas as well.

Making paper beads

It's both my aunts' birthdays in early March, and this year I made them both necklaces made of paper beads. These are so easy to make (if a little bit of a faff) and they look great (if I do say so myself). 

If you're not keen on making them, you can very easily buy them. Get them from a supplier like this one and give some money to Ugandan women at the same time. If, however, you'd prefer to make your own, there are lots of Youtube videos and online tutorials to show you how, so I'm not going to do that here. This is a good, simple set of instructions if you want them. 

I made two very different necklaces with mine. For one aunt, I made them from Peter Capaldi. Magazine pages are good type of paper to use, as they're thin and glossy and good colours. I chose Peter because I thought my aunt would like the resulting beads - mostly dark grey, with pinkish highlights. Here he is being cut into triangles:

Peter Capaldi in the Radio Times being cut into triangles

Then I rolled them up, glued them and left them to dry, then varnished them. If you put them on cocktail sticks this is much easier to do. Mr T came up with this great idea for a stand, scrumpled up tinfoil:

Beads drying on cocktail sticks

Once varnished (two coats) and dry, they look like this:

Finished varnished paper beads

I strang them with grey seed beads in between, and a few silver-coloured metal ones at the front. They're from an African stall at Portobello Road market in London:

The finished necklace

For my other aunt, I used normal white paper and coloured it with permanent marker. You only need to colour the edges of the paper where it'll show when it's rolled, not the whole triangle. Then I did the same as with the Capaldi ones:

Beads drying

And I strang these ones with blue and red seed beads, and chips of malachite for super-bright contrast:

The finished paper bead and malachite necklace

New beads for Xmas

Look at these! In fact, I used most of them straight away, took them to work to sell and they all went immediately. But I shall post them anyway.

Works in progress

I need inspiration. These beads look better on the ends than the sides, which means they won't look good just strung, so I need some creative kind of stringing that shows them off.
And this is a bracelet that I made and don't like. The balance is wrong. So I need to remake it, either as a bracelet or something else, but I'm not sure how exactly.

Paper beads

I learnt how to make beads from rolling up strips of paper - I bought some recently which were made by some African women, and they're so pretty. You cut a magazine page into triangles, as wide at the bottom as you want your beads to be wide, and then just wrap them around a cocktail stick, gluing as you go. Then you really need to varnish them, to make them colourfast and to make them look really good. These are what they look like before varnishing:
And this is a necklace made with some pink ones (for another birthday present, as it happens).