crafted Christmas

Being a grad student means I have a lot less time to do crafts. I miss that!

However, holidays require decorating. They just do. So I bow to the pressure (read: neglect the vacuuming and dishes) and create. Cards, garland, card hanging garland, table decorations, more cards, decorating cookies, knitting, making other things. Here are some of the projects that have consumed my spare moments.

I am particularly proud of these two cards! I made a bunch more, but I love how these turned out.

Two of my favorite cards

This one I am very proud of - I drew and cut out those letters and shapes!

This evergreen swag was made by my mom and left "blank" for me to personalize with ribbon. etc. I'm not there yet, but I have some ideas!

I made my card-hanging garland this year out of three strands of cotton crochet string. I "chained" it as long as I wanted, using my fingers instead of a crochet hook to get that loose, open look. The cards are just taped onto the string. I hung the garland with tiny picture nails so that it could support all the cards!

This is my sparkly pine cone centerpiece, which currently has a lovely life on my breakfast bar.
Never mind all the flash reflections in the ornaments!

This garland is made of felt circles (ridiculously hard to cut, by the way) and red cotton string. I like how light and airy it looks! The kitties are pretty sure it's a fabulous toy made especially for them. Frustrated about that. This, by the way, is the same reason we don't have the tree up this year.

I made bird seed ornaments, following this tutorial. These are for my father-in-law, gifted with an Audubon Society bird identification book! I hope he'll love them.

Anyway...soon, there will be Christmas cut-out cookies (as requested by my husband), and present wrapping, and more knitting and...

...this girl must first finish her final exams.