Remember all those stars I was talking about before? Well, here’s how to turn them into a Christmas Garland. I made mine out of dot matrix paper, but shredded junk mail could also work. So here’s an idea: take all your junk mail this Christmas and pick out the ones that have a similar colour overall for the bottom or top half of the page. Then stick them into your paper shredder one at a time, and you have around 20 coloured strips for your garland! (Obviously, this only works if you have a shredder that makes only long straight cuts, none of that confetti-ing business.)

I’m going to make my mom one of these Doily Bowls for our Christmas table, to hold flowers. I think we’re going to go for a blue and gold/brass theme, so these will sort of fit into the gold half.

They don’t do the religious bit, but they do the other stuff swell.

• Japanese-Inspired Ornaments
• How to Make Japanese-Inspired Ornaments
• Temari Balls Patterns Shop
• Temari – The Art of Japanese Thread Balls

Make a Froebel Star using the instructions here. Apparently it’s a German tradition! I had no idea. You might be able to make permanent versions of these stars out of interfacing (as shown here), so they can be reused every year. Via whip up.

Here’s a video:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/eGB9DSTLS6o" height="344" width="425" /]

I thought I had published this FO report, but it turns out that Wordpress ate it or something. So I’m publishing on their 11-month anniversary! Bon Anniversaire, ornaments!

Sweater Ornaments, started December 21st, 2007, finished December 27th, 2007
Pattern: Rough guideline to Sweater Ornaments from brooklyntweed.
Yarn: I think it was Bernat Satin Sport. It’s not bad in terms of sheen, but it is acrylic so it isn’t as flexible as a natural fibre.
Needles: 5mm circs
Modifications: I adapted the recipe for knitting flat because when I decided to start them I only had bigger circs on hand.
Would I knit it again? Yessirree! These are great gifts. I gave these to my aunt and uncle, whose initials are R and C, hence the letters. I also made a pair for my other aunt and uncle, but I forgot to take pictures before gifting them. I knit the base colour first, and then either duplicate-stitched the letters or embroidered them. It was really fun!

I got the hangers at Michael’s. They’re for doll clothes. Idunno about you, but when I had dolls (only one or two, but I still had ‘em), I kept the clothes rolled up in a ball. Once a clothes-baller, always a clothes-baller. These were about a dollar each.

I like this Padded Envelope via Creativadoration. I don’t know about you, but recycling and reusing things has turned me into a packing supplies pack rat. I have random padded envelopes everywhere, because I always imagine myself reusing them to mail things out. But I’m not much of a mailer, so they just sit there in random crevices. I imagine I could cut apart a few of those old ones I’ve scrabbled away, tear off the bubbly part and recover them with brown paper, then zip up the sides with a little sewing machine. Voilà, a pretty new envelope for mailing things out.

I won’t, though, because I’m still not much of a mailer.

I’m going on a Value Village trip tomorrow, so I’ve been looking around on the net and trying to teach myself a little bit about how to shop for vintage doohickeys*. I’m a little afraid now that I am going to poison myself with lead if I ever have the fortune to find Wedgwood china. I love the look of ironstone, though. Maybe I can risk a few neurological disorders every now and then during the Holidays?

On my travels on the internet, I found this neat Vase by Gunnar Nylund at Nymolle and Holmegaard neck glass. The neck glass cracks me up; I am not sure if I would buy it if I ever came across it. I’m supposed to have put clutter due to hilarity behind me! But this neck glass is so darn tempting! Maybe I could use it to hold potpourri or flower petals. Then I could bring it out and bask in the hilarity of the neck glass whenever someone mentions how stylish my decorative potpourri holder is.

* Apparently “doohickeys” is in Firefox’s Canadian dictionary because there are no wiggly red lines under the word. I am surprised by this.

Mac-O-Lanterns, via Crafty Crafty. OMG, I want to make these. OMG. Where is my orange paint?? I hope my dad hasn’t thrown out all our old macs. (And this was the year that I’ve been convincing him to throw out all his old crap!) I’ve got an Atari (admittedly motherboardless) that I could paint as well! Maybe I should dash over to Value Village and buy some $5 televisions, hook them up to a VCR, what do you think? THIS IS AWESOME>>>>

My brother used to get Maclean’s, and they’re all over my parents’ house now. Here are some things we could do with them:

A Recycled Mobile made from Old Magazines. Hella classy.

A Magazine Box, or possibly a rectangular one to store the rest of the Maclean’s magazines.

Alternate uses for magazines:

• pierce with 10,000 tiny holes to reuse as tea bags
• crumple up into one of those hovering balls that you use to train being a Jedi
• twist small strips into a stylish mat for your front hallway
• extract metallic components of the inks and recast them into pistons for an internal combustion engine
• fold into origami cranes

Via Go Green.

I looked it up in the dictionary, and that’s what it means.

Minimimmo paper craft, via Folding Trees.

(On the Eve front, one more page and one week of waiting and you’re looking at a Master!)