Christmas Crafts with Betty

If there are any children in the mix, Christmas preparations in Neeldom nearly always include making decorations...Damsel in Green probably has the most, Georgie and the kids evidently make 'heaps of decorations overflowing their boxes'. Here at the van der Stevejinck homestead it would be an exaggeration to say that we make heaps of decorations...but every couple of years or so I like to have a go at making a few new ones (to replace the ones we lose due to attrition of one sort or another). This year I found an absolutely adorable one...which I have christened "The Mistletoe Kiss: Chapter One"...mostly because I used the pages from chapter one of The Mistletoe Kiss (an extra copy). I posted the instructions on my regular blog last week...so here you go:

I'm not as 'crafty' as I used to be...but every once in a while I get the urge. My go-to place for scoping out new crafts is a site called One Pretty Thing (thank you, [Betty]Keira). I happened to take a glance a week or two ago and found the cutest pinecone - the instructions are on a site called The Hybrid Chick. It looked easy enough, and even better, it didn't take a ton of specialized equipment that I would never use again. I used the pages from a Betty Neels book (The Mistletoe Kiss)...so I used mistletoe on the top. The only things I had to buy for this craft were styrofoam eggs ($3.99 for a 4 pack at Craft Mart), straight pins ($1.99 at Fred Meyer for 250 - I may have used around 100) and a sprig of fake mistletoe (on sale for $1.40 at Craft Mart - I only used half of a sprig on one). Total time? About an hour - maybe less.

Step 1. Cover the pointed end with a strip of paper about and inch wide.
Step 2. Fold a one inch square of paper so that it has a pointed end.
Step 3. Repeat step 2 a bunch of times. Step 4. Pin pointed paper pieces onto the styrofoam egg. The ones near the bottom should be overlapped some - you can just use one pin in that case. Work your way up the egg in rows, adjusting your spacing as needed. Step 5. When you have gotten pretty much to the top, add a ribbon for hanging and any embellishments you want. I cut apart a sprig of fake mistletoe for mine...I also trimmed the mistletoe leaves down a little - so they weren't quite so long.Here are some of the ones I made for my family.