Merry Christmas!

12 DIYs of Christmas: Homemade Holiday Lollipops

Now that the tree is decorated and the gifts are wrapped, make a sweet treat for yourself, or a last-minute gift for your Christmas dinner hostess. You can find the recipe from Just a Taste here.

That's it for this year's 12 DIYs of Christmas! I hope you've found some fun holiday ideas and projects. I'll be taking a break and will be back the first week of January, so have a lovely Christmas and a Happy New Year! Thank you for all your support in 2012!

12 DIYs of Christmas: Dough Tags

Look at these awesome little tags, made with a simple salt dough and embellished with rubber stamps! Roll, cut, stamp, bake, and adorn. You can find the complete instructions from Ampersand Design Studio here.

12 DIYs of Christmas: Glittering Initial Ornaments

I love the vintage-y look of these initials made by Aunt Peaches, using basically just felt or cardboard letters, Mod Podge, and pretty much anything small and shiny! You could use these as ornaments or gift tags. Lovely!

Snowflakes: A Chapter from the Book of Nature (1863)

In keeping with this week's Spoonflower "Snowflakes" contest theme, I thought you would enjoy this. The following are pages from an 1863 book, which features facts about snowflakes, beautiful illustrations of crystal snowflake structures, and poetry. Even the drop caps on the chapter openers are amazing. You can view all 146 pages of the book here.

12 DIYs of Christmas: Perler Bead Snowflake Garland

Today we return to The Red Thread for a fun way to make garland, for your tree or for your home, using Hama (or perler) beads. This one is fun for kids, too!

Snowflakes: Laser-cut or Lace?

Brrrrr! This week's Spoonflower contest theme is "Snowflakes". Did you know that, because of the nature of crystallization, all snowflakes have six points and sides? That lead me to thinking about hexagons, and then how the snowflakes could almost "link" together like when you cut out a string of paper dolls and they're attached at the hands. That, in turn, led me to thinking about laser-cut paper, and voila...a pattern of snowflakes that looks a bit like cut paper, or perhaps even lace. You can view the pattern in yardage here. If you like my design, you can vote for it, and all your favorite wintery snowflake designs, here. Thank you!



Here is some interesting information on how the different snowflake shapes are formed:

Generally, six-sided hexagonal crystals are shaped in high clouds; needles or flat six-sided crystals are shaped in middle height clouds; and a wide variety of six-sided shapes are formed in low clouds. Colder temperatures produce snowflakes with sharper tips on the sides of the crystals and may lead to branching of the snowflake arms (dendrites). Snowflakes that grow under warmer conditions grow more slowly, resulting in smoother, less intricate shapes. [Source]