Monday, November 2, 2009

Intro to Christmas Craft

Dad, please don't read this.

My Gran used to make these candy dishes for Christmas gifts every year. She made them out of the Christmas cards she had received the year before. She got many ladies in her church making them for charity. She sold some of hers to a seasonal farmer's market that also sold local crafts. As a kid, I helped make the candy dishes every year.

I only have one left. I don't know how many are floating around the rest of my family. Gran died from cancer in 2000. My last candy dish has held many things and right now holds hair accessories in my bathroom. This year, it will be the model for my Christmas craft.
Here is my vision: instead of using Christmas cards, mine will be hand-painted black on the outside, making it year round friendly and blending with every one's decor. I will use black yarn to hold it together. The inside will be a collection of black and white pictures of my kids. Then, I will be filling each one with sugar free (stevia) fudge. Just about everyone in my family is on some form of a low carb diet.

Here is my schedule:

November 1
Have model built, with stencils made.

November 8
Have the seven inside pictures picked out, which is tricky since they will be an odd shape.

November 15
Have each side printed on card stock, cut and assembled.

November 22
Have edges of each side sewn.

November 29
Have dishes completely assembled.

I had to wait for Thomas to be born to start getting pictures of him. I usually do projects in a cluster, thus I am a little over a week ahead of schedule, but I may not touch the project again for a while. As long as I stick to each week's deadline, I am fine.

For some family members, this will be the whole Christmas gift. For other family members, we have a budget to buy something else along with this. I will do a separate post about how our family budgets for various people's gifts.

20 comments:

Unknown said...

WE moved to Vt in the early 70's and one of these was a gift from a friend. I had never seen them before that time. Ours was made from Christmas card. Emily, explain how you stitch them together with the yarn . People may want to try this for themselves. It is a good craft for kids around age 10. I have also seen houses made from cards that the roof lifted up so a gift could go inside.

Simple in France said...

Nice--I'm always in the market for holiday presents that are home made. Now about that stevia fudge. . . my mom is diabetic and fudge is a must in our house. . . do you plan to share the recipe???? please???

Also, do you have a policy on linking to your page from other pages? IE may a post a link to your page on mine?

Emily said...

Barbara, I'll be doing more posts on this as I go.

Simple in France, you can definitely link to my page! I'll be posting the fudge recipe as well.

Jessica said...

Grest idea!!! Thanks :)

nbjenni said...

Would you be able to make a PDF file of the template? What a neat and memorable project.

PS - Love the Star Trek costumes - I'm a bit of a Trekkie myself.

Lori said...

Cute idea. I like your spin on it.

Anonymous said...

I have a small vintage collection of these - bowls and my favorite - a trinket box with lid made from birthday/friendship cards. Some have the paper pieces sandwiched in between plastic for protection. Will you be using plastic to protect your photos? So glad this craft is still alive - please take pictures of the finished project for all of us to see.

Captain Cleavage said...

I love everything about this craft emily. Although my family would give me the side eye if I used any fudge recipie besides my grans (the woman used 3 sticks of butter a six cups of pure cane sugar....shiver....no one sleeps for the week after consuming it! lol) I also can't wait to see the recipie :)

Mrs Swan said...

Color pics on this one? I can't really tell what the card one even looks like.

Robin said...

Cute idea!

Will you laminate the pictures somehow so they aren't marred? Or put the fudge in a baggie? I'd hate to see you put all that work into it just to have the recipient throw it out, covered in chocolate!

R said...

I would love to see the first picture in color.

Rachel said...

Really cute, but I was hoping to click on the picture and see it in color. I would like to try to make this as well. Some instructions would be great!

Orange Avenue Academy said...

Those are cute, good idea!

Anonymous said...

Totally cute idea, Emily!!

I just might have to try this out :) Thank you for sharing!

MoeyMichele said...

Emily, seriously...I like your blog, it's entertaining and informative. But please, please put your photos in color. If you want to get technical, your photos are not black and white anyway. They are shades of gray. :-)

Anonymous said...

I have seen those before but I love the touch of your kids pictures in it! Makes it very unique and sentimental!

Looking forward to a more details of how you make them!

Lindy

Dogfood Provider said...

Stevia fudge? Sign.Me.Up.

Pepper said...

Emily - I too would love to see color pictures and if you have a template you could share that would be awesome. These look so neat and I am always looking for new homemade christmas presents!

Kate said...

Emily,
Could you post your recipe for fudge made with Stevia (?)
I'm a big fan of it, but I've found it hard to bake with (apologies if you have already... I haven't read your entire blog).

Also I'm curious about how you manage to find low cost stevia. Do you have your own plants?

Unknown said...

Hi, I am new here. I clicked a link from another blog that I stumbled upon while looking for some sewing tips. I too am excited for instructions on the baskets. What a neat idea!

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