Scandinavian Christmas 2011

Thanksgiving is almost here which means Christmas is peaking it's little head around the corner. I loved putting together the Scandinavian Christmas series last year and am so happy to say that it will be happening again this year!

Kicking off on December 13, Santa Lucia Day (!), there will be a series of guest bloggers sharing some of their Scandinavian traditions, Scandinavian Christmas crafts, and Scandinavian recipes. Prepare yourselves to get seriously Scandinavian this holiday season.

There were so many awesome guest posts last year, one even for pickled herring! I hope you stick around to check the series out this December, you won't want to miss the incredible creative minds that are participating this year!

Christmas E-Book

I'm happy to announce that my Ho Ho Ho Christmas Gift Bag tutorial has been featured in this Christmas E-Book! It is full of great ideas for homemade Christmas gifts among many other things. So if you're looking for some fun, free ideas, check it out!

Polish Cookies

Ryan and I recently came into a plate of these delicious polish cookies called chrusciki. I've never had them until today and they are so good you can't stop at just one...or five.

They're light, airy and full of sugary goodness. Our landlord is a very sweet Polish woman who we've been trading little treats with. She stopped by this afternoon while I was cleaning and dropped these off. Needless to say, I took a coffee break. Now, I'm on a blog break.

I linked to a recipe for these above if you're interested in attempting them yourself. And you should because they're amazing. Yum.

A cute jumper for a cute niece

This is my 2nd project (1st one here) from the One Yard Wonders craft book I got for Christmas. It's a playful jumper/dress for my niece! Unfortunately, I can't take any pictures of her in it because I won't see her until I'm home from Japan (in less than 2 months, woah!).

This was a very straightforward project and the directions were fairly simple. It didn't take very long either, it could easily be finished in a day. The measurements for the elastic were a little big so I took off about 2 inches to get the jumper to the size I needed.

I've really been enjoying the One Yard Wonders book, it has lots of quick and simple projects. Not to mention it helps me think of ways to decrease my ever-growing stash of fabric. If you're into craft books, be sure to check out Rachel's month-long series over at her blog, Nest Full of Eggs, she's reviewing a different 2010 craft book everyday!

Paper Hearts from Newspapers Tutorial

I've been wanting to try my hand at making my own paper for a while so I finally just did it. I used some flyers that came in the mail and recycled them into heart-shaped pieces of paper.

It's quick, cheap, easy and pretty darn fun!

First, round up your materials. You'll need: a tray, hot water in a bowl, newspaper or any type of paper you have laying around, tulle (or anything mesh-like would work in a pinch), and some paper towels.

Tear up your paper into thin, small pieces and dump them into the hot water bowl.

Push the pieces down into the water.

Mix it around and knead the paper together with your hands. Kids would especially love this step! After about 1 minute it should look like this:

Continue to mix and knead the paper together until the pieces start to disintegrate and are sticking together. It takes just a few minutes more. It should look like this:

Prepare your tray. Cut a rectangular piece of your tulle and lay it down on the tray, leave about 6 inches hanging off of the tray...You'll need this to fold over your wet paper. Also add a piece of paper towel underneath your tulle, I forgot to add it for this pic, oops!

Make sure your paper is ready to form into shapes. Test a piece by squeeze a small amount of the paper to get rid of any excess water, if it holds it shape it's ready! If not, continue to stir and mix your paper.

Lift out enough of the paper and squeeze it out. Leave some water in so you can shape it.

Set your glob of paper on the tulle/tray and shape. You could even use a cookie cutter if you wanted to make more elaborate shapes!

Fold tulle over and gently press to remove all excess water.

Check to see if enough water has been removed, gently peel pack the tulle and if it easily comes off it's ready! If not, continue to press out more water.

Set on a paper towel to dry.

Let dry completely, about 12-24 hours, before writing on them.

I added a grommet and made a Valentine's gift tag.

Use your homemade paper hearts for a Valentine's gift tag, card, ornament or just a decoration!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Scandinavian Christmas, Day 8

Today's guest blogger is Rachel from Nest Full of Eggs. Rachel's blog is full of crafty ideas for decorating your house, she has pretty awesome Christmas decor too! She also has quite a few Scandinavian posts about St. Lucia (including an adorable homemade banner) and other Swedish traditions. She enjoys sewing, knitting, photography and paper crafting. She also contributed to the craft book, "Craft Challenge: Dozens of Ways to Repurpose Scarves," which comes out next Spring!

Rachel is 50% Swedish and knows how to throw a good Swedish Christmas smorgasbord. Today she will share how to give your Christmas gifts some Scandinavian flare!

Nordic Crosses Gift Wrap

A very easy way to add a Scandinavian touch to your gift giving this Christmas season is by wrapping your gifts with Nordic crosses also known as Scandinavian crosses. The cross symbolizes Christianity and although all the Scandinavian flags share this, they have their own histories & symbolism.

For this project gather your gifts to be wrapped, rectangular gifts & rectangular shaped boxes work best since they are more flag shaped. I had this puzzle of Sweden to wrap & thought what better way to wrap it then as a Swedish flag? Also a quick tip: cereal boxes (which are rectangular shaped) make great shirt boxes.

What you need:

Wrapping paper: red, white, 2 different shades of blue: one more like a royal blue & one more like a navy blue

For the crosses: yellow, red, white, navy blue

For the crosses you could use: fabric ribbons, gift wrapping ribbons, colored masking tapes, or Japanese colored masking tapes.

If using ribbon, you will also need double sided tape (instead of tying the ribbon I taped the ribbon ends down with double sided tape).

Denmark: did you know that Denmark was the first flag? It is red with a white Scandinavian cross.

Sweden: blue with a yellow Scandinavian cross, the colors are from king Magnus Birgersson's royal coat of arms (maybe the colors could also be for blue eyes and blond hair?)

Norway: did you know that Norway was the first to use 3 colors? It is red with an indigo blue Scandinavian cross outlined in white. For this gift wrapping you will need a wider white, so you can see the white on both sides of the blue, also, do the white cross first, then the blue cross.

Finland: a blue Scandinavian cross on a white background. The blue coloring is said to represent the country's thousands of lakes and the sky, with white for the snow that covers the land in winter.

Iceland: blue with a red cross outlined in white. The colors stand for 3 of the elements that make up the island: blue is the color of the Icelandic mountains, white represents the snow and ice covering the island most of the year, and red the volcanoes on the Island. For this gift wrapping you will need a wide white, so you can see the white on both sides of the red, also, do the white cross first, then the red cross.

Enjoy ! Have a Merry Scandinavian Christmas !

Thank you Rachel! Be sure to pop over to Nest Full of Eggs and say hello!

Scandinavian Christmas, Day 2

Welcome everyone to the 2nd day of Scandinavian Christmas!

Today's inspiration comes from Pam over at Gingerbread Snowflakes. Check out this adorable little Nisse ornament she made! Pam has all sorts of neat holiday crafts over at her blog, including a complete tutorial for this little fellow and even a cute Dala horse ornament, go have a look!

Pam inspired me to recreate one of the many little Swedish Tomte figures my parents have around our house this time of year. I'm not quite sure if there's any real difference between the Danish/Norwegian/Swedish Tomte or Nisse, does anyone out there know? According to what I've read about them, Tomtes were mythical little farm helpers. The old tale is that back in the day they would either bring your farm prosperity, or ruin if you didn't treat them well.

I made a quick tutorial for how to make your own little (or big, if you prefer) Tomte! Enjoy!

You will need:

• Red or white felt
• Stuffing
• White or gray wool roving (or yarn if you prefer, for the beard)
• Flesh colored roving or felt (for the nose)
• Scissors
• Hot glue gun, or other quick-drying glue
• Floral wire
• Styrofoam balls, I used 2 sizes: 50mm and 80mm (a golf ball could also work)

You can vary the color and sizes to what you prefer.

1. First, determine what size triangle you need to cut for your Tomte. Measure around the midsection of the ball and add 1 inch. For example, my small styrofoam ball was 6" around + 1" = 7" total. I made my hats the same height. For my smaller Tomtes my triangle was 7" at the bottom and 7" high.

2. Cut out your triangle and measure it around the ball. Pinch together and pin. Sew across along the entire hat.

3. Trim any excess felt off and round the top corner. Turn right-side out.

4. Cut off a section of your styrofoam ball so it will sit flat. Next, glue a circle piece of white felt to the bottom.

5. Take your floral wire and cover the end with hot glue. Insert to the top of the Tomte hat and squeeze the tip so it sticks. This is so your hat will stay hunched over later.

6. Stuff the hat around the wire. Leave about 1" - 1.5" space for the ball.

7. Cut a circular piece of red felt with a hole in the center and glue it inside the hat.

8. Prepare your beard by pulling small sections of the wool roving off.

9. Working in 2" segments and starting near the bottom of the ball, add hot glue to your ball and start to stick your sections of wool roving on.

10. Work all the way around before starting with the top layer.

11. Do the same for the top layer. Add as much wool as you need so you cannot see the ball. You can lay longer pieces across the top and secure with hot glue. Trim the floral wire down and hot glue the hat on top of the completed ball. Curve the hat to one side, the wire will make it stay in place.

12. Make a ball with the flesh colored wool roving. If you don't have wool roving, you could paint a small wooden ball or cut a small circle from felt. Glue the ball near the edge of the hat so it looks like his nose is peaking out.

Try out different colors like this white and gray-bearded Tomte!

You can make an entire Tomte family!

And they make great gifts! I'll be giving these away to my grandma and brother-in-law's mom, both big Tomte fans.