Monday, December 5, 2011

Swedish Christmas Fair: the program and craft fair

Well, it's no surprise that the Swedish Christmas Fair was a smashing success! Ryan and I stocked up on semlor (Ryan's first time having one!) and lussekatter and later had some glogg. There were many a craft booth and I am determined to be one of them next year! So much cute stuff there! I'll share my finds in another post and for now I will share a few pictures of the fair itself.

The booths were tons of fun to browse and see cute Swedish ornaments and other creative Christmas decor. They had booths for linens/textiles, books, jewlery, shirts, and other handmade beauties.

And there were some traditional Swedish dances during some of the fair!

And, the food. Oh my. Ryan had never had semlor before so we made sure to get some.

Ryan clearly loved the marzipan middle, he ate it right out. :)

But he loved the whole thing and finished it all! They were quite scrumptious.

We met up with some fellow Swede fans from my college (North Park University, go Vikings!) and watched the Lucia processional together.

Sorry for the following dark, fuzzy photos. They turn out the lights during the processional and I took a few pictures but they didn't turn out amazing...


They sang a medley of Swedish songs and it was so good!

Ryan and I drank our glogg while we waited for the Lucia processional to begin.

Ryan loves his glogg.

A bird's eye view of the fair.

The front end where they setup tables to eat. And in the corner was the cutest crafting corner for kids! They were making paper Lucia crowns, precious! I not-so-secretly wanted to make one for myself...but the chairs were a bit small. :)

The other side with all of the craft booths.


The happy couple enjoying a fun day shopping, eating and glogg-drinking at the Swedish Christmas fair! Stay tuned for the loot post later, I scored some awesome stuff!

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Swedish Christmas Fair

Today I am so excited to go to the SWEA International Swedish Christmas Fair 2011, WOO! If you live in the Los Angeles area, I highly recommend going. There will be a Lucia processional at 12 PM and 3 PM. I went with my sister a couple of years ago and we were quite impressed with all of the food, crafts and program.

I am excited to have a mug of glogg.

And dig into a Lussekatter...yum.


And I'm really looking forward to visiting all the Swedish craft booths! I might try to get a booth here next year I think, I've been wanting to do another craft fair and this one seems right up my alley!

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Gift Tag Tutorial



These are so super easy and quick! They just require some paper punches. If you wanted to make even easier ones you would only need the large "gift tag" punch on the far left. I also used my snowflake punch and the small hole punch to make them a little spiffier.


First, just punch out your gift tags using the large punch. Make a lot in various colors.



Next, add your embellishment. In my case, I used the snowflakes.



Then glue together. I did two versions - one using the punched gift tag glued on white paper and then one white gift tag with the punched-out snowflake glued on it.



I plan on making quite a few more before the holidays. I have a "God Jul" (Merry Christmas in Swedish) stamp that would look cute on the gift tags too. I need to try that version yet.



Last, use your small hole punch to make a hole on the right side to fit ribbons and such. This step is totally optional as you could just as easily glue or tape these directly on your gifts.






Can you believe that Christmas is almost here?! How did that happen so fast?!