CHRISTMAS BANNERS

Last year's Christmas Craft Party in the Poconos was epic (as the kids say these days). We went in a new direction and created a paper banner embellished with all of the usual fun stuff – glitter, feathers, glass beads, whatever we thought looked festive essentially.

Here's mine which is NOEL. I did it in soft blues and greens to match my mountain home accent colors. You can see sheet music of Christmas carols as a background.

Lori did a red and brown color scheme and chose JOY.

Beth also chose JOY but used softer browns and blues.

And, Crystal chose red as her predominate color for a NOEL banner.

FUZZY, FEATHERY TABLETOP TREES

Ages ago when my boys were toddlers and we were reading a lot of Dr. Seuss, I was inspired to create these whimsical, soft and fluffy tabletop trees. They're made of painted boxes and felt or fleece, feathers, pom poms, and velvet ribbon. Hot glue or the Quick Grab tacky glue will help most of the parts stay in place.

Since I grew up in a house full of girls, I did a couple of pink trees. The very pink one I call my Jessica tree because of the bustle-like ties in the back (sorry you can't see that part in this photo). It's an homage to my sis, Jess, who made her prom dress one year of pretty pink taffeta and had a big bow, bustle-like bump in the back. This one goes on my dressing table – which reminds me to tell you not to forget to decorate your bedrooms for the holidays, it's a great energy boost in the morning to start your day happy.

AUTUMN WREATHS

Some of the Craft Party Girls were able to get together on Sunday to make some autumn wreaths. We never made it to the Poconos for our Craft Party Weekend Getaway since my son broke his finger and had to have surgery to pin a bone chip to the larger bone. By Sunday he was feeling fine so the party girls quickly decided that we wouldn't let our supplies go to waste and had a mini crafting session.

Sherrie created a very earthy brown and grape colored grapevine wreath. The ribbon had gold accents to give it a tiny bit of sparkle.

Patti needed a lighter colored wreath to hang on her dark front door so she used bleached twigs and orange and yellow berries. She finished it off with a striped brown bow tied at 5:30 on the circle. ; )

Crystal, inspired by a wreath she saw hanging on a door at The Innkeepers Kitchen, tucked in some cut pampas grass plumes, wheat buds, yellow berries and tiny red leaves to follow the flow of the twigs.

I made this woodcut wreath prior to the party since it is a much longer process. A hay wreath form is the base. I pruned my trees and then cut the branches into 1 inch pieces that I hot glued onto the hay wreath. The berries are secured at the top and a few skeleton leaves are added for color. This was a wreath I saw online in a photograph and just had to recreate!

As always, we had a decadent feta cheese dip, some salted edamame and california rolls for snacks. You can't craft without a little nourishment! Party On, Girls.

CHOCOLATE TABLETOP TREES

The first Craft Party craft was very ambitious. It was an edible chocolate tabletop tree. I made the bases from a Rice Crispies Treat recipe. They were varying sizes but all shaped as cones. The chocolate non-pareil candies were fixed to the bases using melted chocolate chips. Some of us put M&Ms here and there as ornaments and others used white chocolate mints with colored non-pareils. They all came out so well and we had a blast making and eating our way throught the craft. Here's a picture of what they looked like along with a toothpick snowball that I created by sticking a styrofoam ball with loads of wooden toothpicks and then spraying the whole thing with flocked spray snow. It's messy and remains messy for weeks so only do this if you can put it somewhere people aren't tempted to touch (yeah, right).

Burnt Toast Originals

We started off as party girls in the early 80s and have morphed into craft party girls as the years fly by. Immediate friends from my first term at college, Lori and I have remained on some crazy cosmic level for almost 30 years. Here's a picture of us laughing our heads off way back when. I made this little shadow box for her as a birthday present. The caption reads, "...and then he squeezed his lips through the crack of the door and said I want pep-a-WO-ni." "He" is Ian, who is from England and couldn't pronounce his Rs, which cracked everyone up when in a "hazy" state of mind – if you get my drift. This tiny little moment wasn't such a big deal but had us doubled over hysterical in a closet where we were hiding from the rest of the party so that we could hear the pizza guy on the phone. I don't know if we ever ordered it!

And here we are in recent years outside our favorite Thai restaurant. We love the drunken noodles!

What does this have to do with Craft Party Girl? Lori and I started making some really bad crafts in the late 90s when we both lived close enough together to get together and hang out again. (We were all over the country for many years and there was no immediate social contact medium other than a phone back then.) Our crafts have evolved and we both create lovely art and paint rooms among other things. WE ARE... BURNT TOAST, but we're also craft party girls.

In The Beginning...

My holiday crafting began about 10 years ago. My little son, Gunnar, had some Halloween stickers that I just loved. The images included the above of a black cat and Jack Skellington from Nightmare Before Christmas (recently saw the Tim Burton MOMA show and was in heaven). Since I was rediscovering my artistic side, I decided to make a mailbox flag using the images. I rigged up some hooks and hung the weather-proofed painted canvas. Still hang it to this day!

Looking back, that spurred on my love of holiday decorating and ultimately crafting. I'm going to scroll through old photos, post them and describe the crafts and hopefully tell a few tales along the way for your amusement. So keep checking back; this will take a while!

Gearing Up For Craft Party 2010

In less than 2 weeks my craft party girls and I will be trekking to my Pocono place for our Craft Party Weekend! This is the 2nd time we've made the trip. Previous parties were at home where we all live in West Chester. Now that we take a whole weekend to craft, we also get to add in some spa services and plenty of "party."