Lemax Christmas Village 2014 with Dept 56 Boat & Lighthouse

Free Christmas Bookmarks for Craft Fairs

I made these Christmas bookmarks to give away free at my Christmas Fair together with some mini candy canes

It draws the children to the stall and lets be honest who doesn't love a freebie

So help yourself 

Click the image

Right click 

and save to your computer 

 Print to suit

Lemax Christmas Village Dept 56

I know its only September, but the build has started, the Christmas Village 1st piece is put in place. I need it to be bigger to the left hand side and 2 tiered so the building continues

My OH is not really a DIY person so much planning and drawing has taken place. I know what my village must look like. Theres so many scraps of paper hanging about with ideas and drawings on them. I must organise them better. 

Whats in my head is not necessarily what I can translate for him to build

So watch this space

The first piece

It doesnt look much. But I think this is the third attempt at putting legs on and building a frame

In a previous post, I was going to build a barge scene into the village for a British feel, on reflection, I have decided to forget this idea as I`ve seen a ship for sale in America and am currently waiting for it to be imported, so have decided to go with the sea and harbour idea. 

The reason for this is because I`ve seen some telephone boxes and red post boxes I want which will provide the British feel

Also I want a ski lift / cable car , I have to re-think things a bit

I did purchase some cable cars, but they`re too small. So have them on ebay and will re-think that idea

Cadburys Dairy Milk Minitures - Santa

These are not difficult to make and are a firm favourite with my family

Firstly take some CDM minitures

Cut some red papers 

65 mm x 35 mm

At this point I like to leave the purple wrappers on, but remove them if you with

Wrap the CDM in double sided tape

When wrapped they will look like this

You can still see the gold wrapper inside

Cut a strip of black paper, I have not specified a size here as its personal choice 

Mine is 10mm

Attach to the red paper using double sided tape

 I then cut some buckles to place over the belt

The CDM looks like this finished

I packaged up my Cadburys Dairy Milk as shown with a cello bag and hand written label

Christmas is a coming - Santa Candy Canes

I have found another use for my candy canes. I`ve made them to hang on the tree or just to give as a little treat. 

I started with :-

A candy cane

Some scalloped circles , punched using a punch

A pink circle

A white circle 

Some white petals

A red ribbon

Fold the white scalloped circle down from the top and glue to a red scallop

Cut part of a pink circle to make a `face` (use a stamp pad to go around the edges to make the face pop) then stick to the white scallop 

Glue the white nose and petals to the face as shown

This one below has been `popped` the one above hasn't, which one do you prefer?

Use a red marker to draw a mouth onto Santa

Attach googly eyes

Fasten onto the candy cane, I used double sided tape and glue, the double sided to position on the cane and the glue for longevity

Attach one of the red circles at the back to neaten it up and to make the Santa more sturdy

Finish with a red ribbon

Here`s a twist, making a reindeer and a snowman, using the above technique

Recycled Kraft Card Christmas Reindeer

These are easy to make and they need to be as I produce 400 - 500 Christmas cards every year. I do keep around 50 for myself and then the others go to local charities

They`re simply a recycled craft card

Stamped with a reindeer

I am terrible at stamping and have sold most of my stamps

The nose and holly are coloured simply with pearlidoodles

they give the nose / holly a 3D effect 

The only variation on the cards is the sentiment, I`ve put Happy Christmas on some, Rudolph the red nose reindeer on other and some have no sentiment at all

Very effective I think you`ll agree

This is another `British` theme for the Christmas Village

I can hear you saying Christmas, its July

But I make lots of craft things and have to start now, so that the Christmas Village will be how I want it

These 13 pieces of paper are going to be a lock and barge boat, it will take a while to put together as each sheet has to be glued to cardboard of different weights

Well the cardboard is on and now I`m waiting for it to dry 

I can see this proving to be quite a challenge all those small pieces