Christmas: Simple ideas

I picked up some vintage brooches and earrings earlier this fall at my church's Give and Take table, and ever since then I've been wondering how to use them. Some I made into hair do dads like this one from my earlier post:

The heavier ones I used like this:

I dug out some Christmas ribbon, taped it around the candle and attached the brooches on. I won't burn these candles but if I did, I would remove the ribbon with the embellishments.

Here is a close up of 2 of the brooches:

 This is from a previous year but very simple to do too. You will need a crafty block from a craft store and a vinyl cut out. I made mine at a church Super Saturday function but you can find vinyl cut outs on the internet or craft stores. Also, if you have a Cricut you can make them yourself.

Stick a string of white lights inside, tie a bow on and you have a beautiful decoration. By the way, my light strand has 100 lights.

Last but not least is a short burlap table runner that I made when I was 8 years old.

You're going to have to tilt your head because I'm not able to get the picture to show up the right way no matter what I do. 

As I was saying, you'll need a piece of burlap in the size you want your runner to be, seam binding, red (or any color) fabric, stitch witchery/fusible web, and a sewing machine. Sew the seam biding around the table runner, then cut out the embellishments from the fabric and attach to the burlap using stitch witchery. Zig zag around each of the embellishments. 

If you don't use fusible webbing, your embellishments will pucker up like mine. If you are ok with that, then hand sew them on first, next zig zag and last remove the hand stitching.

I made piggies because they're part of Christmas where I come from but of course you can use anything that calls your name. Search the web for templates or use Word. If you transfer the template on freezer paper, you can iron it on the fabric. That'll make it simple to cut the template perfectly out of the fabric.

I'm excited about Christmas although we just now got our outside lights up. As life is getting busier and busier do take time to pause, breathe and remember the reason for this wonderful season!