There is no denying that many magazines (and newspapers, too, for that matter) have seen a drastic decline in readership in recent years.

As a result, some have folded, others have scaled back the number of issues they put out each year, and others still have opted to exist in digital form only.

Of course, some of the big names appear to still be going strong. Yet even there, we have witnessed quite a few bow out in the last 5- 10 years or so.

For that and many other reasons, I am happy to see small, independent creators (aka, they aren’t under the control of a huge conglomerate such as Condé Nast) brave the potentially treacherous waters of the publishing world and bring a physical magazine into being.

It takes a lot of faith, determination, hard work, and passion to do just that.

Gaëna da Sylva, the founder of the bilingually published (English and French, respectively) independent magazine The Forget Me Not Chronicle has all of those things in heaping spades.

Presently on its fourth issue, The Forget Me Not Chronicle is a resplendently beautiful and enchantingly soulful publication that invites readers to step back in time for a spell and delve deep into the heart of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries (along with some older and newer eras as well).

To quote The Forget Me Not Chronicle’s official homepage, “The Forget Me Not Chronicle was born between the strange days of 2020, in this distraught time we are passing through. Between the pages of this publication, will be nestled treasures of delicacies. Words of today, written by sublime souls, words of yesterday from old articles collected between the covers of these magazines from the last centuries that are part of my collection gathered over the years, unearthed here and there in flea markets, online and sometimes donated by generous souls.”

The introduction to this magazine continues on that page and I encourage you to check it out – just as I do the current, past and future issues of The Forget Me Not Chronicle.

Amongst no shortage of life’s challenges and stresses last year, a lovely and uplifting offer landed in my inbox one day.

It came from Gaëna da Sylva herself, who was already familiar with my writing. She was curious to know if I would like to contribute an article to her magazine’s winter 2021 – 2022 edition.

My heart leapt with joy at this exciting out-of-the-blue opportunity.

I was not previously acquainted with this Canadian publication, but all it took was a few moments of exploring “The Chronicle’s” website and YouTube channel to instantly fall head-over-heels in love with this beautiful magazine.

And, in turn, to eagerly and gratefully reply to Gaëna’s inquiry with a very resounding “yes”.

Gaëna shared more with me about the overall theme of this latest edition of the magazine (each edition has an overriding theme that runs through the various articles and images it houses) and suggested what type of general path she wanted my article to go down.

Namely, a connection, situated in days past, between the seasons of autumn and winter.

It took but a microsecond, as I read her specs, to hit on the topic that I knew I wanted to write about: the fact that between the 18^th and early 20^th centuries in particular, sharing ghost stories throughout the winter had been a long-standing and much-adored practice in some parts of the world.

Of course, the telling of ghost stories far predates that point and continues to the present. The heyday of this hauntingly charming activity – especially in the UK and ROI – was, however, the period mentioned above.

These days, the majority of us likely associate ghost stories with fall (especially Halloween and Samhain), campfires, and Hollywood productions.

And while books pertaining to wintertime and Christmas ghost stories continue to be published here and there (such as The Valancourt Book of Victorian Ghost Stories and Ghosts of Christmas Past: A Chilling Collection of Modern and Classic Christmas Ghost Stories), it is likely safe to say that most of us do not typically spend icy winter evenings regaling one another with hair-raising tales of otherworldly happenings.

To those in the 21st century, arguably the most famous and well-known exception to that statement would be Charles Dickens’s beloved classic, A Christmas Carol.

As I expanded on in my article, though, as wonderful a tale as A Christmas Carol is (indeed, it is my very favourite piece of Christmas-centered fictional writing), it is by no means the only wintertime or Christmas themed ghost story out there.

I loved getting a chance to delve into the topic further and to do so in such an elegant, yesteryear-focused setting, to boot.

Some of you are aware that during the years spanning 2009 to 2017, I ran a (humbly) rather popular vintage fashion and lifestyle blog.

Between the roughly 1,500 blog posts I penned for that site, some of both the professional freelance and ghostwriting I have done throughout my life, social media, and various other platforms, I have been writing about historical topics for a long time now.

Doing so usually comes easily to me, as history and vintage related topics are some of my all-time favourites to both learn and write about.

I have often greatly missed having a platform in which to do just that after my vintage blog retired.

Sure, I can – and sometimes do – inject a hearty dose of history into some of my posts here on Witchcrafted Life (for example, those in my Cemetery Journeys series). Just as I have frequently covered historical topics on my Instagram account.

Yet, neither of those spheres are quite the same as writing about history/vintage for an outlet that focuses primarily on such.

With joy in my heart, I penned my piece titled “Ghosts of Christmas Past: Exploring the 19th and Early 20th Century Passion for Holiday Season Spooky Stories” for the latest winter edition of The Forget Me Not Chronicle.

You can read my article in its entirety through the photos below.

I was (and remain!) ecstatic to have had the opportunity to contribute to such a lovely, passion-driven independent magazine.

Little did I know that Gaëna would be so pleased with my intitial contribution that she would invite me to be a regular contributor to her publication.

This offer – much like the one that preceded it – touched me deeply.

I did not have to contemplate her offer at all. Once again, I said yes in a heartbeat and will now be contributing to The Forget Me Not Chronicle on a regular basis.

My column in this publication is called “Witchy Musings”.

This, as some of you who follow me on Instagram may know, is a term and hashtag I have been using there for the past few years. As a result, it felt like a natural choice when Gaëna asked me what I might like the name of my column to be.

Excitingly, I recently penned and submitted my article for the spring 2022 issue, so it won’t be too much longer until my second article appears in this publication.

Gaëna aims, when possible, to release four issues of The Chronicle annually. In other words, one per season.

At present, The Forget Me Not Chronicle is available only in print (aka, not digital) form.

I would be hard-pressed to overstate what a fantastic publication this magazine is.

If you – or somebody that you know – has even a modicum of interest in anything to do with days gone by and/or living a creativity fuelled life, I cannot recommend highly enough that you consider picking up a copy of The Forget Me Not Chronicle.

Those who wish to do so can currently order copies – both of the Winter 2021 – 2022 edition and previous issues of this magazine – from Blurb.

At present, they retail there for around $18.00 USD.

Now, I am the first to acknowledge that $18.00 is a fair amount to pay for a magazine (though I have certainly seen plenty with far steeper price tags than that). However, it is important to keep a few points in mind. They include the following:

–This is not just any old magazine. It is a true work of art. Every page contains stunning vintage photos and/or illustrations, gorgeous typefaces, and well-researched + eloquently written content.

In addition, the quality of the paper that this publication is printed on far exceeds that of most magazines, be they mainstream or indie.

-The Forget Me Not Chronicle is currently run and produced by Gaëna herself, with fresh articles each issue from various writers who are kindred history-loving spirits.

As, what could arguably be called, a one-woman production, naturally, Gaëna needs to make enough to justify both her time + hard work and to cover the costs associated with printing a magazine through an on-demand publisher such as Blurb.

-Much as it is usually fair to expect to pay more for a handmade item, say at a craft fair or on Etsy, than a mass-produced one, so too is not unreasonable to pay a bit more for a wonderful indie magazine that has been, no two ways about it, handmade in its own right.

-By supporting independent and small-scale magazines, you not only help to keep someone’s (or multiple peoples’) dreams going strong, you contribute to the overall magazine industry and, in a tiny way help to keep that very industry afloat.

Just as many of us have continued to favour physical books over digital ones – or at least enjoy a mix of the two – so too do a fair number of us still delight in the tactile experience of holding a paper magazine in our hands.

From the weight to the scent of the paper to the way that some of us feel we absorb/connect with written material more in physical form, there is a great deal to love and benefit from when it comes to printed magazines and books.

The Forget Me Not Chronicle is a million miles away from your everyday magazine. It is, in a lot of respects, more akin to a stunningly illustrated book covering historical topics.

Indeed, one could easily frame and display many of the pages in each issue on their wall, if so desired. This magazine really is that breathtakingly beautiful.

I am grateful from the bottom of my heart to have the opportunity to contribute on an ongoing basis to The Chronicle.

Not only does doing so allow me to write more on history/vintage related topics again, but Gaëna’s initial request led me to discover her breathtaking magazine (which, again, is available in both English and French editions over on Blurb) and in turn to share about it here will all of you.

I can hardly wait to see what themes Gaëna will propose for future editions of The Forget Me Not Chronicle and, likewise, am champing at the bit to contribute more content to this deeply special and immensely inspiring magazine.

To cap off this post, I will leave you with another quote from The Chronicle’s homepage, “The magazine is a work in progress and will evolve through time, hoping [for] it to be an inspiration, a little treasure to enlighten the days.”.

That, let me assure you, sweet friends, it does to the highest and most delightful of calibre.

Have you heard of The Forget Me Not Chronicle before? Do you enjoy reading indie and small-scale magazines?

The post Old Ghost Stories and New Opportunities, My Position as a Magazine Contributor for The Forget Me Not Chronicle appeared first on Witchcrafted Life.

In endless dwellings around the globe, preparations for tomorrow’s feast are being planned or started. Stockings, if not already hung (by the chimney with care) will go up before midnight.

Young and old alike turn their eyes skyward, still believing that maybe, just maybe, they’ll catch a glimpse of Santa Claus and his team of reindeer.

Twinkling lights provide a warm ambiance to the cups of eggnog, cut-out sugar cookies, thick slices of classic desserts such as panettone and stollen, festive appetizers, and mugs of hot cocoa that are often heartily consumed throughout the final days of December.

Christmas is upon us and for those who celebrate this holiday – be it religiously or secularly – there is often much to delight in and be thankful for come the return of jolly old St. Nicolas.

I adore the classic elements of Christmas, including its telltale colour palette. The darker, deeper and more old-fashioned the hues involved, the merrier I am.

It was to this timeless holiday season colour scheme that I turned when making the delightful Christmas card and matching Christmas rosette wand featured in today’s post.

Year after year, I never tire of crafting (or decorating our home) with the colours – deep red, dark green, cream, and gold – that these projects feature.

They, along with a few other colours, epitomize the colour scheme of December and never fail to get my creative juices (err, wassail? ) flowing.

Timelessly elegant Christmas Card with Matching Rosette Wand

By the standards of many of the cards I make throughout the year, this festive Christmas greeting is on the smaller side.

Not tiny by any means, but not particularly large either. The reason for that is that I cut the card base with a shaped die and as my Sizzix Big Shot can (like most manual die cutting machines) only accommodate dies up to a certain width.

I have an unceasing dream that one day I will be able to add an electronic die cutting machine that works with larger/wider dies to my craft supply arsenal (say, for example, the magnificent Crafter’s Companion Gemini Machine that cuts up to 9 inches x 12.5 inches – swoon!).

For now, though, my trusty workhorse of a Sizzix Big Shot does the trick for most sizes of dies and I am sincerely grateful that it’s still going strong after nearly five years of frequent use.

Anyhoo, all that to say, given the smaller small size of this card base, I had to scale down the other cardmaking elements involved here accordingly.

Ultimately, I was still able to work with various die cuts, layers, trims, and embellishments, so I didn’t feel like my usual crafting style was comprised or altered.

It was actually the matching Christmas rosette wand that I envisioned in my mind before the card itself took shape. And while I created the card first, I did so thinking about how I wanted the wand to look when all was said and done.

Happily, the two came together splendidly and were scarcely sooner completed than gifted to a very dear friend.

The “love” sentiment on this handmade wand could certainly be used romantically. However, in this case, it is meant instead to capture both the love that many of us have for Christmastime as well as the feelings of platonic love and appreciation shared between good friends the whole year through.

This particular wand – the general style of which is also known as a lollipop wand – does not house an actual paper/cardstock rosette or one made from a cupcake liner, as wands (including the Darkly Romantic Valoween Wand I shared here last February) of this nature frequently do.

Instead, the ruffled “rosette” element comes from the pleated lace that encircles the largest layer of this charming Christmas rosette wand.

I adore making wands. Each time I do so, I am reminded of this fact and find myself feeling tempted to whip one up to accompany most of the cards I create throughout the year.

That doesn’t always happen of course, but I hope to make at least a few fresh new rosette wands in 2022 and to share them, in the process, with all of you.

Naturally, it is too close to Christmas to make many holiday season 2021 craft projects right here and now.

That said, should you wish to get a jump start on next December, alter the sentiments used here to New Year’s appropriate ones, or adapt these general designs for other occasions, read on for a complete list of products used and detailed step-by-step instruction on how to create both of these Christmas papercrafts.

Products used to make both the sophisticated red, green and cream Christmas card and its matching Christmas rosette wand

(Note: When a product has the letters RW – for rosette wand – in brackets after it, that means it is only used on the rosette wand. Where this is not indicated, the product is used either on the card alone or on both projects.)

-Thin chipboard (that can be successfully run through your die cutting machine; RW)

-Smooth or lightly textured cream or ivory cardstock

-Light/pale red cardstock

-Pine, forest, or hunter green cardstock

-Red mirror/metallic cardstock – Scarlet Organza Mirror Cardstock from Tonic Studio

-Gold glitter cardstock – Premium Glittersilk Cardstock from Darice

-Christmas themed cut apart tags – Christmas Gift Tags from Carta Bella

-“It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” sentiment piece – Christmas 3”x4” (cut apart) journaling tags from Carta Bella

-Ornate square (or rectangle) shaped frame die set (ideally the largest-sized die in this set should measure at least four inches in both width and height)

-Set of at least two double-layered poinsettia dies (or use two sizes single-layered poinsettia dies, if you don’t have a similar-looking poinsettia die to the one that I used here)

-Decorative (or plain) edged oval die set (RW)

-Ornate spiral (multi-arm, so to speak) die (RW)

-Layered poinsettia die (or a single layer poinsettia die – either works great here)

-Die cut “Love” sentiment piece – Jolie Collection Titles, Tags, and Quotes from Anna Griffin (RW)

-“Merry Christmas” sticker – ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas Volume I stickers from Echo Park (RW)

-Pine, forest, or hunter green seam binding (ivory or cream could look really nice here as well)

-Cream or ivory seam binding (RW)

-Gold tinsel trim – Old School Vintage Tinsel Trim from Pink Paislee (RW)

-Cream or ivory ruffled or pleated lace (RW)

-Small cream coloured heart-shaped “pearl” flatback embellishments

-Small gold coloured gems (these ones don’t have a specific product name on them, but are from the Michael’s line, Studio G; RW)

-Kraft (or similar shade) paper drinking straw (RW)

-Glue gun and glue sticks

-Dimensional foam, pop dots, or similar to elevate some of your layers

-Adhesive, such as a tape runner, of your choice (I often use my Scotch Tape Glider)

How to make a timelessly elegant Christmas card

Begin by die cutting your card base with cream or ivory cardstock and the largest size of ornate frame die in your die set.

To cut out a card base with a die, fold your card in half and place the die so that the top of it juts out just slightly past the folded area (this helps to ensure that there is an actual fold at the top, not just that you’ve cut out two matching individual die cut shapes).

Leave the card folded, use low-tack washi or drafting tape (or similar) to hold your die in place and run the card base through your machine with both layers remaining folded so that the die will simultaneously cut through the front and back sides of the card.

If you have never cut out a shaped card this way before, practice a time or two with scrap paper to get the hang of it. Once you have done mastered this technique, cutting out shaped cards (and tags, too) this way is usually a breeze.

Cut a piece of dark green cardstock slightly smaller than your card base. Adhere.

Cut a piece of gold glitter cardstock ever-so-slightly smaller than the dark green cardstock layer. Adhere.

Use the second largest die in your nested frame die set to cut a frame from red metallic/mirror cardstock. Adhere to the gold cardstock layer.

From the Carta Bella Christmas Gift Tags paper, cut out two tags that each have a small house illustration on them.

Back each Christmas tag on dark green cardstock and fussy cut around them to leave the slenderest of dark green cardstock borders on all sides.

Using a handheld hole punch, an anywhere hole punch, or an eyelet setting tool that makes holes, punch a hole through the “grommet” section of both cardstock-backed tags.

Thread dark green seam binding (or dark green ribbon, if you don’t have any suitable seam binding) through the holes that you just punched. Tie a single layer bow in each piece of seam binding.

Angle tags so that the top of each one extends out past the edges of the cream card base just a wee bit. Adhere to card base layers.

Next, take the Carta Bella Journaling Tags paper and cut out the “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” sentiment square.

Cut a piece of dark green cardstock ever-so-slightly larger than the sentiment square. Adhere sentiment square to dark green cardstock.

Cut a piece of gold glitter cardstock a touch bigger than the dark green cardstock piece. Adhere dark green cardstock to gold glitter cardstock then attach that gold cardstock to the previous base layers of this handmade Christmas card.

Place two sizes of gold gems around the left side, right side, and top of the circle in which the sentiment itself is written (as shown).

Use light red cardstock and die cut enough shapes so that you have three small and one large six-petaled poinsettia flower bases.

Then use the red metallic/mirror cardstock to cut enough shapes so that you have three small and one large six-petaled poinsettia top layers (these are the open design top piece layers of the poinsettias).

Adhere top layers to bottom layers then assemble poinsettias into six-petaled flowers. Adhere them two small and one large poinsettia to the bottom left-hand side of the central sentiment panel, and one small poinsettia on the upper right-hand side of the central sentiment panel.

Top the two small poinsettias on the bottom left-hand side with gold coloured gems.

Top the large poinsettia and the small poinsettia on the upper right-hand side with cream coloured heart shape pearl flatback charms.

And just like that, you have a sophisticatedly beautiful holiday greeting to share with someone special in your life.

Read on to find out how to make the coordinating Christmas rosette wand.

How to make a timelessly elegant Christmas rosette wand

Start by cutting out one oval-shaped piece of thin chipboard with the largest size of nested oval dies.

Cut two identical pieces of red metallic/mirror cardstock with that exact same die.

Position the kraft coloured paper drinking straw in the bottom center of what will now become the backside of your rosette wand. Adhere it in place with hot glue or another type of very sturdy adhesive.

Once the adhesive for the straw is dry, adhere one of the red ovals you just cut out before the last step to the front and one to the back of the chipboard oval rosette base.

Measure out a length of ruffled cream/ivory lace that will fit around the outer edges of your wand head base.

Adhere lace around the edge of the wand head base, attaching it on the BACK (not the front) of this piece. I used – and recommend using – hot glue here, though a sturdy liquid adhesive would likely work as well.

Measure out a length of gold tinsel trim that will fit flush with the cream/ivory lace that goes around the wand base.

Adhere gold tinsel trim around the entire perimeter edge of the wand head, on the front side of the wand.

Die cut an intricate spiral shape from dark green cardstock (a similar-sized doily die cut would look great here, too). Adhere to red metallic/mirror layer on the front of the wand.

Die cut two identical smaller-sized oval pieces (from the same nested oval die set) from gold glitter cardstock.

Adhere one of these oval pieces to the back of the wand and one to the front.

When giving my paper crafts as gifts, I usually like to include a small tag with a handwritten sentiment such as “Handmade with by Autumn Zenith” on it.

If you wish to do something similar, cut out or use a premade small tag or banner-shaped piece of cardstock. Adhere this tag to the back of the wand (As this is an optional step, I did not include a small tag or banner-shaped die in the supplies list above.)

The back of the wand is now complete. On to the rest of the front!

Take the Anna Griffin “love” sentiment die cut piece and adhere it in the centre of the gold glitter oval.

Next, die cut enough base layers from pale red cardstock, and enough top layers from red metallic/mirror cardstock, to make two small six-petaled poinsettias.

Adhere top and bottom poinsettia layers together and then adhere these flowers to so that one appears on each side of the sentiment piece, as shown.

Top each handmade poinsettia with a cream/ivory coloured “pearl” heart-shaped flatback embellishment.

Adhere the Echo Park “Merry Christmas” banner-shaped sticker near the bottom of the sentiment piece, allowing the edges of this sticker to overlap both poinsettias a little bit.

To determine how much gold tinsel trim you will need to wrap the paper drinking straw, do a test run and arrange the angled placement of the tinsel as desired. Once this has been determined, cut tinsel to that length.

Use a little bit of hot glue (or very strong liquid adhere) to start looping the gold tinsel around the drinking straw. Once you reach the top of the straw (where it meets the head of the wand) hot glue gun the tinsel in place in place beneath the ruffles/folds of the lace.

Use the dark green seam binding to make a single-layer bow with somewhat long tails.

Cut one piece of cream/ivory seam binding and one piece of (the same) dark green seam binding. You can either make the same size as each other, or have one be longer and the other shorter, as you wish.

Fold them in half and attach to the wand base beneath the lace in the center of the wand, as shown.

Lastly, adhere the green seam binding bow you just made to the center of these seam binding “streamers” and top it with a single gold coloured gem embellishment.

I know that it might seem like there is fair number of steps involved with making this elegant Christmas lollipop wand, but I assure you that it came together both easily and fairly quickly for me (under two hours, even with die cutting and assembling the poinsettia factored in).

This wand is filled with the enchanting spirit of the holiday season and can be given as a solo gift on its own or combined with either the matching card or another Christmas card of your choosing.

This rosette wand is a gorgeous (if I may say so myself ) piece that works splendidly as seasonal home décor, too, should you wish to keep it for yourself or make multiples. Retaining and giving them away as you please.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year (or at least one of them )

Not everyone celebrates Christmas and not everybody who does so loves it with all their might.

It should go without saying, but both of those things are 100% okay.

For some, this month houses the observance of a single holiday or sabbat. For others, it may hold multiple special events depending on a person’s beliefs and culture.

Personally, December is home to Yule, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and New Year’s Eve and I really enjoy celebrating each of these special events annually.

For me, fall and Halloween + Samhain is the most wonderful time of the year. That said, I adore and appreciated December’s many special occasions, too (including those, such as Hanukkah and Kwanza, that I do not observe).

They help to make Christmas and Yule time one of the best and most special periods of the whole calendar.

A ton of people who observe Christmas rank it as their favourite holiday – my mom and sister both included.

It is easy to see why. We’re flush not only with the happiness and excitement that can often accompany Christmas itself, but also the anticipation and wide-eyed optimism that January 1^st has a natural ability to instill in a fair number of us.

This really is a magical point in the year and one which never fails to spark happiness, merriment, and nostalgia for both myself and countless others.

To all those celebrating Christmas – or any other December special event – this year, may you have an incredibly safe, cozy, happy, and meaningful holiday season full of all kinds of festive happenings that bring your heart contentment.

The post Timelessly Elegant Christmas Card with Matching Rosette Wand appeared first on Witchcrafted Life.

Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire. It is time for home. – Edith Sitwell

November was but a handful of days old when the season’s first snowflakes fluttered like icy-winged butterflies to the ground.

A brief flurry, another a few days later, and then proper volumes of snow by the month’s third week.

Fall did not go gently into that good night entirely though. At least not at first.

For a brief, enchanting time there were leaves the colour of ancient clay vessels and faded Tudor tapestries alongside slender plumes of smoke rising ghost-like from neighbourhood chimneys against the unmistakable chorus of shovels being pushed with no small amount of force across snow-laden driveways.

It is said that all good things must come to an end and autumn is no exception.

Tomorrow brings with it the Winter Solstice. The shortest day, in terms of the percentage of daylight, that the entire year houses.

For myself and others – particularly witches, Wiccans, and Pagans – it is also at the heart of the Yule season.

This long night ushers in the light-filled half of the year. Though, as I am quick to note, we rarely start to see and experience a tangible sense of that for several more weeks from now.

Nevertheless, the Winter Solstice and Yule remind us of the sunlight, warmth, and seasonal joys that await us come spring and summer.

Winter, however, is not without its own bevy of charms and blessings.

While a harsh chapter in many parts of the world, the coming season of icicles and parkas is anything but dull, uninspiring, or lacking in things to do and enjoy from the very first to the absolute last moment.

Before, with sweater-clad arms, we welcome winter back into our lives again (here in the Western Hemisphere; summer is out in full force for those south of the equator), let’s take a lovely moment to reflect back on the season that is, rather aptly, presently giving up the ghost.

The Fall 2021 Edition of Magick, Crafty Makes, and Me is a link love post featuring online content that caught my eye during the past three months, coupled with a peek into what has been transpiring in my own life lately.

I hope that you will enjoy reading it every bit as much as I took pleasure putting it together for you, sweet friends.

Magick, Witchcraft, Paganism, and Spirituality

–Create an Easy DIY Advent Calendar with Crystals Inside: While it is rather late in December to start an advent this year, this creative take on a treasured holiday season favourite was too cool looking not to share.

Whether you work with crystals in a spiritual/metaphysical context or enjoy them for other reasons, chances are you are bound to delight in this awesome advent calendar that sees each date house a tiny crystal.

This advent would make for such a fantastic and meaningful Yule gift.

And there’s nothing stopping you from using advents to count down to other special events (such as Halloween or a person’s birthday) as well, if you wanted to give making this crystal-filled calendar a go before next December arrives.

–How to Make Heat Activated Spell Sachets: Creating spell sachets is something that is familiar to many witches and Wiccans. However, generally speaking, we work with them at either room temperature or whatever the mercury is up to outdoors.

Leave it to none other than beloved Pagan blogger, Moody Moons, to take this classic spellworking technique and give it a fresh new spin via the introduction of heat.

I am smitten with this concept and plan to weave it into some of my witchy workings this winter and likely for many a chilly season to come.

–Sacred Sprays for Magickal Self-Care: As someone who adores making many of my own magickal tools and ingredients, and who is a keen proponent of self-care, I knew the moment I saw this terrific how-to post from Katrina Rasbold on Llewellyn’s blog that I would be sharing it here.

One need not be a witch/Pagan to make and use their own beneficial sprays – nor, of course, to practice self-care. That is something, ideally, we should all strive to make a perpetual priority in our lives.

–25 Forms of Banishing: No matter the season, I am a big proponent of doing banishing work. In fact, I would say it is one of the most common forms of witchery that I undertake.

Few points in the year lend themselves quite as naturally, however, to banishing work and getting rid of elements in our lives that are no longer serving us well than that liminal period between late December and early January.

This fantastic list from Sidney Eileen rounds up an impressive 25 different ways to engage in banishing work, including banishing via manifesting, involving banishing in your shadow work, and conducting energetic self-maintenance.

–Witches Bells: Their History, Lore and How to Use Them: From Otherworldly Oracle, comes this great look at the past and present of a magickal tool and/or piece home décor that is familiar and adored by plenty of folks around the world: Witches Bells.

During the December holiday season, when bells are easily had at many craft, hobby, dollar, housewares, gift, and big box stores, now can be an excellent time to make your own set of witches bells or to create some for the fellow witchy souls in your life.

(From the same website and very much in keeping with the current festive season, this delightful look at Yule Recipes: 13 Traditional & Modern Winter Solstice Meals & Beverages is also well worth checking out.)

–Work With the Plant Allies in Your Neighborhood: Discovering, learning about, and forming a meaningful, ongoing relationship with all manner of plants, flowers, and trees in your immediate environment can be an immensely beneficial activity.

If you are looking for more information on how to connect with your local plant allies, then this lovely post from Astrea at the Pathos blog Starlight Witch is a good place to start (or way to further your existing knowledge on the subject).

–Your Magickal Name:  It does not surprise me one iota that a great overview look at the subject of magickal names comes from none other than esteemed Pagan author and blogger, Rachel Patterson (whose stellar book, Witchcraft Into the Wilds, I reviewed here last year).

As someone who uses their magickal name (or as I tend to refer to it, my Pagan name) not only virtually exclusively online at this point in my life, but in as many offline capacities as I possibly can too, it is safe to say that I’m big on magickal names and really appreciate that Rachel penned this handy guide on the subject.

Cardmaking, Scrapbooking, Paper Crafting, and Other Crafts

–DIY Fridge Magnets: 50 Projects for Home or Gifts: For a good stretch of my childhood, my mom collected fridge magnets. When the volume she had amassed exceeded the space available on our refrigerator, she started displaying them on metal baking trays.

Many years have now passed since then. Yet, as my mom’s own passion back in those days for magnets rubbed off on me when I was growing up, I couldn’t help but lap up each inspiring idea in this awesome selection of DIY fridge magnets.

If you are also stuck on magnets (pun intended ) or know someone who is, you will definitely want to give this inspiration-filled post a thorough readthrough.  

–DIY Lava Lamp Party Favours: There are no molten hot liquids involved with this super cute mid-century inspired craft project.

Instead, two sizes of barware glasses and a few basic craft supplies – plus the “lava” filing of your choice are all you need to whip up some highly memorable yesteryear inspired party favours that your guests are bound to adore.

Plus, how great would these homemade lava lamps be for an upcoming New Year’s Eve bash?

–Homemade Ramekin Dish Soy Candles For The Holidays: As you may have gathered by now, I really, really, reeeeeaaaaaly love candles.

Plain or elaborate, scented or unscented, store-bought or handmade, I’m totally there for candles.  

In the case of the latter type of candle, I fell hard for Marie’s fantastic DIY candle-making project which guides you through the steps involved with creating candles in ramekin dishes.

This easy candle-making project delivers a beautiful end result that you can keep for yourself or give as a lovely gift.

I feel that these beautiful homemade soy candles would suit special occasions including birthdays, anniversaries, Hanukkah, Yule, Christmas, Imbolc, Valentine’s Day, and Samhain especially well.

(Also on Marie’s delightful – and very inspiring – blog, this adorable Upcycled Indoor Snowball Fight Wood Crate caught my eye. I really like festive décor that can be left out all season long, not merely for a given holiday or two, and this super fun project hits that nail squarely on the wintertime head.)

–How to Make a Flower Press: People have been intentionally drying and pressing flowers for many centuries and while this charming art ebbs and flows in terms of its popularity, it remains a beloved classic that is not likely to vanish entirely anytime soon.

If you are up for a spot of DIY and in the mood to make your own flower press at home, this handy step-by-step guide from Jessica at Cutesy Crafts will have you pressing a whole garden’s worth of blooms in no time.

(As well, on the same blog, I melted faster than a marshmallow in a mug of hot chocolate for this enchantingly pretty Christmas Deer Embroidery Pattern.)

–How to Store Stickers (in Binders): Unless you’ve got a lot of space and, potentially, quite a generous budget to spend on organizational supplies, chances are you are continually looking for ways to streamline your craft supply storage needs.

Goodness knows I am – especially since my crafting space (which I am exceedingly grateful for) is definitely on the petite side of things.

As such, I instantly fell in love with this handy and, in many cases, wonderfully space-saving approach for storing your sticker collection in binders. It’s a brilliant and very implimentable idea for a lot of folks.

(You could also do the same thing with other lightweight, relatively flat crafting supplies such as rub-ons or smaller sized sheets of specialty papers.)

–Super Tiny Mini Album with Lots of Photos: I have seen some pretty small mini scrapbooking albums in my day, but this itty-bitty creation – from none other than the endlessly talented Bea Valint – must surely take top prize on that front.

Perfect for your own memory keeping or to make and give as gifts (including pint-sized stocking stuffers), these mini albums are cute, fun, and more than likely, quite addictive to make!

–Vacation Memory Sand Jars: Now, I fully realize that at present, a lot of us are not exactly jet-setting off to tropical destinations or hopping in the car for a road trip to the beach.

However, if you are able to do so, have collected and saved sand from past trips, or have access to some lovely sand closer to home, this project might just be for you.

It is such a charming, low-cost way to bring a slice of your travel adventures home with you and is one that can be repeated with different locations time and time again.

(Note: When taking sand home, always ensure that you are legally allowed to do so based on local laws and that removal of said sand does not negatively impact the ecosystem that the sand hails from.)

What’s Shaking in My Life and On My Radar

Much like the summer that proceeded it, this autumn was one that, for a multitude of reasons, I will not soon forget.

In the early days of September, the very real risk of the massive local wildfires still loomed near.

Thankfully, by the time autumn had officially begun this risk had all but vanished and we felt safe unpacking our most important documents and belongings, which we had been keeping at the ready in case the official order to evacuate did arrive.

The start of this fall was gloriously gorgeous. Picturesque weather and temperatures, leaves so incredibly vivid and breathtaking that they nearly brought us to tears.

As it tends to do around these parts, October cooled down by mid-month. Happily though, (unlike last year) nary a snowflake fell in our neighbourhood throughout the year’s 10th month.

Come the evening of my favourite day of the year, Halloween + Samhain, the temps hovered around a nippy -2C/28F. The night itself was crisp and dry with relatively little wind, to boot.

This no doubt helped to contribute to why we received the highest number of trick-or-treaters (about 118 – up from our previous, pre-pandemic record of around 113) that we’ve had since we moved into this house nearly four years ago now.

Between that point, celebrating the day with Tony and my mom, and ample time dedicated to meaningful witchy Samhain activities, I’m delighted to say that we had one of the best October 31^sts in recent memory.

November wasted no time in tilting the scales in favour of winter weather, as touched on at the start of this post.

Yet the return of snow all but took a distant backseat to some rare and, in certain cases, incredibly devastating weather conditions and natural phenomena that rocked our province of British Columbia throughout the month.

Tornados are exceedingly uncommon in BC and even less likely, if I’m not mistaken, to occur during the second half of autumn.

This made the tornado that tore a path through parts of Vancouver early on in the month a serious surprise!

Luckily, this event was not, insofar as tornados go, too severe.

In fact, this powerful storm was given an Enhanced Fujita scale rating of EF0, with EF5 being reserved for the most brutal storms/tornados and the destruction they cause.

For many BC residents, the tornado – while a fascinating event for sure – soon took a backseat to substantially bigger weather problems.

Specifically, horribly heavy rains in the province’s Lower Mainland region (a broad swath that encompasses Vancouver and most of the towns + cities that call the lowest portion of BC home) and some other parts of BC, including the Merritt area.

BC is no stranger to flooding, but it had been a fair while since anything like the scale of rainfall, ensuing flooding, and widespread damage it caused had been seen around these parts.

Atmospheric rivers – a technical term that relatively few in BC had heard before this November, but which many of us are now well acquainted with – caused widespread flooding that destroyed homes, businesses, and other structures.

It also brought about landslides and these quite literally washed away segments of some of the main highways through the region.

Highways that connect the Lower Mainland (which is also known as The Coast) to much of the rest of the province.

This meant that in November highway travel was frequently impossible to or from The Coast.

In time, some routes would open again, though ongoing closures – much like flood evacuations in various parts of the province – continued on into December.

It also meant that supply lines were temporarily disrupted, as a fair amount of the goods that are distributed to retailers around the province come from the ports of Vancouver, as well as from farms and other supply sources in the Lower Mainland.

This sudden lack of incoming goods caused some people to adopt a behaviour that is still fresh in most of our minds from the early days of the pandemic: resource hoarding.

From the smallest mom-and-pop shop to the largest grocery store outlets, it all but looked like a plague of locusts had descended on the fresh food (produce, meat and seafood, dairy, baked goods, etc) section of many stores north of The Coast.

Tony and I didn’t participate in this at all. A, because we were not worried and had enough (fresh/frozen/non-perishable) food at home already to see us through several weeks, if needed, and B, we strongly sensed that at least some fresh goods would soon find a way up to this area.

That proved to be the case exactly. And while grocery stores continue to feel the impact of receiving less perishable goods and other products, since “the big clear out” most have been able to get in a solid chunk of the merchandise that they usually sell.

While we did experience heavy rains at times throughout November and on into early December, our area – which is a few hours north of Vancouver – did not suffer the impacts of flooding this fall.

Many people on The Coast did, however, and a lot of them have had their lives absolutely turned upside by the devastating impacts of these mighty atmospheric rivers.

Rebuilding homes, lives, and sections of highway will take time and cost the province billions of dollars.

My heart aches intensely for all those whose words have been rocked by the flooding.

Having lost a home once myself (to fire, not flooding, however), I can relate at least in part to the living nightmare that is having your house (or business, etc) and belongings taken from you in the blink of an eye and the often lengthy journey to piece your world together again that ensues.

The severity of this flooding really is profound. It brought Prime Minister Justin Trudeau all the way from Ottawa to BC in November, has had the armed forces helping with the situation, and will take a long time for the province to even remotely begin to recover from.

Whereas once, decades ago, my family and many of our relatives lived on The Coast, these days far fewer do. And, thus far, thankfully, those that remain in the area have not lost their homes or had to evacuate due to rising floodwaters.

At the time that the flooding struck though, both my mom and aunt (her only sister) were actually down in the Lower Mainland, helping to nurse my 91-year-old maternal grandma who very recently underwent major surgery.

My aunt, an elementary school teacher, had to return home sooner than my mom due to her job. However, she was met, while trying to do so, with the first day of highway closures and ended up staying in the town of Hope for a few days until a route briefly opened up that she could return home via.

My mom was closer to Vancouver itself, at my grandma’s house, and ended up staying there longer than she had planned due to the road closures. Eventually, she too was able to avail of a brief road closure on one highway north.

Had the closures stretched on much longer, she was planning to drive down through the northernmost parts of Washington state and come back into BC at one of the border crossings located in the Southern Okanagan Valley.

Thankfully, things did not come to that for either my mom or my aunt.

Some folks who were stranded and needed to get home to other parts of BC (or elsewhere in the country) did so though, with others still flying, when possible, out of the impacted areas of the province.

I am both happy and very grateful to say that not only is my grandma recovering well, but also that my mom and aunt both made it home safely in the end.

This year took a massive toll on a lot of people around the world.

BC’s floods and the destruction they caused (much like that of the summer’s brutal wildfires) are incredibly tragic, but far from the only major disasters to rock the planet in 2021.

Already weary from the heartbreak and life-altering changes that filled 2020, we were a battle-hardened lot as everything from the lava spuing Cumbre Vieja volcano in Spain to poor Haiti once again being hit hard by earthquakes came at the planet throughout the past twelve months.

These hard, uncertain times – complete with a pandemic that, due in no small part to fresh new variants, shows no sign of abating in the near future – are shaping and impacting a lot of us in ways both big and small.

We are eager to put 2021 to bed, yet also, rightfully, harbour trepidations about what the coming year may hold in store.

This is true for me/us at both a global level and in terms of our day-to-day life.

The very serious, life-altering and still undiagnosed health problems that I have been battling for over a year now can scarcely be called “new” anymore. Though in relation to my other chronic medical conditions, many of which have been present for two decades now, they could still be viewed as such.

The fight for answers and treatments regarding these “new” issues continues unrelentingly around the clock on my end.

My health greatly impacted and altered this year for me.

It caused certain important plans and goals to (hopefully just temporarily) be put on hold, including my long-standing dream of launching an ASMR YouTube channel, which I am more committed than ever to making happen ASAP (as soon as doing so is physically possible for me).

These issues also saw me all but ghost my own Instagram account at times (which I am anything but happy about), took – and is still taking – a serious toll on my mental health, and continues to be a major battle around the clock.

Yet, I know that things could be worse. So much worse. Both personally and, rough as 2021 was, globally as well.

In a lot of ways, we have been profoundly fortunate this year.

Even with medical challenges (mine, Tony’s, those of some relatives), a touch-and-go wildfire season, the ongoing pandemic, and many other not-insignificant struggles that impacted mine and Tony’s life, we made it this far into 2021.

And if you are reading this, so did you.

That is no small feat. Nor is it something that any of us can take for granted.

I have my concerns about 2022. I know there will be challenges both new and ongoing, and that it will likely be another year that unfolds quite differently from how I would ideally want it to play out.

I’m not knocking it yet though, of course. I will let 2022 blossom in its own time, seeking and giving thanks in the process for the positives that come our way next year.

As have come to do each season since launching this quarterly post series, throughout the fall I tucked away an array of online posts and articles that resonated with me in one way or another.

So without further ado – but with unceasing hope that 2022 will be a kinder year to our planet and all who call it home – let’s dive into that selection of links.

–A Haunting Photo Collection of Famous People’s Death Masks, 1300-1950: Once, particularly in the era before photography came into being, a somewhat common practice in certain parts of the world (especially amongst those of the upper classes), death masks are no created with the same frequency they were in centuries past.

Though this tradition has not completed vanished, it has waned in popularity a great deal. Yet there is something absolutely incredible about death masks that, I think, makes it hard for us as a collective whole to abandon the art entirely.

These castings of a deceased person’s face often captures a greater sense in 3D form of how an individual looks/looked than most 2D art forms ever could.

If, like me, you find these types of masks fascinating, then you will likely enjoy this image filled roundup of famous people’s death masks from across the centuries.

–Beverly Cleary Wrote the Stories Kids Wanted To Read About: Relatively rare is the North American youngster who grew up at any point over the past few decades without reading – or being read – at least one of beloved children’s author Beverly Cleary’s books.

Her popularity far exceeded this continent, however, spreading globally and impacting, influencing, and entertaining countless youngsters throughout the years.

To date, more than 91 million copies of her books have been sold globally. That is a staggering number for any author, let alone (pre-Harry Potter at least) one whose work was geared at children and teens.

Sadly, the world lost Mrs. Clearly in March of this year. She passed away at the venerable age of 104 years old.

Many pieces were, understandably, written about Beverly Cleary’s work and life in the aftermath of her death.

This one, which delves into her life, career, and the inspiration behind some of her most beloved stories stood out for me in particular.

Whether you’ve read any of Cleary’s stories or not, it is a captivating, enjoyable look at an author whose work is likely to keep enriching the lives of youngsters for many more generations to come.

–Fifty Dog Quotes That Every Animal Lover Will Relate To: As both a lover of dogs and a proud dog mama to Annie, our nearly nine-year-old Bullador (half Lab, half American Bulldog), I couldn’t help but smile and experience plenty of the “feels’, as they say, while reading through this heartwarmingly lovely selection of dog quotes.

–Grandma’s Vintage Desserts: There are so many wonderful recipes – as well as plenty of fascinating culinary history – on this website that instead of singling out and featuring just one here, I’m sharing Grandma’s Vintage Desserts as a whole.

Helmed by a passionate chap named Don, this delightful website is chock-a-block with the kinds of classic, endearing, and hugely adored sweet treats that many of us grew up with.

These recipes aren’t about the latest fads or most cutting-edge cooking techniques. They are honest, downhome, salt of the earth (or would that be sugar of the earth?) culinary creations that have been made and savoured for generations.

Be it during the holiday season or at any point in the year, if you are on the hunt for an ever-expanding selection of wonderful vintage and timeless recipes “just like grandma used to make” then this site is a must-visit + bookmark (or pin).

–How The Iconic Late Night TV Personality of Elvira Came to Be: Lily Munster and Morticia Addam are indisputably two of the most famous and beloved darkly inclined ladies. However, they’re both fictional characters portrayed on screen my talented Hollywood actresses.

Another spookily souled woman who has been delighting us for decades now is Elvira – aka, The Mistress of Dark.

Unlike Morticia and Lily, Elvira, while still a persona in part, is real. If you have ever wanted to know more about her origin story, then this wonderfully engaging look at how Elvira rose to – and has long maintained her – fame is just the ticket.

–Scientists Discover an Adorable New Species of Brown Frog: Brace yourself for some serious cuteness when you click through this link, as you are about to meet the precious little Chocolate Frog (most likely) for the first time.

This darling amphibian was found in some of the roughest terrain of New Guinea, where it is believed to exist endemically.

I adore learning about newly discovered species and continually marvel at the fact that for all of our global exploration and 21^st century scientific knowledge, there are still critters out that have yet to be documented by humans.

–Some Haunted Trees in the United States: You didn’t think I would let the season that houses Halloween wrap up without at least one ghost related link appearing here, did you?

Whether you are the biggest skeptic of spectres to ever live, have your own ghost hunting gear at the ready, or fall anywhere in between, this engaging post about some of America’s most legendary haunted trees makes for a fascinating read that might just have you looking at the oldest trees in your own neck of the woods a little differently from now on.

Celebrating both the chill and warmth of wintertime

We could likely sit here until the next Fall Equinox debating which season is cozier, autumn or winter?

Honestly, it’s a two-way tie for me. As I suspect it is a good many others as well.

Fall is my favourite season. The slice of the year that delivers us from summer’s parching heat, yet keeps the wolves of winter at bay for (if we’re lucky) at least a few weeks.

Winter is wildly cozy, too, however. Its comfort stretches back into the furthest ethers of time, resides in tradition and nostalgia, and invites us to slow down and embrace the serenity that comes from tumbling snow and the stillness it imparts to the slumbering natural world.

Throughout my life, I have gone back and forth regarding what season takes home the silver medal in my books. Each has held that spot at times, though summer and winter are usually the two that vie most fiercely for second place.

This year, as has often been the case, winter wins out. I need its tranquillity, the productivity that cool days spent indoors delivers, and the merriment of Yule, Christmas, and New Year’s – to say nothing of Valentine’s Day (or as I like to celebrate it, Valoween) a few weeks later.

Winter and I jive. Even during those years when I have experienced SAD, I love winter no less.

My witchy, gothy soul embraces the year’s dark heart. Which, really, is not all that dark in many respects.

Show me another season where we light as many candles and fires or hang up as many strings of twinkling lights both indoors and out?

Humans are astonishingly resilient creatures. Both prior to, and in the years since, electric lighting came into our lives, we stood our ground against even the most powerful of arctic gales via the use of flames.

As though the warmth we generated could melt, if only symbolically, some of winter’s intense chill.

This tradition continues to the present day. It is the heat generated on stoves and in fireplaces, the joys of classic comfort food that invite us to linger in the warmth of good company and wonderful conversation around the table.

It is each simple tealight and heady seasonal candle we watch slowing burn down. Scents of everything from pine to cinnamon to cranberries gloriously filling our indoor environments.

In the glistening of a menorah’s nightly lighting, the multi-coloured bulbs nestled between the needles of Christmas trees, and even the fireworks of New Year’s Eve, we ensure that light is never far from our lives throughout the winter months.

The experiences these activities bring generates treasured memories and helps to remind us that even the chilliest January night can only last so long.

Winter is not the enemy though in my books. It is an ally to my creative process, my spiritual path, and the holidays I embrace annually. Just as it is for countless others around the globe.

Sure, by early March, I will practically be begging for summer, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be a touch blue to see winter go.

We are old friends at this point. A Canadian born and raised lass and a season that frequently consumes this nation for five, six, or even seven pages of the calendar.

Tomorrow, as winter officially returns, I will smile and give thanks for the ever-turning Wheel of the Year and for the beautiful serenity this season houses.

To say nothing of the holiday time joys that we are presently enmeshed in.

Much like its predecessor, 2021 was an intensely challenging year for many of us – be it personally, globally or both.

It is impossible to know with any certainty what this winter (or summer, if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere) will bring in terms of the pandemic, climate change, and myriad other things.

But what we can, as a general rule, count on is the familiarity of winter. From its icy bite to its festive feasts, its sweatshirt grey skies and the promise of sun-kissed new life that lays beyond its snowy borders.

May this winter find and keep you well, safe, and, in all ways possible, wonderfully warm and happy.

What were some of the standout elements of this autumn for you? What aspects of winter are you most looking forward to?

The post Fall 2021 Edition of Magick, Crafty Makes, and Me appeared first on Witchcrafted Life.

Earlier in the year we took a gander at Valoween, Springoween, and Summerween.

Today, with a mere half a month of December left, it is high time we explore the subject of Spooky Christmas (aka Creepmas).

We will be doing so both through the following paragraphs on the subject and via a festively adorable ghost themed Christmas card that I recently made.

Read on to learn more about Creepmas, as well as how to replicate this charming haunted Christmas tree card yourself.

What is Creepmas?

Creepmas is taking the Christmas season and applying a dark, Halloween-inspired spin to your décor, attire, menus, gift wrapping, holiday cards – you name it!

Objectively, there need not even be a straight-up Halloween element to Creepmas. The key element is to inject spooky, scary, and/or macabre qualities into the Christmas season.

They can be gothic, Halloween related, horror/slasher genre inspired, shift the focus from Santa Claus to Krampus, or focus on any other more eerily influenced spin on Christmastime.

Creepmas is not the only name for spooky Christmas. Indeed, the term “Spooky Christmas” itself is one of Creepmas’ alternative names.

Others that I have seen over the years include Cryptmas, Dark Christmas, Spookmas, Ghoulmas, Hexmas, and Gothmas (though the latter would, objectively, apply more so to those who identify as goths or deeply appreciate and understand the gothic subculture and its aesthetic).

I am particularily fond of the name Cryptmas myself.

(It should be noted that with the meteoric rise in the popularity of cryptocurrency, I have started seeing some products on Etsy – such as this Merry Cryptmas Sweatshirt that put a cryptocurrency spin on Christmas images. So this term now means at least two different things.)

Of all the holidays and non-fall seasons that have had a spooky, Halloween-influenced twist put on them, perhaps none has yet to top Creepmas in terms of its growing popularity.

Nor, in turn, the number of spooky Christmas-themed products that are hitting the markets these days. Particularly amongst indie sellers and smaller-sized companies (though some of the bigger alternative brands are getting in on the festive fun, too).

This makes a lot of sense for multiple reasons.

First and foremost, save for American Thanksgiving in the US, many of us do not celebrate any major holidays between Halloween/Samhain and Christmas (or Yule).

For those who are card carrying members of team #MakeHalloween365, this means come Yule and/or Christmas, we are often missing our beloved Halloween/Samhain something fierce already.

So, we figure, why not carry the dark, spooky elements that we cherish about October 31^st over to our December holiday season!

(The haunted Christmas tree card featured in this post is my #MakeHalloween365 project for this month.)

Another reason is that, much like Halloween, Christmas is a very popular and commonly observed holiday – be it religiously or secularly.

Depending on the faith and/or culture we were raised in, we may have grown up celebrating December 25th. And as a result, we tend to have a bevy of memories, traditions, and festive happenings surrounding the Christmas season that we adore and would like to put a Halloweeny stamp on.

Or, in some cases, perhaps it is the very adding of darker and more macabre elements that make Christmastime considerably more appealing to us in the first place.

In addition, while the Winter Solstice does officially usher in the more light-filled half of the year, in most corners of the Northern Hemisphere, we are not going to start getting a sense of those longer hours of daylight for at least several more weeks.

Christmas, early and mid-winter (and even late winter in some respects) can be extremely dark, cold times that have a certain ingrained air of mystery and even spookiness to them.

A point which many people in generations past – and some folks to this day – embraced with the classic tradition of telling Christmas ghost stories.

I suspect the fact that many Halloween lovers adore decorating and collecting (and/or making) items pertaining to All Hallows’ Eve spills over into the other holidays that we observe.

For as far back as I can recall, I have loved decorating for and celebrating holidays, birthdays, and all manner of special events.

Once I got old enough to start putting a spooky spin on things beyond the Halloween season itself – and even more so after I learned that others were doing the same thing – there was no looking back for me.

I enjoy and appreciate a wide range of holiday decor aesthetics, including many that differ significantly from my own.

At the end of the day though, my most beloved Christmas season aesthetic is one the combines a dark Victorian look with elements of both Halloween and my passion for taphophilia (so hence, no doubt, why I’m particularly fond of the term “Cryptmas” ).

If you feel the Creepmas spirit beckoning you, I wholeheartedly encourage you to find the dark/Halloweeny December holiday season aesthetic that appeals most to you at the moment.

You are, of course, not locked into that style for life and can switch things up anytime, if you so desire.

How to achieve a spooky Christmas look

If you’re keen to get in the Creepmas spirit, there are seemingly endless ways to do so.

Select a decidedly spooky/dark/gothic colour palette (or go eclectic and use a range of colours) such as any of the following colour combinations:

-Black, white, and grey

-Black, grey (and/or white), and purple

-Black, white (and/or grey) and red or burgundy

-Dark brown, pine green, and aged gold or brass

-Lime green, white and/or grey, and black

-Cream or ivory, white, and silver (this combo tends to have an especially delightful ghostly air to it)

-Black, pine green, and burgundy

-Charcoal grey, navy blue, and silver

-White, orange, and yellow (aka, candy corn colours)

-White, black, and orange

-Black or dark grey partnered with assorted aged metals

-Cream, dark red or burgundy, and black or dark brown

-Black or dark grey, dusty rose, and burgundy

-A timeless Christmas palette of red, white and green interspersed with some hits of black

Next, decide if you want to go all out or keep your Creepmas décor to a select area or two of your house.

Naturally, if you do not have many (or any) decorations that fit the Creepmas/Gothmas aesthetic right now, you do need to break the bank and rush out to purchase a bunch.

You can start small. Look through your current winter holiday décor as well as your Halloween decorations, plus your house in general. Are there pieces that can lend a spooky/mysterious quality to your Christmas décor?

Are there any Christmas items that you could paint (acrylic, spray paint, etc), re-cover, decoupage, or otherwise give a gothy makeover to?

Doing things as simple as using a black table runner and chargers or placements and black candles on your festive table or baking some skeleton gingerbread cookies can be terrific ways to begin injecting more of the Creepmas looking into your seasonal happenings.

If you are in the market for a new artificial Christmas tree, consider picking up one in black, white, silver, orange, or red. The darkest of dark green shades can work splendidly as well.

You can then DIY Your Creepmas Tree as the wonderfully talented Amber from The Dahlia Crypt has done.

And transform some run-of-the-mill dollar store Christmas decorations into gloriously spooky Creepmas versions care of this terrific video from The Gothic Homemaker (aka, Aurelio Voltaire – whose music, YouTube channel, and myriad other contributions to the goth community I have been an ardent fan of for many years).

You could also make some cheesecloth ghosts to tuck between garland, tinsel, or other festive décor around your house.

Hang black or grey stockings, read A Christmas Carol in front of the fire, cut snowflakes out of black cardstock or tissue paper and hang them around your home, or decorate, paint, or carve faux pumpkins with Christmas images such as bells, a Christmas tree, snowmen, candy canes, or Santa Claus.

Why not pick up a Creepmas sweater/sweatshirt/t-shirt or two (Etsy has an ever-growing selection of such garments and the offerings over on Dolls Kill are awesome, too), watch scary Christmas movies, deep dive into Spooky Little Halloween’s fantastic array of Spooky Christmas posts, top your tree with a black bat decoration, visit r/Creepmas over on Reddit, or put black Santa hats on some of your favourite Halloween décor?

Have fun with Creepmas/Cryptmas/Gothmas. Let your imagination run wild, build up your spooky festive décor collection a little more each year, make or purchase some Creepmas holiday greeting cards, and revel in the enjoyment that comes from merging elements of Halloween with December 25^th.

And if you are looking for even more Creepmas ideas and inspiration, pop on over to my Creepmas / Cryptmas Pinterest board.

Seasonal sentiments to use on spooky Christmas cards, other crafts, home décor projects, etc

The following is a selection of Creepmas, Cryptmas, Gothmas, and Spooky Christmas sentiments that I have compiled. They work splendidly for all manner of festive cards crafts, home decr projects and so forth.

-‘Tis the season to be spooky

-Scary Christmas / Creepmas / Gothmas / etc

-It’s beginning to look a lot like Cryptmas / Creepmas / Gothmas / etc

-All is merry and fright

-Merry or Happy Creepmas / Happy Cryptmas / Happy Gothmas / Happy Spooky Christmas

-Season’s creepings

-Happy skulladays

-We witch you a merry Christmas / Happy Holidays / Creepmas / Gothmas / etc and a Happy New Year

-I’m dying to spend the holidays with you (you could partner this sentiment with an image of a ghost, the Addams Family, the grim reaper, tombstones, or your favourite horror movie character, for example)

-All I want for Christmas (or Creepmas, etc) is you

-Have a creepy Gothmas / Cryptmas / etc

-Have a spooky Gothmas / Cryptmas / etc

-It’s batty how much I love Christmas / Cryptmas / Creepmas / Gothmas / etc

-Hail Santa

-Boo and happy holidays!

-I’m screaming of a white Christmas

-Here comes Santa Claws (you could partner it with an image of a cat or Krampus, for example)

-Slay bells ring

-Happy ten months and five (or six, depending on if you count down from December 25^th or 26^th) days until Halloween

-He knows when you are sleeping (from the Christmas song Santa Claus is Coming to Town – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus_Is_Comin%27_to_Town)

-Have yourself a spooky little Christmas / Cryptmas / Creepmas / etc

-On the thirteenth day of Creepmas / Cryptmas / Gothmas / etc

-Happy holidays from our crypt to yours!

-Time spread the holiday spirit (combined with an image of one or more ghosts)

Naturally, there are others that could easily fit the bill as well. Turning to lyrics from classic Christmas songs and poetry, as some of the examples above have done, can be a great place to find lines that could easily be made festively spooky by changing some of their words.

Note: Should you wish to use a Creepmas (etc) sentiments that pertain directly to death, please be mindful of any losses the receiptent may have experienced this year. As well as how people are presently doing in the face of the ongoing global pandemic that we are all collectively battling.

If you think that someone might be offended, saddened, or otherwise hurt by death-related wording, be considerate of this point and refrain from using such language.

Gothic haunted Christmas Tree Card

While there are Tim Burton-esque elements to this card – chiefly the black and white striped paper (very Jack Skellington!) and overall spooky theme – I wasn’t per se channelling this source of inspiration.

Not, mind you, that I take any issue with it being there. Far from it! Like many a Halloween fan, I have a great fondness for Mr. Burton and his work – very much including the Nightmare Before Christmas.

This was one of those card designs that just popped into my head as I sat down to craft recently and I knew that I had to bring it to reality immediately.

I had picked up a roll of white “fall snow” design tulle at Dollar Tree back around the start of October and was itching to craft with it.

(You can purchase a very similar looking white snowflake tulle on Amazon. The quanitiy provided there is a fair bit bigger than my roll from the dollar store.)

That tulle appears twice on this card, along with some festive shimmer via the red glitter cardstock, silver metallic cardstock, glossy black cardstock, and the silver tinsel trim on the Christmas tree.

Not to mention the hits of sparkle coming from the fun shaker mix that I composed out of red and black sequins, clear sequins/gems, white and black ghost-shaped sequins, and red and white polymer clay peppermint candy shapes.

The only patterned paper here is a black and white striped piece behind the shaker window, as I wanted to keep the emphasis more on the colour palette and haunted Christmas theme than on multiple different patterns of paper.

If you do not have, or as an alternative to, black and white striped paper, a black or grey snowflake print paper would likely look marvellous here as well.

I have been champing at the bit to share a Creepmas card with all of you and am delighted that I got a chance to do just that here this month.

Should you wish to replicate my sweetly spooky Christmas card, be sure to check out the list of materials used and the detailed step-by-step instructions that follow below.

Products used to make this elegant red and black gothic Christmas card

-Black cardstock

-Glossy black cardstock – Glossy Black Mirror Card from Tonic Studios

-Silver foil or metallic cardstock – Silver Foil Cardstock from Recollections

-Red glitter cardstock – Premium Glittersilk Cardstock from Darice

-Black and white striped paper – Halloween Party Bone Chilling paper from Echo Park

-Clear acetate

-Christmas tree die set with tree, tree stand, bow, and star dies (or assorted dies to create a similar-looking Christmas tree)

-Holly leaf/winter greenery oval frame die (I have had this one in my stash for a few years. You can currently get a similar looking holly oval frame die from Simon Says Stamp)

-Elegant decorative edge scissors – Victorian Paper Edgers from Fiskars

-Black pigment ink pad (or really, just about any black ink pad that works well for inking paper edges)

-Small clear sequins or gems – 3mm Sparkling Clear Sequins from Pretty Pink Posh

-Red sequins

-Black shimmery sequins

-White and black ghost-shaped sequins (check sites such as eBay, Etsy, and AliExpress for ghost sequins)

-Red and white polymer clay peppermint candy shaped pieces (available from various sellers on the aforementioned websites, including Etsy seller Diystencilca)

-White “falling snow” tulle (Crafter’s Square brand from Dollar Tree)

-Red and white micro pompom trim – Handmade Floral Embellishments #500153 Ribbons from Prima Marketing

-Silver tinsel trim – Designer Tinsel Trim from Webster’s Pages

-Black seam binding

-Black pleated ribbon trim

-Glue gun and glue sticks (optional, but especially handy for gluing the seam binding bow in place)

-Dimensional foam, pop dots, or similar to elevate some of your layers

-Adhesive, such as a tape runner, of your choice (I often use my Scotch Tape Glider)

How to make a gothic haunted Christmas tree card

Begin by making a card base from plain black (or charcoal grey) cardstock.

Cut a piece of white falling snowflake print tulle slightly smaller than your card base. Adhere.

Use decorative edge scissors to cut out a piece of red glitter card that is slightly smaller than the piece of white tulle. Adhere.

Cut a piece of black and white striped paper a little smaller than the piece of red glitter cardstock. Ink all four edges lightly with black ink.

Next, die cut a festive holly greenery oval frame in the center of the striped paper.

Die cut the same frame itself from red cardstock. Gingerly align the red frame so that it sits flush in the frame aperture that you die cut from striped paper.

Die cut two equal-sized ovals of clear acetate (or another suitable lightweight, flexible clear plastic material).

Create a festively spooky shaker mix using a blend of red, black, and clear (or white) sequins and/or small gems, white and/or black ghost-shaped sequins (bats would also be fantastic here!), as well as some polymer clay red and white peppermint candies and/or candy canes.

Sandwich the sequins mix between the two pieces of clear acetate and adhere their edges together.

Place this oval sandwich of shaker card goodness into the oval aperture of the holly greenery frame. You may want to use foam dots, pop dots, or a similar raised adhesive to give your shaker card an even greater sense of depth (that’s what I did here).

Back the aperture (open area of the frame design) with a piece of the same white falling snowflake tulle. Adhere.

Then adhere the frame layers, with the shaker portion, to the base layers of the card, making sure that the last layer behind the clear oval is the white snowflake tulle.

Next, die cut a Christmas tree shape from glossy black cardstock (you could also use black glitter cardstock or plain black cardstock instead). Die cut a small star and the Christmas tree stand both from silver metallic cardstock (or grey cardstock).

Assemble the tree, top it with the star and put the tree trunk in the tree stand.

Die cut three small red glitter cardstock bows (or use small bow-shaped cabochons or tiny bows made from real ribbon) and pick out five white ghost sequin pieces. Adhere the red bows and white sequin ghosts to the Christmas tree as shown.

Wrap a small length of silver tinsel trim around the tree, adhere it on the backside of the tree.

Adhere the fully decorated tree to in the center of the clear shaker window oval.

Make a multi-layer bow out of either plain or pre-scrunched (used here) black seam binding. Adhere above the shaker window.

Lastly, cut a piece of red and white micro pompom trim and a piece of pleated black ribbon and adhere them below the shaker window, as shown.

And there you have it, boos and ghouls, one delightfully cute + spooky haunted Christmas tree card that you can either keep and use as Creepmas décor yourself or give to a fellow Cryptmas/Gothmas adoring friend or relative.

All is merry and fright (for some of us at least )

Often, we have our sights firmly planted on the fresh new year that lies tantalizingly close to us throughout December and, as a result, all but forget that the present year will soon pass away.

Into the ethers of time and history it will slip, never to be repeated, unlikely to soon be forgotten.

Acknowledging and even celebrating the life and death of a given year is another component that one can readily tie into a Creepmas celebration.

The handoff between one year and the next is a powerfully liminal time.

As December winds down, I embrace Yule, and celebrate Christmas with loved ones. I lean into that liminal aspect of early winter both in my witchcraft and in terms of how I process, make peace with, and choose to honour the outgoing year.

As the only year-round spooky soul in my family, I am especially grateful for the community of Halloween lovers around the world who join me in embracing a dark, gothy Christmas time aesthetic.

Even if you do not feel pulled towards this style yourself, I hope that you enjoyed learning more about it here.

After all, it can be a lot of fun to see and be inspired by a wide range of different Christmas décor styles.

Year after year, I most certainly am and I delight in finding ways to interpret them in a fa-boo-lously festive Cryptmas manner.

Do you enjoy the Creepmas/Gothmas look? What is your current favourite type of holiday season aesthetic?

The post Gothic Haunted Christmas Tree Shaker Card + What is Creepmas/Cryptmas? appeared first on Witchcrafted Life.

A dusting of snow, like the most ethereal of glitter, elegantly wafted to the ground. It did not stick around for long, but its presence let all and sundry know that fall’s death knell had rung out across the land.

By mid-November, multiple inches were accumulating. For a while a few gentle reminders of autumn managed to hang on a wee bit longer. True to form for this area (and much of the country, for that matter) though, winter had in fact arrived more than a month before its official start date.

In the Western Hemisphere, that date (the Winter Solstice) falls on Wednesday December 21^st this year.

The Winter Solstice houses the shortest day and longest night of the entire year (these two appear in the reverse order on the Summer Solstice).

For many who opt to follow the Wheel of the Year, the Winter Solstice ushers in not only the beginning of winter itself, but also the Pagan sabbat of Yule.

I would venture to say that, particularly in contemporary times, no other sabbat is more familiar to the broader public sphere than that of Yule.

The words “Yule” and “Yuletide” are to this day still often used somewhat interchangeably with “the holiday season” and “Christmas” – as well as being another name for the Winter Solstice itself.

Case in point, we hear Yule sung about in numerous Christmas songs.

For example, “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”, in which appears the line, “We wish you the merriest, the merriest, the merriest Yule cheer.”

There is also “Cool Yule” (Louis Armstrong’s version is my personal fave), Deck the Halls (with its classic line, “troll the ancient yuletide carol”), and Cool Yule, to name but three more.

Last year we got in the festive Yule spirit – and put our craft rooms to especially good use – with a roundup of 50 Awesome DIY Yule Decorations and Craft Ideas You Can Make For the Winter Solstice.

This time around, I thought it would be a great idea to help celebrate Yule by putting it at the heart of the latest edition in Witchcrafted Life’s Free and Low-Cost Ways to Celebrate the Pagan sabbats series.

If you are new to this series or haven’t had a chance to check out the other entries that have appeared as part of it so far, you can do so via the following three links.

–10 Free and Low-Cost Ways to Celebrate Imbolc (post written for the site The Witch of Lupine Hollow, when I was a content contributor there)

–10 Free and Low-Cost Ways to Celebrate Ostara

–15 Free and Low-Cost Ways to Celebrate Mabon

Before we hop straight into our meaningful selection of 12 Free and Low-Cost Ways to Celebrate Yule and the Winter Holiday Season, let’s take a moment to explore the history and significance of Yule itself.

A brief history of Yule

There is something cozy and beautifully timeless about the word Yule. Just as there is regarding the thoughts, memories, and imagery that Yule conjures up for many of people.

Yule does not have as many alternative names as some of the other Pagan sabbats that comprise The Wheel of the Year. That said, it is also known in English by such titles as Yulefest, Yuletide, Yule Time, and Yule Season.

The word Yule itself is a modern take on a handful of similar Old English words, including ġēol (which covered the traditional 12-day festival of Yule) and ġēoli, which indicated the month of Yule.

These words are thought to have even older etymological roots that stretch back to languages such as Old German, Old Norse, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Faroese, as well, possibly, as Old French.

Interestingly, the pedigree of the word Yule is not completely agreed upon and remains a point of interest and friendly debate amongst scholars and linguists alike.

The festival of Yule or the broader season of Yuletide is one that was historically observed by the Germanic peoples, including the Norse.

Yule is thought to trace its roots back to the concept of The Wild Hunt and to the powerful Norse god named Odin.

This god was, and still is for some, known by many different names, including Jólnir. This name translates to “the Yule one” in English.

As well, some of Yule’s roots are most likely planted in the Anglo-Saxon Pagan celebration known as Modranicht (an Old English word that translates to “Night of the Mother’s or “Mother’s Night”). This annual December event was held on or around December 24^th, the day we now assign to Christmas Eve.

Traditionally, Yule was an indigenous winter festival that was observed by a wide range of Germanic peoples. Early Yule celebrations transpired between mid-November and early January.

Even though Yule was subjected to Christianization, which attempted to sway it away from its Pagan roots, many older traditions refused to die out.

Some were revamped, but others appear to have remained fairly true to their pre-Christian origins. For example, the burning of Yule logs, as well as classic Yule goats and Yule boars, plus Yuletime singing.

Written records pertaining to Yule are known to exist dating back to at least the 4^th century CE.

Yule is also discussed in some of the classic Norse Sagas, including the Saga of Hakon the Good (in which is it stated that Yule was traditionally celebrated for three nights from Midwinter – aka, the Winter Solstice – onward).

As with a great deal of the past, the precise origins and elements that comprised early Yule celebrations may never be known in their entirety these days.

What is broadly accepted, however, is that Yule celebrations likely centered on the general time period of Midwinter (again, the Winter Solstice), included feasting and drinking, marked the return of days that would once again start to grow longer, and may have involved various forms of religious activities, such as sacrifice and ancestor veneration – plus that ongoingly popular and beloved classic, the Yule log.

As with the Summer Solstice and both the Spring and Fall Equinoxes, Winter Solstice celebrations were by no means confined to those of Central and Northern Europe.

Early peoples from around the world had long celebrated, honoured, and rejoiced in the shifting of the seasons, as well as the tilting of the earth’s axis that brings about the return of (literal) brighter days.

For example, the ancient Egyptians honoured the return of their sun god, Ra, in December and the same month would play host to the ancient Roman’s well-known celebration of Saturnalia. This revelry and merriment-filled event, which began around December 17^th, lasted for a week and honoured the god Saturn.

The name Midwinter itself is quite interesting, as – just as with Litha/the Summer Solstice’s alternative name, Midsummer – it speaks of a calendar and rhythm to the seasons that is not per se in direct keeping with our current mainstream versions.

Instead, the word Midwinter tells us at that for certain earlier communities, the third week of December (or the general Yule period itself) was not seen as the start of winter, but rather its midway point.

Some people still strive to live in step with these earlier seasonal lines, which add more weight to Imbolc (at the start of February) being viewed as the unofficial start of spring.

This short overview of the history of Yule barely scratches the holly and ivy-covered surface of this ancient wintertime festival. I hope, however, that you found it informative and interesting all the same.

If you are keen to learn more about the history, customs, folklore, and traditions of Yule, I highly suggest checking out the entries listed in my post Your Ultimate Guide to Books About the Pagan Sabbats. This roundup includes numerous titles that either focus solely on Yule or contain a wealth of knowledge about Midwinter.

Some themes and meanings of Yule

For both the ancients and many individuals to this day, Yule is a time to celebrate light and life.

The second half of December might not win any awards for the sunniest or warmest half of the year (north of the equator), but the Winter Solstice does mark the return of longer minutes of precious daily sunlight and that is well worth celebrating.

Hearty, resilient plants such as evergreens, birch, yew, oak, holly, ivy, and mistletoe (many of which have strong connections to the Celts of yore) help us to feel all the more connected to Mother Nature as darkness and frigid temperatures envelop our world.

These plants are amongst those that often manage to hold on and keep growing – or at least not wither and die off for the season entirely – during late fall and early winter. The depth of their verdant hues coupled with their festive connotations make them beloved classics for Pagans/witches and non-Pagans/witches alike.

Honouring light and welcoming longer days (even if we have to wait several more weeks still to really get a sense of this shift towards lengthier periods of daily sunlight) is an integral part of many peoples’ Yule celebration.

Candles, artificial light sources, and warming fires can all help to honour the sun and the invaluable role it has in sustaining life on this planet.

In much the same vein, we warm our bellies and spirits alike by turning to comforting, hearty foods during Yuletide.

Beloved favourites such as cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, allspice, cardamon, citrus fruits, baked goods of all kinds, root vegetables, a wide array of roasted dishes, sweets, punches, wine, ale, and eggnog are just some of the classic foods that are frequently enjoyed during Yule.

Just as they are for many during the Christmas and New Year season.

For those who follow certain Neopaganism traditions/paths, the archetypical legend of the age-old battle between the Oak King and the Holly King (each of whom is viewed in some traditions as being duel aspects of the male Horned God) is another cornerstone of Yule time celebrations.

Come Midwinter, the Oak King once again bests the Holly King and takes his rightful place on the throne from Yule until Litha/Midsummer. When, at that time, the two duke it out once more. Only that time around, it is the Holly King that comes out victorious for the summer and autumn-filled half of the year.

However, some belief systems see the two winners reversed, thus the Holly King rule supreme from the Winter Solstice onward to Litha.

Either way, these legends/beliefs help to remind us of the cyclical and ever-repeating nature of the seasons. They speak of ancient times when deities were often nature-based and the shifting of the seasons held a powerful magick to it that had not yet been demystified by a greater scientific understanding of the natural world.

In addition to representing the light and dark halves of the year, as well as that of the universe itself – to say nothing of things such as human nature and magickal workings.

It is not uncommon to see representations of either the Oak King or the Holly King appear in winter holiday season art and décor.

When we encounter depictions of the Holly King, he is often portrayed as proto-Santa Claus of sorts. A jolly, bearded fellow who may be wearing flowing robes and earthy, woodland-worthy hues. At times, he is also pictured with a group of eight stags – not unlike St. Nick and his famous team of reindeer.

His sparring partner, the Oak King is more apt to be pictured as the classic Green Man figure, though it is not unheard of for the Oak King to resemble an old-fashion style Kris Kringle as well.

Yule is also when some believe that the Goddess gives birth to the Sun and/or the Sun God. This birth materializes via the end of the darkening half of the year and the start of the lighter, sunnier half.

Midwinter is a time of opposites uniting. We acknowledge and honour both death and life, light and darkness. The past year and the present twelve months that lay beyond the threshold of January 1^st.

Colours associated with Yule overlap, not surprisingly, a good deal with those that have long been linked with Christmastime.

In the colours of Yule, one is greeted with a palette of green, red, burgundy, white, yellow, gold and silver, as well as grey and black.

These represent such things as wintertime itself, snow and ice, the battle between the Holly and Oak Kings, the rebirth of the sun, and the start of the lighter half of the year.

Much as it is for all eight sabbats that comprise The Wheel of the Year, feasting is strongly connected to Yule.

Some Pagans and witches create a Yule meal that shares much in common with a classic Christmas Day feast.

Others may opt for foods that represent their ancestry, their homeland, their particular branch of Paganism/Wicca, or ingredients that pertain to kitchen witchery that they are currently engaged in.

Gathering with loved ones, coziness (not to mention hygge), sharing folklore stories, singing holiday songs, burning Yule logs (or making the edible version of this classic Midwinter tradition), looking ahead to the return of spring, leaving offerings (be it for house spirits, the fae, deities, ancestors, or others), setting up and working with Yule altars, all things candle related, and finding ways to stay warm and well during the winter months are amongst the many different activities that can be enacted at Yule.

I am an ardent believer that you need not break the bank to celebrate Yule – or any holiday, festival, or sabbat or that matter.

After two years of living in a pandemic-filled world – which has also been rocked by countless other tragic events events as well throughout that time – many of us have tightened our purse strings more than ever.

Splashing out for Yule, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, New Year’s, or any other wintertime celebration may not be feasible. (And that is 110% okay!)

Even if we are blessed to have more wiggle room in our budget, we are under no obligation to allocate for the holidays.

The following list of ways to celebrate the Yule season has been handpicked with affordability, spiritual meaning, and enjoyment alike in mind.

12 Free and Low-Cost Ways to Celebrate Yule and the Winter Holiday Season

1. Collect and record your favourite Yule/holiday season recipes: In this day and age, when it often seems like fifteen versions of every recipe under the sun are at our beck and call 24/7 thanks to the internet, it can be easy to accidentally forget just how wonderful it is to collect + use treasured recipes of our own or those belonging to loved ones.

If you are not already doing so, consider using this Yule season as a great opportunity to start recording your favourite and most important holiday recipes (whether they are used as part of your kitchen witchery or not).

You can do so either in analog (handwritten) or digital form. Passionate writer + paper crafter alike that I am, I favour analog recipe record keeping, but readily see the ease and appeal of doing so on the commuter or a phone/tablet app, too.

If you do not currently have many of your family favourites on hand, contact loved ones to ask for recipes that you believe they may have and will be willing to share with you.

Slipping a simple note into your holiday season greeting cards that is tailored to each person you’re requesting recipes from, such as “Growing up, your gingerbread cookies were one of my favourite elements of the holidays. Would it please be possible for you to share the recipe for them with me?” is often all it takes to receive the recipe in question.

In my experience, relatives will frequently include other favourites, too, and/or pass along memories associated with their recipes or of the holiday season in general.

If you have loved ones who might appreciate a copy of this family holiday recipe book, consider making additional copies to give as future Yule/Hanukkah/Christmas/etc presents.  

2. Decorate a Yule tree: Christmas trees are familiar to many people the world over and are a long-standing, beloved December tradition.

This year, why not decorate a Yule tree instead of, or in tandem with, a Christmas tree?

You can adorn your Yule tree however you please, though you may find it especially fitting to work with themes that relate directly to Yule itself.

This includes such things as candles (never have open flames on a tree; keep candles unlit or opt for LED-powered ones instead), suns, moons, stars, snowflakes, cinnamon sticks, dried citrus fruit, cranberries garlands, popcorn garlands, figures that represent the Oak and/or Holly King(s), poinsettias (always be careful when using real poinsettias, however, as they are very poisonous for cats, dogs, and many other animals), pinecones, Yule goat decorations, religious/spiritual symbols, ornaments with runes on them, crystals, and various animal ornaments such as deer, bears, and wintertime birds.

You could also place a miniature Yule tree on your altar or even turn a larger tree into a seasonal altar of its own – after all, there is nothing that says an altar has to be on a flat surface.

3. Go Wassailing at Yule: Wassailing is the precursor to the act of Christmas carolling, with roots stretching back to pre-Christmas times when some early Europen people would walk through their communities and fields around Midwinter singing, chanting, and hollering as a means to chase away any unwanted spirits that might be lurking there.

Over time, wassailing and the later act of carolling both came to involve going door-to-door singing festive songs.

Traditionally, wassailers and carolers would often be invited in to peoples’ homes or otherwise handed a hot beverage to help keep them warm and buoy their energy levels during a busy night of singing around the town or village.

If doing so under these ongoing pandemic times is something you and your fellow singers feel comfortable with, consider gathering a group of friends, coworkers, relatives, coven mates, etc together to go wassailing around a safe, well-lit part of your own town.

Agree upon a selection of anywhere from around forteen to twenty songs beforehand that you will sing during your wassailing session.

For a multitude of reasons, you may wish to stick with nonsecular holiday songs. However, if everyone involved is genuinely comfortable with it, religious entries are certainly okay as well.

You could also consider picking a selection of holiday/Christmas songs that are now in the public domain (and thus free of possible copywrite issues) and altering the words to create more Pagan/witchy/Yule-focused lyrics instead.

And the especially musically or writerly inclined can also create their own original Yuletide songs as well and share those with the group.

I would suggest a dry run or two at home in the days before your designated night of wassailing, to get a sense of how long your list of songs takes to complete, how everyone feels about it, and to make sure your voices will not run hoarse by the end.

Come the big night, go out early enough that most people are still awake (say, between 6 and 8 pm, for example).

Stroll through the neighbourhood close to homes (it is up to you and your group as to if you are comfortable knocking on doors, especially if you are not looking to receive anything in return for your singing) and let your festive notes dot the chilly winter air like musical snowflakes.

And, naturally, you and your group may want to cap off your evening of lyrical merriment by returning home to a warm mug of the drink (also called) wassail, which was traditionally given to wassailers in the UK.

The wonderful cooking blog Yummy Healthy Easy has an alcohol-free wassail recipe that looks thoroughly delicious.

4. Work with stones and crystals for Yule: Many of us work with stones and crystals the whole year through. I am convinced, however, that crystals are sometimes reached for more often during the sunny months.

This winter, celebrate Yule all the more by integrating crystals that are well-suited to the snowy season into your spiritual/magickal practices.

The following is a selection of crystals and stones that are a good fit for Yule:

-Morganite

-Garnet

-Ruby (small, raw ruby pieces and chips are often considerably easier on the wallet than their polished jewelry industry peers)

-Red tiger eye

-Bloodstone

-Dragonstone

-Citrine

-Goldstone (including green goldstone)

-Pyrite

-Emerald

-Aventurine

-Malachite

-Galena

-Snowflake obsidian

-Black onyx

-Obsidian

-Diamond

-Selenite

-White howlite

-Moonstone

-White chalcedony

-Snow quartz

-White calcite

-Clear quartz

Some ways of working with crystals – be they the ones listed above or otherwise – during the Winter Solstice include placing crystals and stones around your Yule altar, peppering them throughout your festive décor, wearing them or carrying them (in a pocket or in a small pouch around your neck, for example) on you during the holidays, creating a Yule crystal grid, charging your crystals in the light of the Yule night moon, presenting gifts of your favourite Yule crystals and stones to fellow crystal fans, working with Yule crystals in some of your spells, and meditating with your Yule crystals during the holiday season.

5. Create your own Yule wrapping paper, gift tags, and/or greeting cards: While it is possible to buy Yule cards from various sources, including Etsy, if you are so inclined, it can be both wonderfully fun and especially meaningful to create your own Yule gift wrap and cards.

I would suggest starting with a versatile material such as brown mailing paper, butcher’s paper, or rolls of blank newsprint for the wrapping paper.

Stamp, hand draw, or paint desired Yule-themed imagery, such as candles, pentacles, pine boughs, holly leaves and berries, poinsettias, suns and moons, Yule logs, yule goats, or snowflakes. Allow images to dry completely before wrapping gifts.

Carry the same types of themes over to things like gift tags and greeting cards as well. In these two cases, you may have the abilitiy to computer generate and print out Yule sentiments and/or images as well, if that option appeals to you.

Consider using an extra special product or two, such as handmade paper, mulberry paper, metallic cardstock, glitter cardstock, velvet ribbon, festively hued baker’s twine, or winter/Yule themed charms to give your handmade paper crafts even more festive season loveliness.

6. Incorporate a Yule log as part of your Midwinter celebration: If you are fortunate to have a wood-burning fireplace, you can likely opt for the real deal.

If that isn’t the case – or in addition to an actual Yule log – consider making or purchasing a Yule log candle holder.

Here is a handy tutorial on How to Make a Yule Log Candle Holder.

If you are more in the mood for some festive sweet treats, then you may want to give Yule Log Cookies, Yule Log Cupcakes, Ice Cream Yule Log, or a classic Yule Log Cake – also known as a Bûche de Noël – a spin.

For those, like me, who cannot have or do not wish to eat gluten for any reason, here is a scrumptious looking Gluten Free Yule Log Cake recipe.

And, if like me as well, you also need to eat Low FODMAP, allow me to present this stellar Low FODMAP Yule Log Cake.

Those who partake in the Paleo diet are apt to swoon up a storm over this beautiful Paleo Yule Log Cake.

For low carb eaters who partake in dessert, this Keto Yule Log Cake is likely to be a big hit.

For those who do not, or cannot, eat animal products, this Vegan Yule Log Cake looks terrific.

And this recipe for Gluten-Free Vegan Yule Log Cake is just the ticket if animal products and gluten are both no-goes in your kitchen.

7. Reflect on what you are grateful for this year: It is safe to say that 2021 has not been a particularly easy or low stress year for a lot of folks (myself included).

We would be here until at least next Yule if I listed all of the global events that made this such a challenging year.

Instead of doing that, let’s take a few heartfelt, peaceful minutes this festive season to stop and give thanks for those positives, whatever their size or scope, that we were fortunate to encounter in 2021.

Find the good that shines like starlight in dark times, count blessings both known and unknown, and make a point of telling those you appreciate just how truly grateful you are for their presence in your life.

8. Get your home ready for the coming year: Either before, during, or just after the Yule season, if possible, take some time to assess your home and what you could do here and now to spruce it up, declutter, or otherwise improve your living space.

Yule, situated as it is on the precipice of a fresh new year is a superb time to tackle organizational, home repair, cleaning, and, weather permitting, yard work jobs.

Give yourself and, if applicable, those who live with you the gift of a cleaner, more organized home as you head into 2022.

I have been doing this for many years now and find that my autumn/early winter cleaning is generally more important (and larger) than my spring one, as I am especially eager to get our nest in the nicest shape possible as we hunker down inside for the new few snow covered months.

9. Make a Yule (or Christmas) kissing ball: While many of us are familiar with holiday season wreaths and springs of mistletoe suspended from ceilings and doorways, the classic Yule or Christmas kissing ball is less well known.

This centuries old tradition involves making a ball shaped decoration from wintertime greenery (real or artificial) and hanging it up in your home or workplace as a symbol of friendship, peace, respect, love, and blessings to all who encounter it.

You can jazz up your Yule kissing ball with other accoutrements, such as ribbons, tiny ornaments, pinecones, nuts in their shells, dried fruit slices, wintertime berries, cinnamon sticks, whole star anises, or candles (keep candles unlit for safety’s sake or use LED candles if you wish to light them).

Check out this great post on the blog A Pumpkin and a Princess for details on how to make your own DIY Christmas Kissing Ball.

And if making a kissing ball from scratch isn’t in the cards, but you are keen to decorate with one this year, check out Christmas tree farms and lots, nurseries, and florist shops for pre-made versions. Or, skip the real greenery and opt for a lovely little ornament, such as this gorgeous Mistletoe Kissing Ball Ornament by Ganz, instead.

10. Do as little work as possible: Tradition holds in some European cultures (particularly amongst the older Germanic and Icelandic peoples) that one is to undertake as little work as possible during Yule.

Instead, the emphasis is to be on family/friends, celebrating the holiday, and the meanings + messages that Yule holds for each of us personally.

If you are a in position to take things easy and not work (be it for a few hours, a day, or longer), give yourself that gift this festive season.

Consider taking a social media or full-on internet break, only responding to the most urgent or important of phone calls and text messages, and unwinding alongside the serenity of winter.

If you cannot step away from your work entirely, is it possible to carve out a couple of quiet hours one day to engage in peaceful activities that bring tranquility and happiness to your heart?

This can be something as low-key as taking a quiet nature walk through a snowy wood, curling up with a warm blanket and watching your favourite holiday season films, or ordering in dinner to spare yourself the work of cooking that evening.

11. Put together a Yule season playlist: Use your favourite music app or create a YouTube playlist of videos featuring songs that hold particular meaning and/or enjoyment for you during the holiday season.

Or write out your selection and use analog forms of music such as records, cassette tapes, and/or CDs to put together a list that you can assemble and play througout Yuletide.

You could opt for all instrumental and/or soft music or chanting songs. This can be especially lovely to listen to while meditating, engaging in ritual or spell work, as a way to help you unwind during the hectic holiday season, or even as a sleep aid when it is time for bed.

Revisit your festive song selection each December, adding or subtracting from it as desired so that you always have a meaningful Yuletide playlist that you adore at the ready.

12. Give freely in the ways that you can this Yule season: So often we associate the words “giving” and “holiday season” with presents that deliver a one-two punch to our bank accounts.

I am not opposed to giving gifts that you pay for, but I also believe that there is a good deal that some of us can give that costs little to nothing in terms of money.

For example, you can offer someone with young kids two evenings (or weekends, if you’re up for it!) of babysitting. You can make and take homemade treats (preserves, jams, breads, muffins, cookies, dried soup mixes, spice blends, pickles, salsas, etc) to neighbours and loved ones – always checking for food allergies, intolerances, dietary requirements and so forth first.

Some other ideas include:

-Walking someone’s dog for a few days

-Offering to housesit for a long weekend

-Teaching someone the basics of a skill you have mastered

-Hosting a clothing and/or home goods swap party

-Doing a holiday baking exchange with a few people

-Volunteering to foster a shelter/rescue pet

-Inquiring at your local community centre or place of worship if there are any jobs they need done during the winter months

-Shovelling snow for your neighbours (especially if they have medical challenges, are elderly, or otherwise unable to do so themselves)

-Making a quilt or blanket to donate to a local homeless shelter or mission

-Creating wintertime birdseed bells for a gardening or birding enthusiast in your life

-Offering to help someone declutter or do simple DIY jobs around their house

-Scanning and digitalizing a loved one’s printed photos

Or simply ask someone you care about what you could do for them that wouldn’t cost much (or anything), but would be a tremendous help.

Trust me, this gesture often means the world to people and can be every bit as helpful and appreciated – if not more so – than the majority of things you could purchase online or in a shop.

And while you’re at it, strive to get children, grandkids, or other little ones in your life involved with the concept of giving gifts that go beyond store-bought items and instead focus more on their own time and abilities.

I wish you the merriest, the merriest, the merriest Yule cheer!

Like many of us, I have quite the mixed bag of December and early January memories. Some great, some awful, some funny, some sad, some joyful, and plenty that are, well, simply what they are!

Along with a fair number – but certainly not all – of my fellow witches and Pagans, I opt to celebrate both Yule and, in a secular sense, Christmas.

Not unlike Samhain and Halloween, I see them as being akin to two sides of the same (icy cold) coin.

One is intimately woven into the fabric of my spiritual path, the other is laced with a lifetime of memories, traditions, cultural references, treasured activities, festive recipes, and delightful holiday season songs.

Okay, come to think of it, my Yule celebration includes all of those things at this point, too.

However, as a solitary witch, I observe Yule solo, whereas Christmas is shared with my (non-Pagan/witchy) husband and other loved ones.

When possible, I strive to celebrate Yule for at least twelve days. Finding meaningful ways to honour, celebrate, and rejoice in the magick and ancient energy of this potent chapter of the year.

Some traditions, particularly amongst the Norse/Heathens, have long viewed the twelve days of Yule as being mini representations for the twelve months of the year.

I adore this concept and find that it resonates deeply with my own Wheel of The Year focused path.

It was the concept of the twelve days/nights of Yule along with the classic twelve days of Christmas that determined the number of entries included in this very blog post.

I know that this time of the year is not everyone’s cup of wassail. I respect this fact and wholeheartedly understand how and why December can be a highly difficult month for some people.

Just as I do the fact that not everyone wants to be – or can be – as jolly as Santa come the dark, challenging days of December.

However the year’s last month unfolds for you and whatever you choose to celebrate (or not), know that it is my heartfelt wish that you have a safe, meaningful, and, hopefully, positive December.

May the ideas in this post help to inspire your own Yule and winter holiday season happenings, and may you have the very merriest of Yuletide seasons, dear friends!

Which of the twelve budget-friendly Yule ideas above appeals to you the most? What are some of your favourite ways to celebrate the Winter Solstice?

The post 12 Free and Low-Cost Ways to Celebrate Yule and the Winter Holiday Season appeared first on Witchcrafted Life.

As this period often transpires in January, a little part of me had thought that perhaps we’d be spared the coldest of snaps this time around.

Oh, silly, perpetually optimistic me!

To no one’s surprise, that was not to be the case. An arctic cold front blew into town in early February and remained in place until a touch after Valentine’s Day.

The temps here are still well below freezing, snow lays abundantly as far as the eye can see, and while spring may be less than a month away on paper, you’d never know it by the look of things around these parts.

That is honestly okay with me. I’ve fallen deeper in love with winter this time around, finding greater soothing comfort and serenity in its ingrained hush and the noise-cancelling properties of abundant snow than ever before.

Here in Canada, I’m far from alone in still experiencing icy cold weather. Many parts of the country will continue to do so well into late March, April, or even May (once, when I was living in Calgary, Alberta, snow even fell in June!).

Thus, as I owe a dear online friend + pen pal some snail mail correspondence, I recently created this sweet, wonderfully wintry greeting to zip her way.

Why not, I figure, celebrate the current season in paper crafting form while it’s still here?

My friend resides in what is, on average, an even colder and snowier part of the country, so I hope that she’ll enjoy my fun, frosty take on a season that anyone living on Canadian soil is intimately acquainted with.

While this card looks – and is in some ways – relatively straightforward, there are (quite literally) some delightful things going on behind the scenes.

At first, I had thought that this design would be a shaker card. How charming, I reckoned, would it be to put the fox – already in a snow-filled mason jar – inside of an actual shaker element?

I tried various configurations, shapes, die cuts, apertures, shaker materials, and yet failed to fall in love with any of them.

Instead, I nixed the shaker card approach and instead decided to layer this wintertime card from the back of the design, working my way forward, instead.

Mirroring the design of the falling snow in the fox image, I took some basic white acrylic craft paint and painted the top of the brown cardstock card base to resemble falling snow. This was then layered with classic white vellum to soften the effect and help to ensure that the fox image remained the star of the show.

This design could very easily work for a Yule, Christmas, New Year’s, winter birthday, or thinking of you card, amongst other possible uses.

In my case, it is a wintertime cheer card winging its way a few provinces over to let my friend know that she’s in my thoughts and wished a safe, lovely remainder of the season.

How to make a wintertime snowflake and woodland fox card

As of late, I have received requests from multiple readers to share the steps involved with my projects in even more of an instructional manner. I am delighted to do just that and sincerely appreciate these requests.

Beginning with the instructions provided for this card making project, I will be guiding you through the creative process that I utilized in even greater step-by-step detail. This way, those who wish to create similar cards or learn more about the techniques I’ve employed can do just that.

Start with a base of either light brown or classic kraft cardstock. If you don’t have either of those, you could use medium brown, tawny brown, taupe, or even dark pine or forest green cardstock instead.

Take a relatively fine pointed paint brush and some white acrylic craft paint (a light layer or white gesso could be used here instead, if so desired), and proceed to paint a solid layer of white across the top of the card base.

Follow this step by creating small circles (to resemble falling snowflakes) about 1/3^rd of the way down the card base. Tapper off the volume of the snowflakes the lower down you go. Allow the paint to dry before proceeding to layer the rest of the card design.

Cut a piece of white vellum just a touch smaller than the size of your card base and layer it over the painted brown cardstock card base. As most of the vellum with be covered, you don’t have to worry too much about hiding the glue, tape runner adhesive, glue dots, etc that you use to attach the two layers.

Next, take a piece of tone-on-tone green print paper and use a swooping inlaid design die to die cut the same design from the top and bottom of this piece of paper. Adhere the green paper to the velum.

If you don’t have a similar die, you could use a border punch, ensuring you don’t cut right to the edges of the paper, so that the green piece of paper remains intact.

Lightly ink all of the edges of the green print paper with medium or dark brown ink (this step is optional, but it does add a lovely additional hit of visual interest to the finished card design).

Using a nested stitched edge rectangular die set, die cut a piece of light brown (or kraft) cardstock and a smaller rectangle shape from metallic red cardstock.

Take a good sized ornate shaped panel die (or suitable edger die) and die cut a piece of white cardstock.

Layer the brown rectangle on top of the green paper followed by the elegant white die cut cardstock. Top these two layers with the red metallic rectangle, a small piece of brown handmade (be it homemade or store-bought) brown paper, and the focal fox image cut apart paper piece.

Before adhering the fox image, back it onto a piece of white cardstock, leaving the tiniest whisper of a border of white cardstock visible on all sides.

Place a sticker that says “joy” (or you could stamp, stamp and emboss, use a premade die cut, etc with the sentiment of your choosing instead) right below the focal image in the center of the card design.

For the final step to this handmade winter card design, scatter a few clear acetate and (smaller) clear plastic snowflakes around the card. Layer some of them on top of each other, if so desired.

The two clear acetate snowflakes here were gifted to me as part of some happy mail a few years ago. I would have loved to have placed three on this design, but alas, all I had was two of them. As such, I spaced them out and used a flurry of smaller clear plastic snowflakes to help create the look of even more falling snow.

In hindsight – and as a handy tip to anyone wishing to create a similar card – I could have die cut some snowflakes from clear acetate and a snowflake die to give me whatever number of snowflakes I desired. Craft and learn!

No worries though. These premade beauties worked great and add a delightful hit of wintertime loveliness with next to no weight or bulk (perfect since this card is being mailed in an envelope, not a parcel).

Decorate, embellish, and/or stamp the interior of the card however you desire, pen your greeting, and voila, your adorable wintertime snowflake and woodland fox card is ready to go.

If you have any questions about the design process that I didn’t address here, please don’t hesitate to let me know in the comments below.

Products used to make this cute winter greeting card

-Light brown or kraft cardstock

-White cardstock

-Red metallic cardstock

-White vellum

-Dark brown handmade paper (optional; you could use a piece of brown cardstock, paper, wide ribbon, burlap, or cork here instead)

-Green tone-on-tone print paper – Timeless Macornerie Paper from Blue Fern Studios

-Fox cut apart image – Winter Wishes Winter Meadow Paper from Photo Play

-Set of nested stitched edge rectangle shaped dies (plain rectangle dies could just as easily be used here instead)

-Curved flourish inset design die

-Ornate panel shape die

-“Joy” sentiment word sticker – Winter Meadow Elements Stickers from Photo Play

-Clear acetate snowflakes

-Clear plastic snowflake embellishments – Crafter’s Square Snowflakes from Dollar Tree (Canada)

-Dark brown ink pad – Dewdrop Rich Cocoa Ink from Memento

-White acrylic craft paint

-Glue gun and glue sticks (optional but handy for attaching the snowflake embellishments)

-Dimensional foam, pop dots, or similar to elevate some of your layers

-Adhesive, such as a tape runner, of your choice (I often use my Scotch Tape Glider)

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful and since we’ve no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

And let us paper crafters use these chilly days in which we are often at home (especially as the pandemic carries on into 2021) to enjoy plenty of time creating all manner of handmade projects.

Of course, winter isn’t out in full force everywhere still. North of the equator, depending on your location, it might be as good as over at this point.

And for those in the Southern Hemisphere, fall, glorious fall, will soon be swinging into high gear.

No matter the temps or season though, I hope that this month is able to deliver some relaxing and very enjoyable time to create your way.

I’ll soon be turning my thoughts to some springtime projects, as well as those for upcoming family birthdays, Mother’s Day (which takes place in May here in Canada), and – far off as the dog days of summer seem when the snow in our backyard is still well above my knees – even Canada Day at the start of July.

All the while, creating plenty of fa-boo-lously fun October 31^st themed projects to help spread the good word about the exciting #MakeHalloween365 hashtag that I launched last week.

As the shortest month of the year starts to wind down, I hope that you have a wonderful tail end of February. May it lead to a positive, abundantly blessed, and very happy March for all of us.

The post Cute Wintertime Snowflake and Woodland Fox Card appeared first on Witchcrafted Life.

Perhaps, not strange so much, but a bit like said projects have arrived so late to a party that the whole event is already over.

And yet, as us paper crafters know, there are rarely hard and fast rules regarding when we can share the projects we make.

Easter cards in September? Have at ‘er! Halloween layouts in April? Why not! New Year’s cards in July? Go for it!

In some instances, we may not have time in the moment to share a given project. Or doing so may simply slip our mind – especially in the midst of the holiday season hustle and bustle.

At others, there may be pragmatic reasons why we refrain from posting a particular project at its most logical point on the calendar.

For me, a big one is that sometimes I do not want to share a project that’s being sent to someone that I know follows my blog and/or Instagram, until after I’m sure they’ve received that card (or tag, etc).

After all, unintentionally spoiling the surprise of a handmade greeting winging its way across the world to a dear friend or family member is not high up on my list of reasons to post a project.

Thankfully, I usually have the option of holding on posting. And in the case of today’s project share, that was precisely why I waited until mid-January to blog about this festive make.

Elegant gold and black peace, love, and joy holiday season card

This particular card was made for a dear, sweet and special online friend of mine. We’ve grown close over the past couple of years and share many similar interests in common – from an undying love for fall time to a passion for fashion.

Indeed, my friend is one of the most stylish women I know and I the moment I set about creating a Christmas card for her, I knew that I wanted it to reflect the elegance, glamour, and sophistication that her sartorial choices exude.

Care of some of the photos she posts online, I’ve been treated to glimpses of what my friend’s seasonal décor looks like, too. It echoes the chicness of her wardrobe and is nothing short of gorgeous.

Indeed, some of the fall and winter décor snaps she’s shared a were big inspiration catalyst in terms of the design of this wintertime greeting.

(Plus, as touched on in my Festive Red, Black and Green Merry Christmas Card post last month, I leaned heavily on the use of black in my holiday season cards this year.)

While this project was created and sent out as a Christmas card, there is nothing so inherently Christmassy, IMO, to its design that one couldn’t give it as a New Year’s or general wintertime card.

Honestly, it could even work as a winter wedding, anniversary, birthday, or thinking of you card – to name but four other possible uses.

And, you know, come to think of it, if a hit or two of, say, red or pink were to be injected – such as a red bloom in place of the dark cream coloured and perhaps some hearts instead of, or along with, the snowflakes here – you could even use this card for Valentine’s Day.

Putting this chic handmade wintertime greeting card together

This elegant Christmas card began with a base of dark charcoal grey paper. One could easily have used black here instead, and I debated it, but ultimately went with dark charcoal, as I wanted a subtle tonal contrast in a design that centred around a limited colour palette.

Next came a layer of classic sheet music print paper (I feel like I say this often about various products, and I do, but I am a huge fan of music print paper and am always looking to up my stash of it). This was topped with a tall rectangular piece of gold glitter cardstock which I trimmed on all four sides with a pair of Fiskars decorative edge scissors.

I then backed a piece of the same sheet music print paper with cardstock and adhered it to the bottom half of the glittery gold cardstock. A cream and black print journaling card went above it, with a layer of white ruffle trim and a skinny band of gold sequins trim covering the join between those two sections.

Next, I die cut an ornate decorative frame from shinny black cardstock (another absolute favourite paper crafting supply of mine, which I’d happily buy stock in, if I could ). This was topped by the “Peace, Love, Joy” sentiment, which I popped a layer of charcoal grey cardstock and a layer of the same glittery gold cardstock behind for extra shimmer and pizzazz.

After that, I attached the lovely shabby chic dark cream coloured Prima Marketing tulle flower and two cream coloured velvet 7 Gypsies leaves to the lower left side of the design.

For additional embellishments, I die cut some snowflakes from both basic white and (again, the same) glittery gold card stock, which I paired with a gorgeous wire and plastic embellishment branch, which is also from Prima Marketing.

As this card was being mailed outside of the country, I had to keep Canada Post’s weight and (laughly small) height limits for letter mail in mind, but still wanted this card to have a deliver an impact to its recipient.

I hope that between the classy gold, cream and black colour palette and the embellishments that I used here, my intentions rang true for my friend when she opened this festive greeting.

Card making tips and ideas from this project

-Winter holiday time cards or other craft projects do not need to include traditional shades of red, green, or blue to abound with the spirit of the season.

You can go monochromic or create a palette of colours that sparkles with festive cheer, while not necessarily being the first ones that spring to mind when someone says “Christmas”, “Yule”, or “New Year’s”.

I’m more than a little bit enamoured with the colour scheme here and can easily see myself utilizing it again for future holiday season projects.

A few other holiday season card colour palette options you could reach for, if you want to shake things up a bit, include the following:

-Purple, silver (or grey) and white

-Pale pink, champaign, and chocolate brown

-Aqua, lilac, silver, and white

-Maroon, aged gold, and pine green

-Orange, peach, silver, and white

-Sage, puce, beige (or cream), and brown

-Magenta, silver, black and/or white

-Yellow, gold, and white

-Pumpkin orange, olive green, gold, and brown or burgundy

-Hot pink, lime green, and silver (I should mention that, objectively, splashes of red can look fab with this palette)

-White vellum, solid white, silver or grey

-Teal, cream, and brown

-Pastel pink, white, silver, and baby blue

-Gold, burgundy, and black

-Brick, navy blue, and dusty rose

-Use multiple versions of the same metallic colour throughout your project. In this instance, gold was the sole metallic colour used on this card and it appears in three different forms: the gold glitter cardstock, the gold sequins trim, and a wee bit also shows up in the gold toned metal of the Prima wire spring embellishment.

Depending on your project, you can aim for each of the metallic items used to have a very similar tone to them, or vary things up for more of a mixed metal look. The fact that they’re all shades of the same metallic colour will generally still telegraph a sense of cohesiveness, even if each tone varies a bit.

By the same token, have fun and utilize different textures and materials. From paint to glitter, embossing powder to metal charms and buttons – not mention cardstocks and ribbons – the sky is the limit when it comes to the metallic products you can use on your papercrafting projects.

-Bust out your decorative edge scissors. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: old school as they may be, I adore decorative edge scissors. They’re no less versatile and appealing as when they were highly in vogue during the 1990s and on into the early 2000s.

I keep a small pencil holder with several of my most frequently used pairs of decorative edge scissors on my work desk and reach for them often for cards, scrapbook pages, and other paper crafting projects alike.

If it has been a hot minute since you last used your decorative edge scissors, why not bring them out of retirement this year and have fun playing with one of the OGs of the paper crafting world?

-Though not a hard and fast rule, oftentimes, if you’re trying to create a more refined card (or LO) design, sticking with neutrals and perhaps one or two small accent colours can be a really effective approach.

While there are various textures and prints involved here, for example, each colour (black, charcoal grey, white, cream, and gold) is a neutral. This reads as elegant and well-coordinated, but far from stuffy or drab – quite the opposite, I’d venture to say.

Products used to make this glamorous gold and black holiday season card

-Charcoal grey and white cardstock

-Gold glitter cardstock

-Glossy black cardstock – Glossy Black Mirror Card from Tonic Studios

-Sheet music print paper – Christmas Edition Collection Christmas Melody Paper from Kaisercraft

-Rectangle shaped ornate frame die

-Small(ish) sized snowflake die

-Decorative edge scissors – Paper Edgers Heartbeat Scissors from Fiskars

-Sentiment piece – Glisten Collection Incandescent from Kaisercraft

-Black and cream journaling spot – Sepia Journaling Frames from Creative Imaginations

-Metallic gold sequins trim (I purchased this one at a Dollarama store in our area)

-White ruffled trim – Parisian Anthology Ruffled Darlings Ribbon Strips from Pink Paislee

-Dark cream tulle flower – The Gatsby Collection Reception Flowers from Prima Marketing

-Cream velvet leaves – Brown Velvet Leaf from 7 Gypsies

-Wire and plastic branch embellishment – Candy Gems Blue Berry from Prima Marketing

-Glue gun and glue sticks (to adhere the larger/heavier embellishments)

-Dimensional foam, pop dots, or similar to elevate some of your layers

-Adhesive, such as a tape runner, of your choice (I often use my Scotch Tape Glider)

The festive season doesn’t have to end in early January

Granted the heyday of the winter holidays might wrap up in many (though certainly not all) parts of the world after the first week or two of January.

This doesn’t mean, however, that you can’t keep the festive spirit going strong well beyond that stage in the calendar (a point that I touched on recently in my previous project share post as well).

If you have holiday season projects that you haven’t shared yet, why not post them in January or February?

Longing for Christmas, Hanukkah, or Yule again already? Whip up some projects that celebrate your favourite (or the most infamous, as the case may be! ) memories from the latest holiday season.

And if you’re feeling extra ambitious, you could even get a major head start on your festive greetings for the next holiday season by creating a few cards almost a year in advance.

As much as I wish I was that on the ball when it comes to making my Yule, Christmas, and New Year’s cards, the realist in me knows that’s unlikely to happen anytime soon.

A layout or two devoted to this meaningful and joy-filled time of the year? Now that might just be realistic.

In the wake of the immense surge of energy, merriment, seasonal cheer and festive happenings that call December and early January home, our daily lives can seem a little lackluster or at least lacking for holiday cheer after the lights, ornaments and trees have come down.

Rest assured that this is a natural feeling and something many of us experience. I’ve learned over the years that we can help counterbalance it though via various means, one of which is crafting winter holiday projects weeks or even months after Santa has returned to the North Pole.

This January, keep the winter holidays that you observe going a little longer by creating a project that celebrates the festive season and reminds you all the more of why this time of the year holds such a special place in our hearts and craft rooms alike.

Project share

Pin the image below – or any other in this post – to Pinterest, pop it into your Instagram Stories, post it on Twitter or Facebook, or share it anywhere else you wish to help yourself find it again and to inspire others at the same time.

If you make a project based on or inspired by this card – or want to share any of your other handmade crafts with me – please use the hashtags #WitchcraftedLife and #WitchcraftedLifeMakes on social media so that I see can your beautiful creations.

The post Elegant Gold and Black Peace, Love, and Joy Holiday Season Card appeared first on Witchcrafted Life.

I admire these folks greatly. Marvel at how they seem to have found the secret to cramming a hundred hours more into each day (lol!), and accept that I’m unlikely to ever belong to their ranks.

My projects and posts happen if and when they can, and I see no issue with continuing to share holiday-themed makes in January. Or at any other point in the year, for that matter.

It can be fantastic to focus on topical content during a given season or holiday, and I am certainly in favour of doing so when possible.

However, that doesn’t mean that one has to hold rigidly to only posting Christmas content, for example, before the ball drops on New Year’s Eve.

As most of our holiday décor is still up at this early stage in January (I adore festive decorations and tend to let them linger well after a particular holiday or sabbat has officially transpired), I feel even more at peace with sharing the lovely handmade card in today’s post.

The colour palette that has called to me most this holiday season – red, green, and black – was at its festive zenith in the card highlighted here, which we gave to my mom as her Christmas greeting from us this year.

Elegant snow frosted pine branch Christmas card

I could easily and happily work with this dark, sophisticated, and subtly yesteryear-esque colour scheme not only come each winter holiday season, but the whole year through as well.

Swap the green for grey and you have three of my most frequently worn colours as well. (I adore wearing certain shades of green, especially those on the darker end of the spectrum, but don’t own a lot of clothing in such hues at the moment.)

Then turn to the red to burgundy, swirl some dusty rose and aged metallics into the equation, and you have the main colours in our current home décor.

I knew that I wanted to lean heavily on red, green, and black for my mom’s Christmas card. Yet, at the same time, didn’t want it to run the risk of having it read as dreary or overly sombre.

To that end, I made sure to include plenty of splashes of red, as well as some white, and to use a classic pattern (holly leaves and berries) on the sole printed paper that appears on this card.

While there are various snow texture products on the market (such as Aleene’s Glitter Snow and True Snow, respectively, and Snow-Tex from DecoArt), I don’t have any in my stash at present.

Instead, I created the look of white snow adorned pine branches by turning to a bottle of trusty, inexpensive white acrylic craft paint.

In my opinion, white paint is one of the most versatile, handy, and helpful products any paper crafter can have in their arsenal.

I reach for white acrylic paint all through the year and after frosting these faux pine branches, might need to add a new bottle of it to my crafting shopping list for 2021.

Thankfully, this product doesn’t break the bank and can be found everywhere from dollar stores to Michael’s, Walmart to art supply shops here in Canada. (I usually opt for Plaid brand white acrylic paint, which currently retails for less than $4.00 at Walmart.)

The dark green little plastic pine branches are likewise usually not very tricky to find. If your local craft, hobby, dollar, or big box stores don’t sell them, check out spots such as eBay, AliExpress, and Etsy, where you should be able to find similar products.

Alternatively, if you have some festive décor that might be on its last legs but which contains usable faux pine/evergreen, you could pluck off said branches and put them to work on holiday season papercrafts.

I love this card. It’s one of my favourite makes of any kind from 2020, and was, come to think of it, my last project of that year.

As is often the case when I create a card (or tag, etc) that is destined for someone else, but which I utterly adore, I did debate keeping this festive make to use in our seasonal décor.

However, that thought was short-lived, as I had created this card from my sweet mama and was adamant that it zip off to her house.

After all, as I like to tell myself, I could always make something similar looking for our holiday décor. Especially since I highly doubt my passion for the pairing of red, green, and black is going to wane anytime soon.

Putting this elegant shabby chic Christmas card together

A good sized card base of basic black cardstock got the ball rolling here. It was topped with small triangular pieces of red metallic cardstock in each of the four corners, a piece of holly leaf and berry print paper (which I lightly distressed the edges of and gave punched photo corners made from textured white cardstock to as well), and two die cut pieces of cardstock. One black, the other metallic red. 

My sentiment greeting was next up to bat, landing in the middle of this design. I purposely went with die cut layers below it that echoed the notched corners included in this festive illustration.

Sandwiched between some of the layers of paper and cardstock, I put a black die cut lattice design piece, as well as a piece of vibrant red satin ribbon.

That same Christmas season perfect red ribbon then appeared in the form of a bow (to mirror that in the sentiment illustration itself) near the top of the card.

As well, right below the sentiment, I place a piece of black eyelash trim lace and also ran a strip of white tulle rose trim for a subtle pop of white between the layers of this design

Next, I arranged some springs of red foam faux berries, red fabric roses, and green plastic pine branches. Using a cotton bud (a small paintbrush would work well, too), I lightly applied white acrylic craft paint to the edges of the pine branches.

I debated topping the roses and berries with “snow” as well, but decided I preferred the look of leaving them au naturel.

As the last and final touch on this project, I placed four small white pearlescent star flatback embellishments near each of the four red roses. Opting for this particular embellishment because of the stars present in the illustration of the sentiment.

(You may have guessed this by now, but I love to include repeating motifs, colours, designs, etc in plenty of my papercrafting projects.)

Cardmaking tips and ideas from this project

-Let a little (or a lot!) of the elements on your card extend past the edges of the card base itself. This is amongst my favourite card making techniques, as I find it helps to elevate a project and create more visual interest.

In this case, the distressed piece of printed paper, as well as the snow dusted pine branches, inch slightly over the edges.

–Don’t hesitate to double (or triple, etc) up on photo corners or other corner elements. Here, white photo corners sit happily atop triangles of metallic red cardstock, each belonging to a separate layer of this design.

-If you do not have premade red roses (be they fabric, paper, foam, etc), you could crate some from punched or die cut red paper or cardstock. Conversely, you could sub in a different flower or type of embellishment entirely.

Small bow, bell (including jingle bells), other types of greenery, or even (representations of) birds such as cardinals, owls, or partridges, for example, would all be at home on a festive project like this.

-While the “snow” is a charming and wonderfully eye-catching addition here, it isn’t strictly required. You could easily skip it or, alternatively, adorn the branches with glitter or flocking instead.

Or, make cardstock branches and emboss them with white, cream, or pale silver coloured embossing powder to get a similar snowy effect.

-Look to the illustrated/patterned elements – including premade sentiments – of your card when deciding on the elements to use for a given project.

The charming sentiment piece – taken from a cut-apart sheet of paper – here inspired no less than four components of this design. The notched corner die cut layers, the red bow, the arrangement of the pine branches, and the sweet little pearlescent white star embellishments.  

Products used to make this festive red, black, and green Christmas card

-Notched corner nesting die set

-Lattice border strip die (or similar style of border punch)

-Photo corner punch – Photo Corner punch from Martha Stewart Crafts

-Black and white cardstock

-Metallic red cardstock

-Holly leaf and berry print paper – Here Come Santa Claus Holly Berries paper from Echo Park

-Sentiment paper – My Favourite Christmas – Christmas Squares paper from Echo Park

-Black eyelash fringe lace

-Red satin ribbon (you could use organza, twill, seam binding, etc here as well)

-White tulle rose trim

-Red fabric roses

-White pearlescent plastic star embellishments

-White acrylic craft paint – 2894 White Wicker Multi-Surface Satin Acrylic Paint from Plaid’s Folk Art line

-Glue gun and glue sticks, or another type of sturdy adhesive to hold the larger embellishments in place

-Dimensional foam, pop dots, or similar to elevate some of your layers

-Adhesive, such as a tape runner, of your choice (I often use my Scotch Tape Glider)

A huge thank you!

Before wrapping up today’s entry, I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to everyone who wished Witchcrafted Life a happy 1^st birthday on my previous blog post, as well as via email and DM.

Your support of my wee corner of the web, the work that I share here, and the inclusive community that I strive to create around this space means an immeasurable amount to me.

I am grateful to my core for each of you. Your kindness and encouragement all through WCL’s first year of life and now as we embrace its second is like rocket fuel for my blogging soul, powering me onward with vim and vigour, and helping me to reach new creative heights along the way.

I have one more Christmas 2020 card project to share here in the not-too-distant future (it’s another of my fave makes from last year, which wound its way to a treasured friend in the US), a more broadly themed winter project or two, and hopefully, at least one Valentine’s Day project.

If it is able to appear here in February itself, that’s great, but if it ends up being posted closer to the Ostara/Easter season, you know what? That’s a-okay, too.

After all, the “freely share a project after a given event has transpired” approach is not limited to winter holiday season makes by any means.

What’s on the crafting agenda for you as we embrace the start of 2021? Do you strive to post all of your makes for a given holiday before/right the big day or are you happy to share them anytime you please?

Project share

Pin the image below – or any other in this post – to Pinterest, pop it into your Instagram Stories, post it on Twitter or Facebook, or share it anywhere else you wish to help yourself find it again and to inspire others at the same time.

If you make a project based on or inspired by this card – or want to share any of your other handmade crafts with me – please use the hashtags #WitchcraftedLife and #WitchcraftedLifeMakes on social media so that I see can your beautiful creations.

The post Elegant Snow Frosted Pine Branch Christmas Card appeared first on Witchcrafted Life.

This is a wonderful and deeply cherished component of December for many. However, it is by no means the only form of giving that we can engage in – either as the giver or the receiver.

Sometimes the most touching gifts are the ones we didn’t see coming and which were given with love and care from the heart of those who bestow them upon us.

They need not be new or fancy, nor cost much, for their impact on our lives to be great.

This year, as autumn wound down, a very sweet neighbour of ours – who had recently learned of the arson fire that we experienced four years prior – gifted us with some of her gently used outdoor Christmas lights.

They are the first lights we’ve had since before the fire and we are touched to our cores by her generosity and sweetness.

To thank her for this awesome present, I recently made the card that stars in today’s post to give our neighbour and her children. I hope that it will bring them even just a fraction of the joy and festive cheer that their kindness instilled in our holiday season.

Fun and elegant “Twinkle & Shine” Christmas tree card

If you’ve been a part of the paper crafting scene for a while now, you’re likely familiar with the crazes for certain supplies and tools that come and go.

Several years ago now, when Martha Stewart’s paper crafting products (which were, by and large, excellently made and amongst my favourites ever offered in the crafting sphere) were all the rage, some of her punches were especially popular.

In terms of the shape punches (as opposed to things like border and corner punches) some of her best sellers were those featuring leaves and branches.

I can remember times when they were almost sold out across the web. That’s how big a demand for these punches there was at the time.

Most of Martha’s punches are no longer produced or easily found for sale (new) online these days. I truly wish they were, as I always adored – and often used – those that I had before the fire.

Thankfully though, between eBay, Etsy, and the few Martha Stewart punches that can still be purchased from sites such as Amazon, it’s not impossible to track down at least some of the vast catalogue of punches that this brand once offered.

One of the most popular shape punches Martha ever released was called simply “branch”. Its versatility and appeal struck a chord with crafter and a good many of us added this lovely punch to our collections.

I was fortunate to find one new in 2017, I believe it was, and in doing so, to replace the one I lost in the fire (yay!!!).

It was to this particular paper punch that I turned when creating the festive card in this post, as the shape it produces works awesomely as boughs or branches on a Christmas tree – or most any evergreen tree for that matter.

As our lovely neighbour gifted us with some Christmas lights, I knew that I wanted to feature lights on this card as well.

I don’t presently have anything suitable in my stash that could actually light up for real.

Thankfully though, I did have a package of Jolee’s delightful Christmas light strings. They fit the bill to a tee and helped to create exactly the card design I was aiming for with this project.

Putting this fun dimensional Christmas tree and lights card together

In some respects, this card is not as elaborate as many of my makes. This was intentional, as I wanted to create a classic, eye-catching design for which the Christmas tree with its dimensional branches and strings of holiday lightbulbs would take center stage.

This card began with a base of earthy brown cardstock, which I topped with panels of green cardstock (the edges were inked with dark green ink), green and white gingham print paper, and metallic gold cardstock.

A fun wavy oval shape was die cut from subtly textured white cardstock and used as the background for the Christmas tree.

To build my tree, I first die cut a Christmas tree shape, which I used as the base for the branches that you see here.

If you do not have a suitable die in your stash, fear not! You could easily draw a tree by hand, freeform cut one out, or use a stencil or template.

The tree die that I used comes with the cute Christmas tree stand and star elements, as well as the trunk of the tree, so I made sure to put those to good use here.

Again, you could easily draw and cut out similar shapes by hand, use other suitable punches, or utilize things like star shaped stickers or rhinestones here instead, if you’d like.

I cut the tree trunk from brown woodgrain print paper (inking the sides with brown ink), and both the star and Christmas tree stand from gold metallic cardstock.

Then I set to work punching out a whole bunch of evergreen branches using my Martha Stewart Branch Punch.

Though it’s a bit hard to see in these photos, I used a mix of both plain green and metallic green cardstock in similar shades to give my tree even more visual interest and festive shimmer.

I didn’t count the precise number of branches that I punched out, but I’d easily say that a few dozen were utilized on this project.

I began building up the branches of my tree by layering from the bottom of the top, sticking closely to the general shape of a Christmas tree.

I used more of the plain green cardstock branches than the metallic green ones, as I wanted the hits of sheen to be nice additions, not all one saw when looking at this tree.

After I had all my branches adhered to the die cut Christmas tree card base, I played around with the arrangement for the string of Jolee’s Christmas lights.

Once I was happy with how it looked, I cut the string to the length I needed (happily, I’ve still got some of it leftover for future uses), added adhesive to the back, and gently tucked it between the branches.

Much as with many a real Christmas tree, the star at the top went as the final touch.

Little else was added to this card, as again, I really wanted to tree to steal the limelight.

That said, I did include a piece of cranberry/burgundy seam binding near the bottom of the card.

I topped this with a green cardstock wavy banner die cut that I stamped with the festive sentiment “Twinkle & Shine”, to reinforce both the theme of the Christmas tree here and the gift of Christmas lights that we received.

Card making tips and ideas from this project

-While no shortage of Christmas tree dies, stickers, stencils and the like exist on the market, sometimes it is really fun to create your own tree.

If you don’t have a similar branch shaped punch in your stash, plenty of branch shaped dies could work here as well – as could some feather-shaped ones (though that might give your tree more of a fluffy branched look).

-We often think of tartan and plaid as the main checkered patterns for holiday season makes, but gingham works awesomely on this front as well – especially when it features classic festive colours such as red, green, white, and/or black.

-Surprisingly, mini Christmas lights for paper crafting are not that common as a general rule.

These ones from Jolee’s can sometimes be had on eBay and Etsy, as well as various online and offline craft supply shops. However, if you cannot find them, some handy alternatives include:

• Die cut Christmas lights
• Christmas light stickers
• Christmas light shaped brads
• Christmas light shaped beads
• Oval, marquise, or teardrop-shaped sequins or rhinestones
• Nuvo Drops (solid colours or glittery)
• Mini-sized Dew Drops embellishments or similar transparent plastic embellishments
• Strings of dollhouse Christmas lights (which often look quite similar to the ones from Jolee’s Boutique that were used on this project)
• Other miniature Christmas lights sold at places such as some craft, hobby, and dollar stores (check near the Christmas village and/or bottle brush tree sections of the store)
• Stamped and inked/coloured Christmas lights that you either cut with a coordinating die or fussy cut by hand
• Strings of Christmas lights fussy cut from patterned paper that includes this festive design. Such as those found on Reminisce’s Magical Lights paper from their Magical Christmas collection, and Sparke and Shine paper from Photo Play Paper’s Kringle & Co. collection.

-Alternatively, if you didn’t want to go the Christmas light route, you could embellish your tree with things such as ornament shaped die cuts or stickers, rhinestone embellishments, enamel shapes, skinny tinsel trim, candy cane shaped stickers, die cuts, buttons or brads; or adorn some of the branches with white paint or dimensional craft snow paint (e.g., Aleene’s Glitter Snow) for more of an outdoorsy look.

-In addition to “Twinkle and Shine”, there are plenty of charming lighting-related sentiments that you can use for a holiday season card like this. For example, “May your holidays be merry and bright”, “You light up my Christmas”, “Have a dazzling holiday season”, or “Shining our love your way at Christmas”.

-If you are unable to locate this exact Martha Stewart Branch punch, various other brands have released similar punches over the years.

These include, but are not limited to the Large Branch Punch from EK Success, the Rock Fern Punch from Bira Crafts (which is available in both 1 inch and 2 inch sizes), the Large Fern Punch from Punch Bunch, and, while a bit more “bare-branched” looking, the Tim Holtz Branch Punch from Sizzix.

Products used to make this festive Christmas tree card

-White, green, and brown cardstock

-Metallic gold cardstock

-Metallic green cardstock

-Brown woodgrain print paper – Mademoiselle Collection Mahogany from Kaisercraft

-Green and white gingham print paper – (backside of) Country Kitchen Multi Journaling Cards from Carta Bella

-Wavy oval shaped die (or another oval or circle shaped die of your choosing)

-Christmas tree shaped die (optional, see note above)

-Wavy banner die

-Branch punch – Branch Punch from Martha Stewart

-String of mini 3D Christmas light embellishments – Holiday Lights from Jolee’s Boutique

-Black ink – Jet Black Archival Ink from Ranger

-Dark brown ink – Rich Cocoa Ink from Memento

-Green ink – Cottage Ivy Dew Drop Ink from Memento

-“Twinkle & Glow” sentiment stamp (or another holiday sentiment of your choosing)

-Cranberry/burgundy coloured seam binding – from Snug Hug

-Dimensional foam, pop dots, or similar to elevate some of your layers

-Adhesive, such as a tape runner, of your choice (I often use my Scotch Tape Glider)

May your holidays twinkle and shine

There is no beating around the bush, this year has been a tremendously challenging one for a lot of us.

Even those who have been fortunate enough to pull through relatively unscathed, have, of course, still been impacted in myriad ways by the rapid and radical changes, worries, and crises that have swept across the globe in 2020.

Today, and in the final days of a year of loss and difficulty, stress and uncertainty, it is my unwavering hope that you are safe and happy.

May this festive season bless you and keep you well, and in the process bring plenty of heart-touching surprises your way as well.

Happiest holidays and much to you each and every one of you, my dear friends!

Project share

Pin the image below – or any other in this post – to Pinterest, pop it into your Instagram Stories, post in on Twitter or Facebook, or share it anywhere else you wish to help yourself find it again and to inspire others at the same time.

If you make a project based on or inspired by this card – or want to share any of your other handmade crafts with me – please use the hashtags #WitchcraftedLife and #WitchcraftedLifeMakes on social media so that I see can your beautiful creations.

The post Twinkle & Shine Christmas Card and The Happiest of Holiday Season Wishes to Each of You! appeared first on Witchcrafted Life.

I was not raised in a house with Paganism or witchery, and neither my parents nor anyone else in my family took much note of the Winter Solstice. Nor – especially beyond the very earliest grades – do I remember it being focused on in a classroom setting.

Yet, I knew that in the Western Hemisphere Yule meant the very gradual return of precious minutes of daylight each day. And that, as snow-heavy as this chapter of the year is, at its heart, one of the key elements of the Winter Solstice is the sun.

Then, as now, it was not that I disliked winter. Quite the opposite! As challenging a season as winter can be for many of us at times, I experience a powerful kinship to the darkest, coldest chapter of the year.

Winter feels in a sense like the oldest of the seasons. Its existence helps to bring the other three segments of the annual calendar into being. For, as in so much in the universe, light and life can only exist when they do in tandem with darkness and death.

Growing up in Canada, I can well recall days in which we both entered and existed school in the inky, not-quite-black, not-quite-grey sky of winter. Our only glimpses of daylight visible during recess and the lunch hour.

Later, as is the case for many people the world over, the first working years of my life saw me indoors for even longer hours. In those instances, I often went for months at time with my only daytime exposure to the sun being on the weekends or other days that I had off from my job.

These days, I am fortunate to be able to spend considerably more time outdoors during the winter and to lap up what little light manages to squeeze its way in between the snowflakes.

I still look forward to Yule’s return with the same gusto though. Indeed, even more so, because as a Pagan witch who embraces the Wheel of the Yule, I delight greatly in the traditions, meanings, lessons, joys, and blessings of the Winter Solstice.

And while I do celebrate Christmas as well in a secular sense, Yule (which I observe both on the Winter Solstice – as many Pagans/witches do – and throughout the days surrounding it) is the main holiday in December for me personally.

Just as it is for many a fellow Pagan, witch, and Wiccan around the world. Yet one need not adhere to any of these paths to enjoy and honour the Winter Solstice.

As with the Summer Solstice and both the Fall and Spring Equinoxes, these seasonal shifts occur regardless of one’s beliefs or spirituality.

Much like the rising and the setting of the sun, the ebb and flow of the tides, and the natural cycle of life and death inherent to all living things, the changing of one season to the next was here long before we arrived on the scene. And, chances are, it will most likely be here for eons after we’re gone.

At Yule, we celebrate the fact that, little by little, the days will grow longer and that, in a few weeks or months’ time (depending on where you live in the world) the earliest signs and stirrings of spring will grace our world again.

In the dark heart of the year, it is natural that we want to adorn our homes festively. Winter’s landscape is not without its charms – and a vista blanketed in pristine snow can be nothing short of gorgeous – but it is almost as though many of us crave and need reminders that greenery and warmth will return once again.

We bring heavenly scented evergreen trees and boughs into our homes, hang mistletoe, adorn doors with leave and pine cone filled wreaths, sing songs that venerate such wintertime plants and holly and ivy, and create foods in the shapes of various plants and trees (i.e., Yule log cakes and holly shaped sugar cookies).

For even in the high tech, mile a minute world of the 21^st century, we are still made of ancient star stuff and it is hardwired in us to seek out nature.

This year, the winter holiday season – whatever that entails for you personally – is apt to be different in at least some respects. The collective soul of the world has taken one mighty blow after another and we have all endured a great deal to make it this far into 2020.

Assuming that doing so is realistically feasible and you feel in the mood to do celebrate, I see the challenges of this year not as a reason to shy away from being festive this December, but embrace the joys, traditions, and meanings of this season all the more.

One of the loveliest ways to connect with the winter holidays is to create some of our own decorations or to make festive crafts that we can either keep for our own joys or bestow on others in the hopes of elevating theirs.

Many of us are watching our pocketbooks more than ever due to the impact of the pandemic on our lives. We may be forgoing giving presents or scaling back if we do opt to give out presents this year.

The virtues and heart-touching importance of handmade presents cannot be overstated. Nor, if you ask me, can the benefits of decking one’s halls – boughs of holly optional.

With each passing year, I strive for a simpler and less commercial Yuletide season.

The sights of a family of deer traversing the new-fallen snow in our backyard, the intoxicating aroma of warm winter spices, and the blessing of knowing my loved ones are well each matter a great deal more to me than anything that could ever fit into a stocking or be bought at the mall.

We don’t have, nor to we need, throngs of decorations. Those that we call our own are treasured though, and I greatly enjoy creating handmade Yule and Christmas ornaments and decorations to help inject even more festive cheer into our December.

I know that many of you feel much the same way, too, and with that in mind, I wanted to share with you 50 winter holiday season craft projects created by talented, resourceful individuals around the world.

Each of these DIY projects includes instructions, meaning that if you want to give any of them a go, doing so should be a lot easier than trying to reverse engineer how something was made from a photograph alone.

Most of these Yule craft projects can easily be used for Christmastime as well – just as a lot of them can be enjoyed all winter long.

The majority are relatively low cost or perhaps even free, depending on what supplies you have on hand or can easily source from nature.

I should note that while not every one of these craft projects was shared by their original creators as being intended for Yule specifically (many are geared towards Christmas), they all share in common the fact that they are wonderfully suited to the Winter Solstice.

Indeed, the fact that these lovely, resourceful projects work so well for Yule is what landed them on this list in the first place.

And so, with that said, let’s jump with both (winter boot clad) feet forward into exploring…

50 Awesome Yule Decorations and Craft Ideas

You Can Make for the Winter Solstice

1. Clear Quartz Winter Solstice Ornaments: Stunning to look at and packed with the energy of both clear quartz and the Yule season itself, these beautiful decorations are equally at home on a tree, hanging from a mantle, or dangling from various doorknobs around your home.

2. Embroidered Felt Holiday Trees: The winter holiday season and needlework are natural partners in my mind, and I’ve long enjoyed creating both handmade stitched presents for others as well as some of our own décor over the years.

Few things symbolize the Yuletide period quite like pine trees. If you’d like to whip up a forest (or just a single tree) of your own that is apt to last even longer than real evergreens, than this splendid embroidered felt project has you covered. 

3. DIY Clay Moon Ornaments: Understatedly gorgeous and easier than sugar cookies to whip up, these charming DIY clay moon ornaments can be left au naturel, painted, dipped in glitter – whatever your creative heart desires. And, either during or after the December holiday season, they would be fantastic as part of an altar or other sacred space setting.

4. Scrap Ribbon Christmas Tree Ornaments: If you are a fellow crafter, fan of decorative gift wrapping, or simply enjoy a good sewing notion, chances are you have some ribbon scraps on hand. If so, why not put them to good use in this sweet, wonderfully easy to make Christmas tree decoration that is bursting with timeless appeal?

And, should you want to make this project but not have any suitable ribbon to hand, thankfully, ribbon can often be purchased very inexpensively from places such dollar stores and thrift/second hand/charity shops – or simply ask a crafty friend for some, it’s quite likely that they have plenty to spare and share.

(Melissa also has a similar project post that will help you make beautiful Primitive Scrap Fabric Tree Ornaments, too or instead of the ribbon iteration above. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention her cute meets timelessly classic Beaded Candy Cane Ornaments as well.)

5. Painted or Burned Wooden Round Yule Ornaments: Endlessly versatile, this lovely Yule ornament idea can be customized to your heart’s content.

Why not try painting to burning a set of ornaments with the witches runes on them? Or what about a handful showing some of the local flora and fauna that are common in your area during the winter months?

Celestial bodies such as the (very apt) sun, moon, stars, and planets would be fabulous as well.

6. Spun Cotton Mushroom Ornaments: A little more advanced in terms of the technique involved than some of the other entries on this list, but not necessarily difficult, the end results of this spun cotton craft is nothing short of breathtaking.

The humblest of materials are transformed into a fairyland-worthy sea of sweet, shimmery toadstools that can be used on the tree, mantle, in centrepieces, as part of your holiday season gift wrapping, gathering into a decorative bowl – the ideas go on and go.

7. Salt Dough Spiral Countdown Calendar for Yule: Growing up as a child, my family used the same adorable Avon Christmas mouse Advent calendar each year (see an example of this darling 1980s fabric advent calendar here).

All throughout the lead up to December 25^th, my two siblings and I would take turns moving the wee little grey mouse from one date to the next. This tradition was amongst my favourite of the festive season and it helped to spark a lifelong love of calendars – be they advents or otherwise – in me at an early age.

Advent or countdown calendars, as they are also known, can be used to mark the progress of days leading up to any event you desire. They have a natural affinity with December, and while many are associated with Christmas, they are just as open to Yule as well.

If you’re looking for a wonderfully easy to make, visually and spiritually impactful Winter Solstice countdown calendar, this charming Salt Dough Spiral may be just the ticket.

8. DIY Mini Cranberry Wreath Place Cards: For centuries now, people have decorated for December by stringing various natural or manmade edibles (popcorn, nuts, candy, etc) into lengths both short and long.

This particular project is equally parts darling and elegant, and sees plump garnet red cranberries strung together to create simple wreaths that can be used for place card holders, as well as dangled from the branches of your Yule or Christmas tree, if you should fancy.

9. Adorable 3D Painted Woodland Ornaments: Whether you’re wild about all things forest-inspired, swoon over darling décor, or have a wildlife lover in your life who would enjoy these super cute ornaments, chances are, you’re going to want to make a whole forest’s worth of them!

10. DIY Pinecone Kissing Ball: Mistletoe is a perennial favourite. However, if you’re looking for a fun and festive alternative to adorn your ceiling with come December, may I suggest this thoroughly beautiful DIY Pinecone Kissing Ball instead?

11. Felt Poinsettia Decorations: Whether you favour red, pink, or white (or, in craft form, any other colour your heart desires), one thing is for certain, poinsettias are widely adored mainstay of the winter holiday season.

If you’re keen to create some of your own this year from commonplace crafting supplies, this wonderful tutorial from Katie at Made to Be a Momma will have you churning out a hothouse’s worth of felt poinsettias in no time. (And while there, check out Katie’s super cute DIY Pinecone Christmas Trees post as well.)

12. Rustic Twig Star Ornaments: As timeless as the stars in the night sky themselves, this beautiful project celebrates the earthy blessings of nature and is a cinch to put together.

And, for those of a Pagan/witchy persuasion, the finished projects have a distinctly pentagram look to them that is right at home in the spiritual paths many of us follow.

13. Mason Jar Oil Candle Lamps: The flickering of a candle flame, soft, comforting, and familiar is one of the most endearing elements of the holiday season.

This year, why not branch out and try your hand at creating a classic oil lamp candle in a mason jar? Not only can these festive candles help illuminate your own holiday season, but they make for absolutely wonderful gifts, too.

14. Let It Snow Scrabble Tile Ornaments: Whereas once, pretty much the only way to acquire Scrabble tiles was to buy a complete Scrabble game, these days various sources for Scrabble letter tiles abound online, as well as at many craft and dollar stores. Plus, bags of second hand Scrabble tiles can sometimes be found at sources such as thrift/secondhand/charity shops and yard sales.

This clever and wonderfully festive DIY Scrabble tile ornament spells out a popular Christmas song line and is all kinds of adorable!

You can easily take this idea and run with it if you’d like. Instead of “Let It Snow”, why not spell out words such as “Yule”, “Winter Solstice”, “Blessed Be”, or any other message(s) that resonate with you?

15. Double-Sided Winter Solstice Wooden Tree Ornament: With a glowing yellow sun on one side and a frosty blue snowflake on the other, this festive handmade wooden tree ornament is a meaningful way to honour the returning sunlight that the Winter Solstice ushers back into our lives. As well as the abundance of snow that calls this chapter of the year home in many corners of the world.

16. Embroidery Hoop Buffalo Plaid Mini Wreath: As this recent Christmas card project share post of mine discussed, I’m head-over-heels for black, red and green as a holiday season palette.

If you’re feeling it too, then this terrific little buffalo plaid + embroidery hoop wreath might beckon to you every bit as much as it called my own name.

17. Cinnamon Stick Tree Ornaments: Crafters – paper and otherwise – rejoice! Here is a fun and festive way to put some of our abundant button stashes to good use.

Cinnamon sticks and some faux greenery, partnered with those aforementioned buttons, are at the heart of this cute, cheery, and wonderfully scented holiday season decoration.

18. Glittered Clothespin Snowflakes: It never ceases to delight and inspire me when I see the humblest of everyday items turned into a gorgeous piece of holiday season décor.

These glistening snowflakes are made with nothing more than two different sizes of clothespins (aka, clothes pegs), white paint, two types of glue, and coarse crystal glitter.

The end result is enchanting, and would be stunning on any festive season tree, hanging in a window, or on a Yule altar.

19. Cinnamon Stick Candles: Candles and Yule (much like Candles and Hanukkah, Christmas, and Kwanza, respectively) have been BFFs for ages at this point time, their flickering flames a comforting and poignant reminder that the Winter Solstice marks the beginning of longer periods of daylight between now and the Summer Solstice/Litha.

Likewise, cinnamon and the winter holidays go waaayyyy back as well. Pair these two beloved elements of the festive season together in this easy, elegant, and scrumptiously scented DIY cinnamon stick candle holder from none other than well-known fashion blogger Louise Roe.

20. Yule Season Witch Balls: Much beloved the whole year through by many a magickally inclined soul, witch balls – which can be created for many purposes, protection being one of the most common – can easily double as (or be made specifically for the purpose of) Yule tree ornaments or Winter Solstice season décor elsewhere in your house.

21. DIY Rustic Acorn Marble Ornaments: If, like me, you adore it when some of your fall time home décor items can easily transition into ones that suit winter every bit as nicely, then you may be a big fan of this sweet, beautiful way to craft colourful acorns that might just prove so popular, you’ll leave them out all year round!

22. Winter Cardinal Shadow Box: For those who enjoy making 3D crafts, this darling winter cardinal shadow box is a beautiful way to celebrate one of winter’s most iconic and beloved birds, while also adding additional festive cheer to your home décor.

Cardinals have long been linked to winter. Their fiery hues a welcome splash of colour in an often pale and snow-covered landscape.

These gorgeous birds are associated with serenity, passion, creativity, balance, commitment, prosperity, goodness, hope, strength, and happiness – all themes that most of us gladly welcome into our lives with open arms at the Winter Solstice. 

23. Cute Pinecone Winter Gnome Ornaments: Gnomes are anything but new on the winter décor scene. It’s fair to say however that they’ve been having a rightly deserved moment in the spotlight in recent years.

If you’re keen to add a few felt versions of these mythological beings to your festive décor, then this handy DIY tutorial from Better Homes and has you covered

24. DIY Paper Bag Stars: If you enjoy the art of cutting out snowflakes from folded paper, then this beautiful spin on that classic practice is likely to appeal to you as well.

These stars are chic and charming, festive and fun – and can definitely do double duty as part of both your New Year’s and Imbolc décor, too.

(Plus, I was instantly struck by the thought that stars cut from yellow paper would look a good deal like the sun, and thus be an especially apt version of this project for Yule/the Winter Solstice).

25. Pipe Cleaner Pentacle Wreath Ornaments: Witchy meets mid-century kitschy in this super easy, wallet-friend decoration that is big on both Pagan symbolism and festive cheer. (Be sure to check out the other terrific Pagan Yule decoration ideas on this page as well.)

26. Mason Jar Lid Mini Christmas Wreaths: This is another awesome example of a few everyday items combining to create one seriously eye-catching and fabulously fun holiday season decoration.

Mason jar lids, twine, and a smattering of festive embellishments are all it takes to make these adorable little decorations, which can just as easily be made into Yule wreaths, Hanukkah wreaths, or simply all-season wintertime wreaths, if you prefer.

27. Simple Bell Noisemakers for New Year’s Eve: But wait, Autumn, I hear you saying, isn’t this a post about Yule appropriate decorations and crafts?

That it, is my dear reader, but allow me to put forth the suggestion that this cute meets chic holiday season noisemaker could easily be incorporated into one’s Yule celebrations and magickal workings as well.

How about ringing/shaking it rhythmically while chanting, in prayer, or as soft background noise at a coven ritual? Simply letting its bells ring loud and clear as way of proclaiming the rebirth of the sun, the return of the Oak King (who triumphs over the Holly King, until they swap places again come the Summer Solstice)?

Or why not use it as a means to set the energy tone before beginning your Yuletide workings?

28. Farmhouse White Berry Felt Ornaments: Classic and sweet, these pretty felt decorations have a timeless appeal that lends them staying power not only at Yule, but straight onto the final days of winter.

Indeed, I cannot help thinking how beautiful they would be as part of one’s Imbolc décor or altar.

29. DIY Mini Wreath Garland: Glitz and glamour undoubtedly have their rightful place in the canon of holiday décor, but sometimes you just want simple, understated, rustic, and sweet. This elegant mini wreath garland delivers big time on all those fronts and is perfect to leave up well into the coming winter months.

30. Wishing Ornament or Mini Yule Log: That beloved winter jack-of-all-trades, the humble pinecone stars in this festive craft which can be used as both a wish/intention spell and/or a mini yule log. (Amanda also shares five other wonderful DIY Yule projects in this same post, which you’ll certainly want to check out as well.)

31. Rustic Twine Wrapped Candy Cane Ornaments: Much as with Christmas, those who celebrate Yule usually have certain décor and/or altar item styles that we’re particularly drawn to.

Personally, I tend to favour those of either a woodland, vintage/antique/Victorian, primitive, or rustic nature. So when I recently spied this dreamy rustic take on candy canes, it was love at first sight.

If you’re a fan as well or know someone who is and might enjoy a set of these easy to make twine wrapped candy canes as a gift, hop on over to Natasha’s photo rich post for all crafty details.

(Candy canes themselves are not generally thought to have distinctly Pagan roots, though their sweetness can represent the hopes, dreams, goals, and positive things we hope for at Yule and in the coming year, while their colours can easily be a part of seasonal colour magick.)

32. Simple Greenery Filled Ornaments: This is perfect Yule season ornament project for anyone who enjoys incorporating nature-based/woodland elements into their seasonal décor.

These timelessly pretty decorations can be customized to your heart’s content and left out, if you wish, all winter long (you can place them in a bowl or vase after the tree comes down).

33. DIY Forged Triangle Christmas Tree Wreath: Round wreaths are a beloved favourite the world over, but sometimes one wants to shake things up and go beyond the traditional Christmas (or Yule, etc) wreath shape.

If you’re in the mood for a chic, modern and very attractive holiday season wreath, this forged triangle-shaped version is a fantastic option.

34. Victorian Gilded Walnuts: A once highly popular Christmas season decoration that has largely fallen out of fashion over the past several decades, gold-hued gilded walnuts were quite the in-thing during the Victorian era.

Aside from their historical connections and inherent beauty, I adore how the gleaming gold hue is a wonderful representation of both the sun’s gradual return and of the warmth of spirit we strive for during the Yule season.

This splendid tutorial – complete with numerous historical quotes that reference gilded walnuts – from Lina at Sew Historically will have your Yule or Christmas tree (or a bowl on your favourite table) filled gilded walnuts in no time. 

(Her recent post on how to make gilded leaves is another fab project to check out if you enjoy using metallics in your holiday décor.)

35. 12 Nights of Yule Salt Dough Ornaments: This is a deeply meaningful winter craft project that is great to involve little ones with, if applicable.

It entails creating a set of twelve different salt dough ornaments to honour the Twelve Nights of Yule, and is bound to become a treasured part of your annual Winter Solstice season celebration.

Note: If, like myself, you have Celiac disease, a gluten allergy, gluten intolerance, or otherwise need to avoid gluten, you can easily make gluten-free salt dough ornaments instead.

36. DIY (Faux) Deer Antler Wreath: If ever there was a Yule season wreath that is apt to appeal to may a nature adoring/worshiping Pagan and witch, this awesome DIY project might just be it!

Starring pinecones, feathers, and resin faux deer antlers, this eye-catching wreath is so stunning you’ll want to leave it out all year round.

37. Sweet Little Almond Bird Ornaments: It’s hard to look at these precious little felt birdies in their cozy winter toques and not say “aww” out loud – especially since their bodies are based on unshelled almonds.

Why not create a few for your own winter décor? They’re apt to have all those who see them chirping with festive cheer.

38. Felt Yule Goat Ornament Tutorial: The Yule Goat has been a part of various Northern European and Scandinavian traditions since early Pagan times, later being adopted as part of Christmas celebrations as well.

Traditionally, Yule Goats were often made from the last sheafs of wheat that were harvested during the fall and saved specifically for various Yule season purposes including this one.

The connection between Yule and goats may stem from the Norse god named Thor, who traversed the sky in a chariot pulled by two goats named Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr.

Those who are of Scandinavian, Germanic, or Northern European ancestry and/or who follow a Heathenistic spiritual path, may find that the inclusion of a Yule Goat in their Winter Solstice décor is an especially apt one.

This festive barnyard friend can be a part of anyone’s holiday celebration though, and remains as one of the most popular Christmas decorations in various Central and Northern European countries to this day.

Modern Yule Goats are often made of straw. This adorable DIY iteration sees them spring to life via felt and thread, and makes for both a terrific holiday season ornament and handmade present.

39. Easy DIY Finger Crochet Garland: Love the look of chunky knits? Adore crocheted crafted, but have never given crocheting a go yourself?

If you answered yes to either of those questions, then this fun, beginner-friendly tutorial is here to help guide you through making a beautiful finger crochet garland of your own this holiday season.

40. Fragrant Herb Chairback Decorations: Aromatically and visually pleasing in equal measures, these elegant bundles of fresh herbs can just as easily adorn chairs as they can the mantle, tied to open railings on stairways, or as part of your festive Yule season altar/sacred space.

(Warning: Please ensure that any herbs you use are safe and non-toxic for children and/or pets, if you will be placing these bundles anywhere where either could potentially reach, and potentially injest, them.)

41. Handmade Family Tree Ornaments: Decorate a tree, line a mantle, or place a few of these heartwarmingly beautiful photograph-filled decorations down a runner on your dining room table.

They are a sweet, meaningful way to honour both your ancestors and living loved ones throughout the winter holiday season.

42. Pine Needles Keepsake Ornaments: Preserve some of the needles from your holiday tree, gathered from a wintertime woodland walk, or collected from your own backyard, team them with air dry clay + Mod Podge and you’ve got these gorgeous handmade keepsake ornaments.

(I also really like Tara’s tutorial post on how to make Pinecone Nature Confetti Shakers for New Year’s Eve.)

43. Rustic Cinnamon Stick Ornaments: Cinnamon sticks are truly one of the multi-purpose wunderkinds of the winter holidays.

From jazzing up delicious beverages to appearing in seasonal potpourri blends, and being a popular mainstay in many a festive craft, there’s seemingly no limit to what this wonderful spice can do!

Case in point, these darling glitter adorned cinnamon stick ornaments which can easily work on trees, mantles, hang in various spots around the house, or used as embellishments of holiday season gifts.

44. DIY Glitter Dipped Deer Silhouette Decorations: Whether of the more everyday kind or those who call the North Pole home, deer are amongst the animals most closely associated in many parts of the world with wintertime, Yule, and the Christmas season.

This timelessly pretty craft project requires but a few products to whip up a glitter-adorned deer (or two… or ten!) that is thoroughly festive now, but not so on-the-nose wintry that it couldn’t easily be left out all year through.

45. Holiday Magick Yule Pomander: At Three Pagans and Cat, Pathos blogger Gwen has put together a meaningful and endearingly lovely witchy iteration of the classic holiday season Pomander which is the kind of spellwork that’s perfect for the often all-too-busy days of December. These sophisticated pomanders also have the added bonus of smelling sublime!

46. Rosemary Mini Wreaths: Quick and clever, this fun holiday project sees a beloved herb turned into beautifully scented little wreaths that you can hang on the tree, use as napkin rings or placeholders, or tuck atop of a prettily wrapped gift for someone special.

47. Winter Solstice Outdoor Ice Ornaments: While lights are strung, wreaths hung, and various lawn decorations are placed outside come December, we don’t generally think to decorate our properties with ice itself during the chilliest season of the year.

As this creative and rather delightful project demonstrates, it’s high time we gave doing just that a spin – especially if you live in a climate where the temperature will ensure your handmade ice ornament creations are not apt to melt anytime soon.

48. Barnwood Ribbon Star Wall Hanging: Sometimes simple really is best and this strikingly pretty winter home décor project drives that point home in spades.

Ribbon, screws, and a suitable wooden backdrop (though, you could use small finishing nails or sewing/craft pins and an artist’s canvas instead) are all it takes to whip up your own eye-catching beautiful ribbon star wall hanging.

49. Yule Countdown Log: Another deeply lovely Pagan take on a Yule season countdown calendar, this 21-day long version includes the use of a handmade candle (though a store-bought one could just as easily be utilized as well), plenty of tea lights, and a suitable surface to place them on.

50. Cinnamon Dough Ornaments: Way back in time when I was just a few years old, my mom, siblings and I made a slew of cinnamon dough ornaments shaped like gingerbread people one Christmas season.

Each was decorated with glitter glue and included a narrow strip of ribbon tied to its top so that it could be hung from the tree. Incredibly, after more than twenty-five years, not only do some of these darling handmade Christmas ornaments still exist, but they have retained their beautiful cinnamon scent to this day. #truestory

Cinnamon dough ornaments are a beloved holiday season craft and one that is every bit as open to Pagans as it is to non-Pagans.

Indeed, for my fellow witchy and Pagan folks, culinary magick can be imbued via the ingredients used in this ornament dough recipe. As can things such as etching/shaping your ornaments into spiritually meaningful shapes, involving sigils, press leaves/branches/flower petals into them (as in this specific project), or creating a set of cinnamon dough runes.

This lovely blog post from (fellow British Columbia blogger) Stephanie Rose gives you all the dets to make your own cinnamon dough ornaments, which, with any luck, will also last – and retain their enchanting aroma – for decades to come.

(Note: All 50 images used above are copyright of their respective creators. Please follow the coordinating link in each list entry to be taken to the craft project shown and described therein.)

The importance of creating our own light

One of the most important things that Yule reminds of us of is that even the darkest chapters end at some point. Light will return one more. It may be gradual and hard to see at first, but over time things will get brighter, life will spring anew.

As we lean into another lengthy stretch of ice and snow, chattering teeth, and warm woollen mittens, it can be beneficial to remember that we often have within us the ability to brighten our own lives and days in a myriad of ways.

Gratitude and kindness are two of the greatest means by which to do just that, but they are from the only ones.

By making our homes cozy and festive, ensuring our spiritual journey is an ongoing focal point of our lives, doing our best to support and help one another, and holding tight to the hope of a pandemic-free future, the winter days are apt to feel considerably easier to get through.

It has been many a year since I was last a little girl, yet my heart gets no less giddy as Yule returns.

I welcome the light, while also embracing the darkness of winter. Both provide stability and comfort, and each is vital to life on this planet.

The craft projects highlighted above are wonderful ways to help make your home and your holiday season a little brighter and, hopefully, all the merrier as well.

Plus, amidst the hustle and bustle of December, sometimes a few quite minutes or hours of peaceful time spent focused on creating something – whether it is a Yule decoration, Christmas wreath, batch of delicious Hanukkah sufganiyot, or festive centrepiece for New Year’s – can often be a meaningful and comforting gift unto itself.

Do you enjoy creating your own winter holiday decorations or gifts? Which of these Yule craft projects appeals to you the most?

PS: Be sure to follow me on Pinterest, where I frequently pin a wide range of witchy and Pagan crafts, as well as tons of posts pertaining to each of the eight sabbats – including Yule. Along with many other interesting Pagan and witchcraft related topics.

The post 50 Awesome DIY Yule Decorations and Craft Ideas You Can Make for the Winter Solstice appeared first on Witchcrafted Life.