Christmas is just around the corner and the time has come to fly to Poland for Christmas holidays – at last!!!!! Even the brutal fact that we need to be at the airport at 5 am (which means we have to get up around 3.30 am – which is the middle of the night, no question) is not going to spoil my mood, because it’s Christmas time :-) I may not be able to publish posts so regularly for the two next weeks, so before I go sit on my suitcase to help my husband zip it up, here are a few pictures from the Internet for Christmas inspiration for you all!
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I’m just looking at the first snow this year, and it’s beautiful… Never mind that in Holland snow means hundreds of kilometers of traffics, muddy sidewalks and major public transportation delays. The charming houses along the canals become even more picturesque under the layer of the pristinely white fluffy snowflakes. Looking at it makes my fingers itch to take out my camera and go capture this elusive phenomenon – there’s something magical to photos with snow, even though taking them usually requires freezing your fingers off. Here are a few photos my father took a few years ago during a snowy Polish winter – which unfortunately I missed. Let them be an inspiration for you to go trampling through the snow, hunting for the best white shot! Everybody who ever stood behind the camera knows that taking picture of people is difficult, and taking pictures of children sometimes borders on the impossible and requires mountains of patience. Knowing that, I have nothing but utmost respect and admiration for the impressive works of Anne Geddes – the world famous, Australian-born baby photographer. Even if you’re not exactly into children, you won’t be able to resist those magical creatures into which Anne Geddes turns her tiny models for her stylized and posed shoots. Every photo by her is creative, exquisite and overflowing with positive emotions. There are impossibly huge, vibrant flowers, cute bunnies, a rainbow of faeries, charming flower pots with babies “growing” in them, Christmas reindeers and an entire world in which Anne’s incredible imagination and creativity (and patience, of course) are the only limits. What initially was baby photos is today a thriving business with books published in 83 countries, postcards, calendars, photo albums, baby clothes, papers, stationary, accessories and so much more – all of it perfect for Christmas gifts. Below you’ll find a few of my favourite photos by this talented Australian artist, and you can see more at www.annegeddes.com. If you register on her website, then every month you can download for free e-cards, wallpapers and much more. 9 days left to Christmas and time to think about decorating the Christmas tree, because yes, such a tree is a creative project of its own. There are so many possibilities – you can go for a tree decorated with one colour decorations only, e.g. navy blue, silver, even pink, or with two colours – e.g. gold and red, or decorated only with self-made baubles, or only with bird-shaped ones, or with “natural” decorations such as nuts, cinnamon sticks, anise stars etc. You may go for sparkly, or for white with the artificial snow, or for a modern, artificial one in a colour other than green. Or – like I always do – make it a mix of colours and shapes with no apparent theme behind them, which results in a warm, glowing and one-of-a-kind Christmas tree – we’ll see how it goes this year. In the meantime, a few ideas for those who still have no inspiration ;-) I’ve always thought that T-shirts are fun and considered them as one of the more creative pieces of clothing. While at a first glance they seem to be one of the simplest ones, they’re like “tabula rasa” on which designers can create almost everything – there’re thousands of prints, sew-ons, texts etc which can turn this T-shaped piece of fabric into one of your favourite after-work outfits with a statement. Not to mention that nowadays very often you can wear it also at work, match it with trendy jackets, big jumpers, jeans vests and so much more. And they’re almost always affordable – great for collecting, and also great as gifts for your friends. This year a Christmas T-shirt collection by Cubus – a Scandinavian designer – has caught my eye. A few crazy T-shirts which actually go against colour-matching rules, but somehow on them it works – I’ve a soft spot for the red one with the snowman. So treat it as one more Christmas gift inspiration :-) I’ve already written about place cards for the Christmas table, but they’re only a small part of the Christmas table decorations. In Poland for years the tradition has been to go with the simple and the classical – white table cloth, white/gold candles, white and gold china. But today there are some many Christmas arrangements, flowers, special kind of china etc available, that it’s hard not to be tempted to experiment – even though a Polish table must be able to accommodate all the tradition-required 12 dishes, so the decoration space might be a bit limited ;-) This year I’ve decided to experiment some more, and go for gold-green-red decorations to liven up the table – we’ll see how that goes in 10 days! For now, a few ideas for inspiration found on the Internet – enjoy. Card-making Is probably one of the most popular craft hobbies out there (and definitely here in the Netherlands), with specialist hobby shops making a fortune on a thousand-and-one decorative elements and techniques which are absolutely vital for a card-maker and absolutely puzzling to those who do not speak card-geek. Still, even though I do enjoy photo scrapping, I’ve never felt attracted to card making – maybe because I’ve always been very bad at card-sending too. This year I decided to try my hand at the complicated art of Christmas card-making, and to make it less complicated I went for “Christmas card sets.” These sets include everything you need to make a few different cards in similar style, together with photos of possible outcomes – which is a great tip. Without such sets you’d need hours of time, buckets of patience, a very thick wallet and awesome spatial imagination to choose from thousands of options available what sort of paper, embellishments etc you need. So, here are the results – and even though I do like them, and I’m sure they’d make a pretty gift – I’ve just confirmed to myself that a card-geek I am not. But I encourage you to try – who knows, maybe this is exactly what your creative streak has been waiting for? We have this tradition with my husband that every year a few weeks before Christmas we organize a gingerbread cookies baking weekend. The house fills with spicy aromas and we get creative in the kitchen by cutting cookies of all shapes and sizes. Yes, we do start with ordinary cookie cutters, my favourite being a moose/reindeer-shaped one I bought in Stockholm years ago, but halfway through the process we attack the dough with knifes and try our hand at creating more complicated shapes – last year I remember making the shape of a sledge pulled by reindeers, with Santa and a bag of presents sitting on top – and you could even recognize the shape once the cookies were baked! A fun and creative Christmas tradition which generates tantalizing and mouth-watering aromas – why not try it? Following my blog, we now know how to creatively tag a Christmas gift, but not how to creatively wrap it. I’ve always believed that it’s very, very important how a gift looks like once packed and embellished – after all the first impression does counts ;-) Even the smallest or the least-interesting presents, when craftily packed, become exciting! (yes, even socks ;-) Nowadays there are so many ways to pack gifts. The old, traditional gift wrapping paper which today you can buy in a hundred-and-one varieties, ribbons and bows of all colours and shapes, small embellishments like glue-ons, artificial pieces of holly, pine cones, glitter – the list goes on. The “fast&easy” way of packing gifts in ready-made boxes or bags – as much as I do not support “ready-made” solutions, in this case I have to admit that a stack of such boxes sure does look impressive. Still, the idea that I have to buy presents for a given person having in mind that they need to be of different sizes (growing proportionally?!) and suitable shapes to fit into the neat stack of boxes, from the biggest to the smallest, seems ridiculous to me… Of course you can also experiment with “crafted” ways to pack gifts – like the reindeer bag shown in the top-left corner which has been a love at the first sight for me (you can read the instructions how to make one here ), but that would probably turn Christmas-preparations into a full-time job.... Anyway, you’ll find some inspiration-inducers in the gallery below. There is one American-born type of Christmas decoration which I wish was more popular in Poland – Christmas wreaths, the ones which you can hang on your doors. It is the first thing you see when you come back home and the cheery sight of red and gold makes you feel the festive atmosphere from the very threshold. Granted, it’s more suited for houses than for apartments, but those who live in the latter can always hang it on the inside of the doors and brighten up the hall. In many countries you can buy them ready-made, but of course you can also prepare them by yourself – I’ve done it in the past. The most difficult part is to get your hands on a foam or wicket ring and get the Christmas tree boughs in it so that they form a neat wreath and do not fall out prematurely. Once this is done, the decorating part is pure pleasure. I’ve been looking on the Internet for the inspiration for this year’s wreath, and found these photos – I like all of them, even the ones without greenery. Maybe you can also find some inspiration here for your very own Christmas wreath? |
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August 2012
AuthorA fiery red head, a writer and a photographer in love with beautiful design and all things creative |