All posts tagged: christmas

Saturday Feature: My First Advent Wreath

Published by Sula H.

Christmas is fast approaching. Tomorrow is the first Sunday of Advent already, and this year I have my own very first: My first real advent wreath in China. Well, not a wreath, really. But it is this advent thingy that can hold four candles, so it counts as advent wreath, I guess. In the last couple of years, I always just arranged some candles with some simple Christmas decoration on my coffee table, but this year it’s the real deal! My mom brought it from Germany where she had bought it at the end of last year’s Christmas season at my request. (Yep, did I ever mention that you learn to become very patient here in China?) Well, anyway, I finally have one. And since I had no candles to go with it, this morning’s main project was to hop on the shopping bus to the city and find some (there are no real candles anywhere here in town; Chinese people don’t usually use candles.) However, finding them isn’t actually the challenge, since I had …

DIY: Christmas Card No. 2

Published by Sula H.

Happy Thanksgiving, fellow digi-scrappers! It’s time for the next round of our Do-It-Yourself tutorial. And since the Christmas season is right around the corner (I just realized that in some places around the world, the 1. Advent will be celebrated this Sunday), I’m going to show you how to make another Christmas card. This week’s Christmas card comes with seven parts: 2 background papers (for the base), 2 mats, 1 label, 1 embellishment, 1 string. You also will need glue (I prefer glue sticks), white tac, and scissors. 1. Choose the papers and embellishments that you want to work with. My choice for this card was “All That’s Timeless” by Traci Reed and Meghan Mullens (available at SSD). 2. In your graphics program (I use Photoshop), open a new canvas the size of what the card will be (mine will be A6). 3. Now, with the shape tool (set to rectangle) I create four rectangles of different sizes, each on its own layer. The largest will cover the entire canvas and is the background, on …

DIY: Christmas Card No. 1

Published by Sula H.

Today, I’m bringing you the first ever Do-It-Yourself tutorial on my blog! We are going to create a Christmas card and I will take you through the process step by step. Before we get started though, I should point out that being in China I don’t have access to all the wonderful craft supplies available in other places around the world, so there will be a lot of improvising, and for those with only a small budget available for their crafting, I’ll show how you can save on paper and supplies as we move along. 1. Choose a scrapbook kit or whatever papers you want to work with from your digiscrap stash. I chose “Joy to the World” by Kristin Cronin-Barrow (her Christmas kit is still available at the Sweetshoppe). 2. Open your graphic designs program and create the basic design. In my case, I decided to go with a bright background paper on which I will layer all the other papers and embellishments. I used Melissa Bennett’s “Matted” star (also SSD) to duplicate, resize …