Quick and easy Christmas projects

Hello, crafty friends.  Are you knee-deep in recording your precious Christmas memories, content in the knowledge that scores of your precious hand-crafted cards are right now whizzing through the mail to friends and family?   And working on dozens of other Christmas projects besides?

I wish I could say that myself, but I've had a major drought in the creative juices department.  I admitted to myself that, for the second year in a row, I wasn't even going to attempt Christmas cards, and my plans to finish off a swag of unfinished projects (both scrapbooking and sewing) have also gone out the window. 

I jumped at the first trickle of creativity this week to get a bare minimum of Christmas projects done . . .

If you've visited here over the last month or so, you won't be suprised when I say that the "traditional" Christmas colour scehme of red, green and white doesn't come naturally to me. 

So what might tempt me?

Why, how about these tasty treats from Scrapbook Boutique:

First up, gift tags.  For quite a few years now, I've used family photos on our gift tags, and when I didn't get the photos printed in time last year, there were some disappointed grannies.  Here's this year's offering:

While I'm not doing the big mass-produced Christmas cards this year, there are a couple of teachers I want to give presents to, so here's the cards I made for them:

Papers from the stash, die-cuts left over from last month's Counterfeit Kit and hand-cut Christmas trees.

My final Christmas project came about because this year, for the first time, we've bought a live Christmas tree, seeing as how we're actually at home this year to enjoy it.  I trimmed a couple of branches off at the bottom and decided they might look nice in a vase, and bring the fresh, piney smell into another part of the house.

When I asked who would like to do some punching, Angus thought I meant this type of punching . . .

. . . which was understandable, but Maddy was more than willing to help,

not just with the punching, but the sewing as well!

Voila! A quick and easy Christmas garland . . .

. . . all made from the scraps stash, of course!