Homemade Christmas Lovliness
OK, so I’m a bit late with this one but it may go some way to explaining my absence from the blogosphere for the last few months!
Back in September I made a brash decision to make the majority of my Christmas gifts for friends and family with the help of my children. I often describe myself as a ‘time poor crafter’ and although there has always been an element of the homemade in my Christmas efforts, last year I decided to push the limits of seasonal crafting.
There were a few reasons for setting myself this ambitious challenge and once I started to unpick them I realised that I was engaging in a spot of craftivism! I do love Christmas but always feel uncomfortable about the materialism that surrounds it. This feeling has been magnified since having children and as they approach their teenage years I don’t want them to develop an excessive desire to possess more ‘stuff’ than they could possibly need or use.
The other contributing factors were waste and cost. I don’t like waste and it makes me really sad to see beautiful (and expensive) wrapping paper and packaging binned and as I have had to cut back on work to complete my MA funds are tight!
Mum and Dad
Mum and Belinda
When I was seven my parents embraced the Good Life. They had grown up in Birmingham and Wolverhampton and after overdosing on Tom and Barbara decided that we should swop hustle and bustle for a simple life. We moved to a small Lincolnshire village and the adventure began; soon we had rabbits, goats and a sprawling garden filled with home grown produce. One of my earliest memories of this new life was being part of a homemade Christmas card production line. I remember it involved lino printing with oil paint and it being very blue and very messy.
With this memory in my mind I called a meeting of the ‘Project Christmas’ steering committee (me, Abigail and Jude). We decided that we would create hampers by making use of our garden produce. I didn’t inherit the self sufficiency gene from my parents but we had a bountiful crop of apples, a very bushy bay leaf bush and Jude’s greenhouse chillies.
An internet search provided recipes for Christmas chutney, chilli jam, bay leaf infused olive oil and Delia’s Christmas cake; a winning combination. I have four male cousins in their twenties, (one a Drum and Bass DJ), so we decided to substitute edibles for graffiti art in their case.
Christmas Chutney
Chilli Jam
The making mission was epic and quite early on I was haunted by a throw away remark I had made years earlier about a mum at my children’s primary school. She had made mini Christmas cakes in spaghetti tins for the complete staff team and I had concluded that she had far too much time on her hands! The making mission ate up every moment of my spare time; it was relentless and required stamina and dedication. As my car had been towed away for scrap it also involved death defying trips back from Tescos on a bike loaded with bottles of cider vinegar! We also broke the electric whisk and I got what felt like second degree burns on my hands from the chillies.
Jude the Graffiti Artist
Abigail and Jude were willing helpers and by the time the cakes had tipped over into double figures they could follow the recipe without adult intervention. Jude spent a lot of time in the garden painting, splattering and spraying canvas, Abigail became our product brand poster girl posing as a Beaton-esque shooting star and I learnt how to ice a cake!
Inspired by Beaton - Abigail the Shooting Star
The 25 Christmas cakes, 18 jars of chutney, 15 jars of chilli jam, 12 bottles of bay leaf infused oil, 6 graffiti canvases and broach for my mum were all packaged using recycled fabric and trimmings and placed in jute shopping bags and distributed. I definitely underestimated the time involved in Project Christmas but it was a hugely satisfying experience. We have had some lovely thank you letters and there have been no reported cases of botulism which is a bonus.
Jude and Abi's Scrummy Christmas Cake
Button and Bead Broach
I am very grateful to Nigel Blackamore for taking the beautiful photographs of our Christmas Craftivsm over on Flickr.
Jan 24, 2012 @ 20:23:54
I am completely stunned by your pure dedication to your Christmas project, you never cease to amaze me! So looking forward to seeing you tomorrow. I am afraid I have not cut costs and have blown the budget on school dinners! Yippee xx
Jan 26, 2012 @ 09:29:54
Thanks Charlotte! I am equally impressed by Fulbridge’s allotment and chutney making. It’s a brilliant idea and one that could grow into a social enterprize that could fund your future creative projects I’m sure! Great to see you yesterday and the dinner was delicious as always! x
Jan 25, 2012 @ 04:03:20
you are a true legend! I now have to keep this and use it as ammo next time Col tells me off for making all the presents – and I don’t do nearly this many!! i am impressed and inpired – particulalry looking at all the Flikr images and seeing Jude and Abigail helping and making / creating too – you have every right to be proud and more than a little smug!! 🙂
Jan 26, 2012 @ 09:35:05
Hi Ainslie, this is praise indeed from the Queen of Christmas crafting, thank you! I will email you as soon as I get a minute… I have a school project in the summer looking at Australian culture and wondered if it could be a chance for some form of creative collaboration? Hope all is well with you x
Jan 25, 2012 @ 11:05:26
Love this! (And The Good Life!! Yay!) I think that a lot of us have had similar thoughts like this “I was haunted by a throw away remark I had made years earlier about a mum at my children’s primary school.” I almost might go as far and say that it’s saying things exactly like that that mean we’re secretly harboring wishes to craft but don’t let ourselves. So… when we do find that part of ourselves, we’re horrified about our previous actions.
But luckily, it’s not all in vain, as it’s only then that we fully realize how our culture is built in such a way that makes us feel bad for having “spare time” or having the “time to craft.” It makes us feel like making things isn’t worth our time when we can instead go out and buy them quick snap. To me, starting to make things is the true beginning of the revelation that perhaps what we’re being sold on in the mainstream really is completely tainted with making things disposable and throwaway.
So, I guess I’m saying don’t feel “haunted!” It’s all a part of extricating ourselves from cultural ideas that are being thrown in our faces all day every day. Also- lovely pics and craftivist Christmas! Huzzah!
Jan 26, 2012 @ 10:10:53
Hi Betsy,
Thank you so much for your encouragement! I’ve spent the last 10 years working with schools, galleries, museums and community groups encouraging creativity. The majority of the projects that I have facilitated have been craft based (felt making is a fave). Community arts is my passion and it’s only recently that I realised that I didn’t actually make very much for pleasure outside of ‘work.’ I think you are right, at some point between my Good Life upbringing and making my own way in the world I started to see craft as something I couldn’t justify spending my ‘spare time’ doing! Over the last year I have re-adressed the crafting for work/crafting for pleasure balance and I have started to really enjoy combining the 2. QR-3D (our paths have crossed before) was a personal triumph; my crowd sourced participants co-created a piece with me and I loved being of it. At the moment I am using my ‘spare time’ to embroider the Twitter username of people who have helped me with some research that I am doing… one day I may even crochet a jumper! Once again, thank you so much for the encouragement… I think you are a legend!!!