Scissors, Glue & Pine Cones

There's something heartwarming about receiving a handmade holiday card. Knowing someone went through the effort to find the scissors, draw some nostalgic mistletoe and craft a personal note gets me every time. Knowing this, it should come as no surprise that I'm a sucker for handmade decorations too. On any given tree, my eyes seem to gravitate towards the papier mache angel hung with a piece of frayed red yarn, or the paper snowflakes heavy and wilted with copious amounts of white glue and glitter. Images such as these send me back to grade school during that last week before Christmas break when all children are expected to do is decorate ginger bread, sing carols and go on nature walks seeking out the perfect pine cones and tree branches for endless craft projects. The stuff great memories are made of.

Enter now the fabulous new book from Stewart Tabori and Chang, Have Yourself a Very Vintage Christmas: Crafts, Decorating Tips, and Recipes, 1920s - 1960s (9781584799238, CAN $22.95)

Author Susan Waggoner recaptures the magic of holidays past with vintage crafts projects that, if you’re anything like me, you’ve been craving. Inspired by treasures from the 1920s through the 1960s, she includes simple instructions for a variety of decorations that allow crafters of all ages, naughty or nice, to deck their halls with cellophane wreaths, glittered glass ornament balls, beaded bell garlands, and whimsical, tinsel-bedecked miniature trees.