With Christmas done and over it is almost time for New years celebrations to begin. It is a nice time of year one of new beginnings and starting fresh. Of course that also usually means it is a day of celebrations, parties and a lot of fun. I for one prefer to keep my decorations for New Years handmade. It is more intimate and more frugal, what can I say I like to save money. So here are a couple of crafty ideas for your new year party.

 

Paper is your friend and you can make all sorts of fun things out of paper, even if you are not as big of a paper crafter as I am. Clocks, numbers those are just the start use your imagination and have some fun with it.

 

Another way to use some of those lovely Christmas decorations is to re-purpose them for some New Years decorations. You can put them in a glass, a vase or hang them in various ways to make it festive. If you don’t want to reuse your decorations from Christmas you can always hit the post Christmas sale and pick up some new ones to use.

 

Keep it simple but pretty is something I personally like to live by. Using candles and a pretty wreath you can make yourself is a way to keep that with your New years party. It also tends to add a nice ambiance to the room, everyone loves candle light.

This was a super fun little swap to do and I can not wait til get mine back from my partner. But in the mean time here is the one that I made for my partner and I am pretty happy with how it turned out. I do not 100% like the fairy I used but it was the only one I could find that felt close enough and did not cost a lot of funds. I could have just done a printed paper one, but that did not feel right for what I wanted to do. The jar overall however made me happy and it was nice to step out of the ATC realm I have made for myself as of late. Not that I dislike my ATC’s at all, because I do not but this was fun and nice.

It as been a while since I have flexed my crafty muscles but I am getting back into the full swing of it. And funny enough I have Doctor Who to thank for it. Ah well is there anything the Doctor can’t do? I think not. I mean really have you seen him? (I refer to Ten of course).

So back in the swing of things I decided I should post some of my creations and what I get as well from others. I just sent out my first larger than an ATC art project for Tardis Artwork. I am nervous I hope my partner likes it. Here is what I did.

I am having a craving to do more crafts this week. My schedule is pretty busy so we will see what I can get in, but I want to do more. As you can see my busy started this weekend I missed my Saturday Six and my Unconscious mutterings. No matter I will catch them this week. One of my things to do this year (I don’t do resolutions) was to not stress about the small list so stuff, so here is hoping I can keep to that.

I did some ATC’s for Swap bot over the weekend and I am looking forward to posting them for you to see once I get a chance to crop the images. I think doing these again is what has caused my craving for crafts. I am thinking perhaps about making an Altar box out of a shoe box. I saw on my Facebook that another friend did that and it got me very curious, so I may have to make one of my own.

In other not crafty news I am irked I missed the first half of Bones so missed Dmitry (boo), I will watch it once it is online. It is COLD (I am sure there are others colder than me, and I am content with my letter writing so far this month but not overjoyed. I have sent 16 mail pieces so far in January. While that is a decent amount of course in order to make my goal of 500 for the year I need to do about 41 per month, I suppose however if I divide that down further for the month I am on track as it is only the 14th. I tend to push myself a little bit on my mailing. I have kept to my challenge to myself of writing down a break down of what is what so far. 8 have been letters, 4 postcards and 4 packages with notes. I have not added in my ATC mailings yet or I would count those (so I guess my total is higher and I am babbling ha.)

I did get a comment earlier that mentioned quality over quantity. Now I agree in that fully however I do not think having a goal for myself (yes higher than most) that I suffer in quality. I think that every person has their limits on what they can do and turn out and still maintain quality. While some people may be able to only do one or two letters per week that are quality someone else may be able to do one or two per day. Doesn’t mean one is better than the other. I take pride and joy in each letter, package, postcard and ATC I send out. I have three letters heading out that I wrote today each of them is 4 or more pages (full large pages not letter sheets) and personal to each pen pal. I read, reply and inform of my goings on personally to each of my pen pals. So I think that gives quality. Don’t you?