Christmas For All

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Christmas Postage Stamps

Image via Wikipedia

1973 Christmas stamp

German Stamp

Ukrain

1898

Hungarian nativity stamp, 1943

UK Christmas stamp from a 1983 set of five.

It is not unusual to see leftover stamps appear on regular mail during the first months of the new year, Except in Australia where Christmas stamps are only valid during the holiday season and cannot be used for regular mail, but only Christmas cards. This is because the Australian Christmas stamp is valued 5c lower than regular postage stamps. Interesting!

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Belle Angel

Materials Needed

8" of 3" wide Sheerstar Wire-Edge Ribbon*, White w/Gold Stars and Gold Edges

24" of 6" wide White Tulle w/Gold Sparkles*

3/4 wooden bead

Mini-Curl Hair

6" of 1/4 wide gold ribbon
1/4" wooden star, sprayed gold
1-1/2" Gold Elastic Cord
Q-tip and pink powder blush
Black Acrylic Paint
1 Novelty Wedding Ring
Low-melt Glue Gun
1-1/2 inch gold liberty bell

Instructions:

Gather the 8" of Sheerstar wire-edge ribbon along the top wire by pulling on both ends of the top of the wire ant once and gather fabric to the middle to form a small circle. Twist the two wires together and cut off excess. Glue center back of dress. Glue the 1-1/2" gold liberty bell to the inside of the dress.
Glue the wooden bead to the top of the dress for head. With black acrylic paint place two dots for eyes on the head. Use a Q-tip to apply pink blush for cheeks.
Cut a 5" white pipe cleaner. Bend in half and then bend each half in half again to form elbows. Glue first bend in back of angel's head. Glue wooden star spray painted gold to center of arms.
Glue mini-curl hair to top of head.
Glue the wedding ring to top of angel's head to form halo.
Fold gold elastic cord in half and tie knot at end. Glue to top of head for hanger.
Fold 6" tulle with gold sparkles in half to 3". Tie a bow measuring about 4" Across and glue to back of angel to form wings.
Tie a small bow with the 1/4" gold ribbon. Glue under angel's chin.

I love angels. My mother made me several for my tree and I even made a couple myself. Credit for this one goes to http://www.allcrafts.net/

Zuzu Bailey from It's a Wonderful Life: Look, Daddy. Teacher says, every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings.

Livingston Christmas Train Village in Texas

I think Christmas Train displays are awesome! I'm sure they are a lot of hard work too! This village has a little of everything. Ball room dancing, carnival rides, sledders, Santa in a hot air balloon, popcorn machine, Walmart, parade on the street, and it's all lit up at night! My younger brother would love this. He used to set up his own train display years ago. My son used to put a small train set around his Christmas tree and his girls were fascinated with it.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Christmas Light Displays

I'm always in awe of a beautiful light display! It's magical to me. I'm always looking for pictures of those magical displays and have found a few that I thought were great. I can't imagine the amount of time it takes to set these displays up for the holidays, but I'm sure they must start really early to get them done and just think about replacing burned out bulbs! But these days they have the LED bulbs which last much longer than a regular bulb. Every year I'm always having bad luck with lights!! Enjoy the pictures. If any of these images are copyrighted, I will gladly remove them.

Rockefeller Center

Mormon Temple

And of course, the Christmas Vacation house!

Luberto Home

Hunter Valley Gardens, Australia

Luberto Home in Boston, Mass.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Glass Tidings and Joy

Making of a Glass Christmas Tree from Richard Holdman on Vimeo.

This video is about 19 minutes long but really very interesting. The end result is a beautiful hand blown glass Christmas tree they made for the Festival of Trees in Salt Lake City, Utah. The tree is called Glass Tidings and Joy. It has thousands of small pieces of glass melted together at 2000 degrees and hand blown to create 60 branches, the star, and around 150 ornaments. It was created by three brothers, Tom, Treavor, and Richard Holdman whose father taught them art at an early age. The blown glass tree was sold within hours of the festival opening and 100 % of the money went to support the Primary Children's Medical Center. I think that was a wonderful thing to do. Here is a link to their main site. http://www.holdmanstudios.com/

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Clifton Mill

Clifton Mill in Clifton, Ohio is the site of this
Christmas display with over 3.5 million lights.
The water source is the Little Miami River.

Oh my gosh!!! I thought this was so
beautiful to
share with everyone.
I would love to see this!
Found it at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Clifton_Mill_Christmas_2005.JPG

Monday, October 18, 2010

Themed Christmas Trees

My Christmas tree is very traditional. I will post some pictures of it and all of my other decorations when the time comes. Though mine is traditional, I do love all the different themed Christmas trees. They are very beautiful. I came across these pictures and thought I would post them. I found them at http://www.remodelingmyspace.com/christmas-decoration-ideas/christmas-trees/pictures-decorated-christmas-tree-ideas.htm

Update: You can find my second post on themed Christmas trees Here