making things at Christmas

I'm not someone who can stand around doing nothing for long, so while I was waiting for yesterday's ginger to crystallize, I started folding pages of a magazine into a tree.

I got this from a page someone tweeted out. I can no longer find the page, which I seem to remember was written by a child in England, but there are numerous tutorials for this all over the web.

It's the perfect thing to do while waiting for something else to happen.

Step 1:










Step 2:










Step 3:










Step 4:










Do this for every page except the front and back covers, which you carefully remove. When you're finished, pull the first page around to meet the last page, and it will stand on its own. Voila!





You could spray paint this, or sprinkle it with glitter. I had some novelty necklaces from previous Christmases, so draped those around for decoration. And after googling all the different ways to make a 3D origami star, it suddenly occurred to me that a little Christmas bow would make the perfect tree topper.

S is busy making things right now, too. He dipped candles with a friend last weekend.








And he painted a cardboard ornament in art class this week.

In the lower left corner of the picture is the birds nest ornament my mother made some 50 years ago from a Brillo pad and felt. Since she died 15 years before he was born, it's nice that their homemade ornaments can hang on the tree together.