To the Nines: Christmastime 2012

With just a few weeks to go before we achieve critical holiday mass, I’ve rounded up my nine current favorites in each of the essential Christmastime categories: How to decorate, what to eat, and what the hell to give everybody. Find something inspiring to make your own season super merry and bright!

Decorate

1. These lovely fabric and book birds look like they fluttered right out of a storybook. Tutorial from Todolwen.
2. Charming felt Christmas trees from the Crafted Sparrow are a simple matter of attaching felt triangles to Styrofoam cones.
3. Guess what this wreath is made of. Guess. You can’t guess? It’s thumbtacks! So easy, courtesy of Canadian Family.
4. Some crafts look so cute, you just know that they wouldn’t look anything like that if you tried to make them. But the tutorial for these sock snowmen from Then She Made is so thorough, I think they really might!
5. Download a pattern for these little handsewn felt ornaments from Fantastic Toys.
6. A rectangular wreath. A rectangular. Wreath. It seems obvious now, but I know I didn’t think of it! Blessed Beyond Measure made it from a picture frame.
7. Can we take a quick geek break? Redditor tacosparatodos posted photos of a pretty formidable Christmas Dalek last week. There’s no tutorial, but it’d be simple enough to follow the photos and recreate it—even as an army of miniature Christmas Daleks!
8. Tiny cakes made of OREOs, tiny donuts made of Cheerios, and more…all to leave out for Santa’s elves on Christmas eve, thanks to Unconfidential Cook.
9. String glitter letter garlands on your tree! Miss Mustard Seed sells these garlands at $5/letter, though if you wanted to make something like this using glitter, string and some chipboard letters from the craft store, I bet you could make yourself proud. {Pointless fun fact: At the last moment before publishing this post, I noticed there was a red squiggly line in that sentence because I had typed, “…make yourelf proud.” Merry Christmas to you too, terrible typing fingers!}

Eat

1. Some of my favorite cookies of the season are these chocolate peanut butter melting snowman cookies from Better Homes & Gardens. {I give BHG a hard time for their old cookbooks, but I am a perennial subscriber. They know what’s good.}
2. Some classics are too simple and pretty to go out of style, like the pinecone cheese log appetizer from Modern Skillet.
3. Frozen whipped cream shapes are easy to make, and they make hot cocoa doubly adorable. Here’s a simple tutorial from Lark and Linen.
4. Speaking of easy ways to fancy up a hot chocolate, how about these simple chocolate dippers from Garnish? I can’t help thinking I’d like them to be made from peppermint sticks, rather than straws, though. Is that too hardcore?
5. How about garnishing a cake with some chocolate Christmas trees, like Caroline from Chocolate & Carrots did with her chocolate raspberry forest cake? The technique is the same as my white chocolate snowflakes (for which you can download a printable template).
6. I’m having trouble remembering when I last wanted anything as much as I want this salted caramel shortbread from Erica’s Sweet Tooth. It’s a lot of want. A lot.
7. How about A Subtle Revelry’s bourbon-infused sugared cranberries? They’re not just beautiful. They’re not just tasty. They will also mess you up.
8. I have fallen head over heels for this snowman cookie. I want to be best friends with it. We will go everywhere together and have secrets. There’s a recipe and an instructional video on Sweetopia.
9. I’ll definitely be making ice cream Christmas trees again this year! They’re just too easy and dazzling and delicious not to.

Give

1. Strictly Simple Style shows this beautiful lace pottery that you can make yourself out of air dry porcelain. This could become very personal, depending on where you source the lace—but I don’t know enough about air-dry clay to say whether the process ruins the lace, so maybe check before you borrow anybody’s wedding veil.
2. What’s not to love about bird’s nest necklaces? Sarah Ortega makes them easy with a photo tutorial. If you have a mom on your list, you could add one egg in each of her kids’ favorite colors, but really this is a present for just about anybody.
3. Someone you love very much deserves a picnic box, and this classic Design Sponge post has everything you need.
4. Although it doesn’t necessarily look easy, Kristen Erickson’s DIY silver spoon ring tutorial definitely looks doable. It could be really meaningful, especially if you could find your family’s silver pattern (there are families that have silver patterns, aren’t there?) on Replacements, Ltd.
5. With a little fleece and a little sewing, everyone on your list could have their own custom fuzzy monster cell phone case, courtesy of A Little Stranger.
6. These homemade bath fizzies from Martha Stewart are quick gifts to make en masse, although of course they require a few very specific materials you’d probably have to order.
7. She is a dear old friend and a sponsor, yes, but I would recommend prints of the Middlest Sister’s cut paper artwork ($14.56 and up, free shipping) even if she were a stranger and a Republican. You can also commission custom pieces. If I had a sister, she would already be expecting to receive this from me.
8. The same goes for Kaz of Kaz Style, who is also a friend and a sponsor. I have two pairs of her wood filigree earrings ($12) and I love giving them as gifts. Her bags, made by hand from recycled kimono fabric, are beautiful, functional and very well made. Both look much more expensive than they are, and I highly recommend them.
9. Whatever you give, top it with a lovely, eco-friendly bow made from the recycled paper of your choice. How About Orange provides an easy-to-photo photo tutorial. Newspaper, maps, gift wrap, books, comics, photographs…the possibilities are limitless! I mean…kind of.