Holiday Handmade Crusade

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About Holiday Handmade Crusade

Friends, Craftsters, Countrymen, lend me your ears...



Do you love Christmas? I don't. I hate it.

HAHAHAHAHA Yeah right!

Seriously though, let me share a little story with you.

Once upon a time there was a stunningly beautiful, totally modest, girl who loved absolutely everything about Christmas. For years, said girl was a sucker for advertising and a slave to the Mecca of Capitalism - the mall.

One day she took up knitting. Then sewing. Then cooking. Suddenly, she was obsessed with transforming herself into a craftastic domestic goddess. She was 21 years old.

When it came to be Christmas time that year she decided that the mall sucked because she could never find anything there that was a) affordable, b) not a cheaply made piece of crap or c) meaningful enough to give as a gift.

That's when our beautiful heroine found a craft-a-long thread on Craftster all about crafting your Christmas gifts bit by bit over the course of the year.



She solemnly vowed to do so, and the next year she was leading the aforementioned thread, and the next, and the next.

Fast forward to today.

If you haven't figured it out yet, I am your Christmas heroine! These past few weeks I've been marinating on an idea to encourage more participation in my holiday craft-a-long so that I can spread my crafty gospel throughout the land.



Here's what I propose:

* At the beginning of each month I will post a few ideas and themes to inspire you to craft for Christmas.

* By midnight on the last day of each month you can notify me of your completed gift project one of three ways a) posting a picture and comment to the thread on Craftster, b) uploading a photo to the Flickr Group or c) post it on your blog, and leave me a blog comment with a link to your post.

*YOU DO NOT HAVE TO FOLLOW MY THEMES I'm totally flexible here, the point is to get some gifts done ahead of time, non-conformity is welcome.

* Winter holidays of all races and religions are welcome. Christmas is my particular flava', so that's what I'll be writing about here.



What's in this for you?

At the end of each month, I will compile all of the entries via Crafster, Flickr and my blog comments into a single raffle drawing for a FABULOUS PRIZE!!! I've called upon some of my favorite fellow craftsters, artists and indie businesses and they've agreed to generously donate their goods and services to YOU!

* You can participate one month, two months, twelve months. Whatever works for you.

* If you make two or more gifts per month, each will count as an entry to the raffle. Pretty sweet, huh? That's what I call INCENTIVE!

Remember, participating in a Christmas craft-a-long does not mean that you have to deck your house out in red and green and sing carols all year long. Simmer down. I like to think of Christmas as a culmination of crafty love that accumulates all year long.

So, who's down for the crafty lovin'?

Your theme for January is: ORNAMENTS!: Make one, make one hundred. Ornaments are a great small gift to have on hand for anyone!

Need some inspiration? Check out the 2008 Holiday Ornament Swap Group via Flickr

Join me to take back Christmas from the mall with our loving, crafty hands!

Much Love,

Your Craftastic Christmas Crusader