Alternative Christmas

I’m a bit of a Scrooge when it comes to Christmas. Deep down, I love the old festive traditions, the family recipes, the yummy bread sauce, and the cosy firelit moments at the end of the day. Generally, though, I hate the new commercialised face of Christmas. It’s not even December yet, and festive tunes are playing in the shops, the decorations are up already, and we’re all being encouraged to buy buy buy. I think it ruins the specialness of Christmas Day itself, because by the time the 25th comes, we’re all thoroughly Christmassed out.

However, I’m going to be selling at my first craft fair, Make do and Mend at Platform in Glasgow, and the theme is Christmas gifts. So I thought I’d better try and get into the festive mood, and make some things that would fit the impending occasion. Yesterday I had a play around with felt and created some wee gifts, which I’ll photograph soon. First though, I’d love opinions on my alternative to traditional Christmas cards. I decided to use letters cut from newspapers to spell out the messages, and stuck to a relatively neutral colour palette of greys, blacks and reds. I wanted to create a smart, minimalist feel, but I’m not sure if the resulting cards might just be a bit too “out there”. Here’s a sneaky peek of one of my efforts – what do you think?