Winter Craft Ideas Inspired by the North
Imagine yourself comfortably ensconced in front of a crackling fire, toes clad in woolly socks outstretched to the heat and hands clasped around a hot, delicately fragranced spicy drink. Or maybe in a log cabin, snuggled up on an overstuffed sofa scattered with quilted cushions and lit by gently flickering candlelight. Or maybe you might rather be outdoors in the crisp winter air, crunching your way through shimmering white snow, guided onwards by the twinkling lights of the town ahead.
These are all dreamy images of winter, but they are all based on the reality of life in the northern parts of our world, when nights are long and homes are a retreat from the bitingly cold temperatures of the winter months. These weather patterns have shaped not only the way of life in these northern climes, but also many of the traditions and festivities around Christmas. When the outside world is cold and dark, the emphasis on creating a warm, cosy and welcoming home is great. With many sociable afternoons spent indoors with friends, winter craft ideas have abounded over the last few decades and resulted in the array of stunning decorations we appreciate today. As we look at a few of these traditions, we hope they might act as a springboard for your own winter craft ideas and a new range of products with which to delight your public.
In Scandinavia, the celebrations begin on December 13th, St Lucia’s Day. St Lucia lived during a time of severe Christian persecution within the Roman Empire, and legend has it that she brought food to Christians hiding in the catacombs, lighting her way by candlelight. The festival, which commemorates her martyrdom and celebrates her life, is centred around lights and candles, and includes large candlelit processions as well as small family rituals. Traditionally, the youngest daughter of the family dresses in a white gown with a wreath of candles around her head and awakens her family with a tray of sweet treats. This would be a delightful tradition to incorporate into our winter celebrations; the only snag being that candles close to long hair sound like a fire risk. It could, however, be a springboard for some fun winter craft ideas; a head garland intertwined with little LED lights and a summary of the festival story alongside.
The classic Scandinavian Christmas style, which has been warmly welcomed into so many of our homes, is also inspirational for winter craft ideas. Think red and white, natural materials such as felt, fabric, ribbon or wood, and simple, unfussy designs. The initial financial outlays for these are low, so they could be good items to have either as a main feature or to supplement your other products. With such vast areas of wooded wilderness, natural materials such as pinecones or evergreen branches are often central to the Christmas decor. Maybe you could consider using some pine branches to display your felt hearts, origami stars or wooden reindeer and sell them at a local Christmas fair.
Next up in our northern inspiration is the USA. While the southern states are warm most of the year, the northern ones have brought us some of the homely Christmas decor we enjoy each year; stockings over the fireplace, a plate laden with cookies for Santa and spectacular gingerbread houses. America is also associated with extravagant, sparkling light displays. While multi coloured, flashing lights are beyond the crafter’s remit, there is a market for beautiful handmade stockings which will be brought out year after year. Stockings lend themselves to personalisation; maybe you could offer a choice of colour or add a name. For the ceramicists amongst you, a special cookie plate for Santa, named and decorated, could also become central to the Christmas Eve ritual, to be carefully filled and placed under the stockings by small, eager hands.
If we travel on up from the USA and into Canada, we find many of the traditions are the same, although often scaled down and simplified. The great outdoors, lakes, mountains and forests are reflected in festive traditions here, with a cosy log cabin vibe being our inspiration from this part of the world. Simple textile decorations made with red checkered plaid or natural sacking fabric blend with those fashioned from cones, dried fruits and nuts. Our winter craft ideas from this part of the world have an earthy, wholesome feel to them; a crafting session probably needs to be preceded by a walk and forage in some local woods and accompanied by steaming hot chocolate out of chunky, earthenware mugs.
The last stop on our tour for winter festive creativity, is high up in Iceland. In a land where long nights and freezing weather enfold much of the year, warmth, light and celebration are central to their festivities. The Christmas season lasts twenty-six days and is a whimsical blend of ancient folklore with a modern twist. Homes are wreathed with evergreens lugged in from outdoors; decorations have an elegant simplicity, and each nook and cranny twinkles with lights and candles. A custom which is unique to Iceland is the delightful Jolabokaflod. Literally meaning ‘avalanche of books’, families gather to exchange books and read aloud, accompanied by a smorgasbord of delicious treats.
As we wind up our journey looking for winter craft ideas inspired by the North, let’s end with one tradition which is common to all these nations: the Advent Wreath. Originating from Germany, this fun and meaningful tradition has spread to many other countries. Four candles nestle around a circular wreath, with a fifth one in the middle. One candle is lit on each of the four Sundays leading up to Christmas and the fifth one on Christmas Day itself. With countless ways of creating your own Advent wreath, this is surely one to make and sell.