Friday, December 18, 2009

Let there be light

We're coming up on the Winter Solstice, which is my cold months celebration of choice. It makes extra sense to me, a pale girl of Scandinavian descent, to be happy about getting more sunlight. Seasonal Affective Disorder isn't fun for anyone. But the Solstice is fun even if you also celebrate Christmas. It's about light returning to our lives, however you want to define that. So in prep for Solstice, here are some creative ways to bring your own light.

















Soda can lanterns. Saw this link on Cut Out and Keep and thought it was rockin'! Except all my cans would be beer cans from my husband. This would be fun with some foreign cans-- the asian food store near my house often has papaya juice or similar. Or how about red, white and green cans for Christmas/Solstice? To state the obvious, don't put these on your tree, okay? Tutorial is at The Star online.





















This one requires that you already have a round paper lantern, and alas, the season for easily finding these has passed along with the patio furniture. (Check the clearance section- maybe you'll get lucky!) You can pick them up online, though. You can pick ANYTHING up online. I could see doing these with stars instead of circles, or using multiple colors of tissue paper. And glitter! Glittery glue! Or not, if you're not into the awesome that is glitter. Tutorial at The Swell Life.

















If you've got more time (and patience) than I do, check out this folded lantern at ah-yi. It requires long paper, because that's all one piece. Possibly this could be altered to be done on a smaller scale?















Table lanterns from Design*Sponge Online. Very modern-y. Maybe use heavyweight Christmas wrapping paper in place of the colored cardstock? They're lovely as-is.

This year our light of choice was simple christmas tree lights strung on our fancy new white artifical tree. Last year we used LEDs on a real tree-- the white lights were so cold feeling! We picked out the fake tree this year and I realized I really quite like the white trees. I think it's because they don't even pretend to be real. I'm half tempted to leave it up year-round, switching the decorations (eggs and birds in the spring, flowers and suns in the summer, wee ghosties and skellingtons in the fall) but I doubt I could pull it off as a decorating feature and not just laziness with bells on.

Happy Holidays, however you chose to celebrate them!

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