Christmas Past and Present
Christmas Craft Ideas

Ideas For Christmas Crafts

Get into the festive mood with my free Christmas stencils.  I also have recipes for Christmas cakes and Christmas plum pudding.  Other Christmas crafts include the Gingerbread house recipe and instructions to create dough craft  Scroll down this page to learn more about the Christmas pages at Fashion-era.com

 25 Stencils for Xmas

Plenty of Christmas stencils including Santa, holly, candles, nativity, 3 Kings & various Xmas trees. Can be used as an Advent calendar.

20 Extra Xmas Stencils

   Christmas Salt Dough Craft Recipe

Pauline's Christmas salt dough craft recipe.  Templates for tree and holly.  How to use modelling bread dough craft, hints and tips.

Painting Salt Dough

Stages showing painting the salt dough craft pieces. Hints and tips.

Simplicity Xmas Sewing Pattern Selection

Includes patterns numbers for a Father Xmas Santa outfit, nativity characters, cloaks and Victorian Carol singers.

 Fashion-era Santa Advent Calendar 2

See the fashion-era Santa story Advent calendar, plus some facts about Santa and his reindeers.

 Online Xmas Nativity Advent Calendar

See the fashion-era nativity Christmas story Advent calendar plus read the biblical text from Matthew and Luke.

Christmas Cake Recipe

Pauline's traditional British Christmas recipe for rich fruit cake.  One the the best food things.

Mince Pies Recipe

Christmas recipe for Almond Shortcrust Pastry, adapting commercial bought mincemeat into luxury mincemeat.

1920's Mrs Beeton's Table

10 Gorgeous colour food plates from a 1920s Mrs Beeton showing full colour plates from starters to game birds to desserts.

1923 Mrs Beeton's 10 Napkin Folds

Stages in how to fold napkins for table napery.  Ideal for special celebration dining occasions such as  Year's Eve.

More of Pauline's Food Recipes

Pauline's Traditional Christmas Pudding for Gifts

Great 'how to' instructions for making 6 pints of the best traditional Christmas pudding mix. This can be and divided into different sized Xmas puddings for gifts. Ideal for beginners or those who make luxury Xmas food things as gifts.

Easy Store Cupboard Christmas Pudding 

Single Christmas pudding recipe which is easy cooking and made from ingredients already in your store cupboard. Alternative oven steaming cooking method - easy cooking. Can be a non alcoholic Xmas pudding. 
How to flame with a ladle.

Mrs Beeton's Christmas Plum Pudding

Christmas recipe for Plum Pudding  from an original edition of Mrs. Beeton.  Lovely 1890s colour food plate picture including a great picture of a moulded plum pudding with holly and berries.

Gingerbread House

Assembly instructions and recipe for a traditional German style Gingerbread House.  Picture of Gingerbread House.

Toffee Recipes

More Christmas recipes which follow the theme of A Child's Christmas in Wales. Toffee Butterwelsh, Caramel Fudge Toffee and Ginger Truffle recipes.

Marzipan Fruits

The Victorians loved Marzipan fruits piled high on fancy tea stands.  Recreate them this Xmas with marzipan and modern sugar powders.

Make your own Victorian or Edwardian style Christmas with these food things that will soon become food treat to make every Christmas for children and adults alike.

Sugar Modelling Paste

Sugarcraft has been around since sugar was made available, but as a fashion it became very popular after 1970. 

A great microwave recipe to make sugar modelling paste for stable flower petals and models.  Ideal for Christmas roses, holly and ivy leaves or firm figures such as snowmen, Santa, choir boys, sleighs, angels, candles, lanterns, robins, animals, rooftops, chimneys, Xmas trees, plaques and cut out stars.

Old Christmas Advert

Old Christmas Advert for Soapflakes.  Lovely picture of a turn of the century Victorian/ Edwardian young girl in a red coat in a snow scene and carrying a box of soap. Picture of Edwardian girls advertising blue whitener and dyes.

The Holly and the Ivy

 A look at the use of holly, mistletoe and evergreens at Christmas.

 How to make a simple Xmas floral arrangement using an epergne or modern candle holder. The lyrics to the traditional Xmas carol the Holly and the Ivy

Princess Beatrice December Calligraphy Picture

Just a pretty holly and mistletoe picture with the poem by Eliza Cook worked in calligraphy .

Shoebox Xmas

How to make winter wonderland or Christmas fantasy wonder land scene in a shoebox.  Use up your old cards for any season.

Xmas Beauty Thoughts

Pauline's musings on some beauty products she'd like for Xmas to keep the dressing table topped up with beauty items throughout the year.

Fashion Solutions at Xmas are in the Image Planning section.

Xmas Paper Dolls

A look at Bonnie Holden's paper dolls. A selection of Xmas themed paper doll books or pop up books suitable as gifts for paper doll lovers at Christmas.

Nativity/ Madonna
Christmas Craft Picture

Christmas colouring-in picture. Suitable for needlecraft projects appliqué etc.

How to Make a Decoupage Christmas Card

Stage instructions on how to make a Nativity Christmas card with decoupage technique.

Fancy Dress Costumes

A look at typical ready made Fancy Dress Costumes available in shops for the festive season.

Kid's Sewing Patterns - Character Fancy Dress

A look at typical dressmaking sewing patterns for children for character and Fancy Dress Costumes 2006.

Craft Sewing Pattern Choice

A selection of patterns from Simplicity for making bags, shrugs, Xmas decor including tree skirts, stockings, doll clothes, teddy bears and dog coats.

O Christmas Tree

A  history of the Christmas tree through the Regency, Victorian and C20^th eras.

The famous Christmas carol verse.

Picture of Victoria and Albert around the Xmas Tree.

Book Review of GreenTree - Christmas Customs

Carols 12 days of Xmas

An illustrated look at each of the 12 days of Christmas.  From the Partridge in the pear tree to the 12 drummers drumming.

 Significance of the days form Christmas day to Twelfth Night.

Dylan Thomas A Child’s Christmas in Wales

A famous nostalgic Poem echoing the social history of the era.  To be read on Christmas Eve or any other occasion when you need to feel cosy.  A perfect read for a wintry day of the holidays.   " I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six. "

'Twas The Night Before Christmas

Read the original version of this wonderful world famous poem the Night Before Christmas on Xmas Eve to your children or yourself.

" 'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse"

Scrooge -A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

The Full version of the traditional Ghost story of Scrooge.

"'Humbug!' said Scrooge; and walked across the room....."

 A Cat and Mouse Christmas

An original Christmas fairy story written by Pauline Weston Thomas about 2 mice, a cat, a Christmas tree with fairy lights and a visit from Santa one snowy Xmas Eve.

"... saw a splash of one very red leg, then another red leg, then some white fluffy fur and more red and suddenly there was a man on the cream carpet.  It was Father Christmas smoothing off the soot from his fancy red fur trimmed suit as he emerged from the fireplace.  The mice watched as Santa ....."

Christmas Nativity Story

Easy to understand Xmas nativity story written by Pauline Weston Thomas and with a few loveable animated pictures.

"...Joseph and Mary called the baby Jesus just like the angel told them they should.  They put baby Jesus in some swaddling clothes so he was wrapped up warm and snug...."

Free Santa, Father Xmas, or St Nick Colouring-in Picture

A simple outline of an old fashioned  or Saint Nicholas style Father Christmas.

Funny Santa Claus Pictures

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