Yuletide Village Christmas Light Tour

Last summer I created and performed a new character at the Ohio Renaissance Festival- Nissa Tomtesdottir the gnome! I had so much fun sharing my Danish heritage and Scandinavian gnome/nisse/tomte lore through Nissa (with a giant helping of playing with patrons who came dressed as Wirt and Greg from Over the Garden Wall this season) that I had to celebrate Nissa's and my favorite time of the year - Christmas - at Yuletide Village Season of Lights!

 

My favorite light display are the blanket of blue twinkle lights in the dry creek bed around the Y bridge.  Photo credit: Steve Kohus

Machine Embroidered Shirt Cuffs and Friday Favorites 596

One of the funny things about being a historical entertainer is creating three layers of clothing and still be considered unseemly (by historical standards) even though you are not showing any skin because you are still in your underwear.

But one of the fun things about creating historical clothing is the chance to really go to town with the embellishments! For example, I just finished the machine embroidery on the collar and cuffs of my 16th century Danish chemise. The next step is to cut out the pattern (this Easy Noblemans/Noblewoman's Shirt Sewing Pattern by Alter Years
) with a few modifications to make it in the Scandinavian style and sew it together. (I am including affiliate links in this post for your convenience.)

I bought  this exact blackwork collar and cuff file created under inspiration by the portrait of a lady in green, Agnolo Bronzino, ca. 1530 by Art Embroidery Designs on Etsy. Art Embroidery Designs is my go to shop for historical machine embroidery files. She also sells some very cute contemporary designs too!

Hearts and Gnomes Christmas Decoration House Tour

This year I mixed old and new to decorate the house for Christmas. As our gnome population grew so did my collection of Danish Christmas heart decorations. Actually many of them are Valentine's Day decorations I bought in February and use as Christmas hearts. As crazy as this year has been I think we all need to share a little more love, kindness, and compassion now more than ever.

Save these Christmas decorating ideas to your Pinterest boards for later! Share them with your friends!

How to Make Wine Cork Gnomes

 Danish nisse are gnomes who secretly live in your attic, or barn if you live on a farm, and help take care of the animals at night when you are asleep. They also protect your family from harm.

All these helpful creatures ask for is respect and a bowl of porridge with a pat of butter on top on Christmas Eve, otherwise they will get even by playing tricks on you. Can’t find your car keys the next day? A group of insulted nisser probably hid them!

Many Danish home decorate for Christmas with nisse (also called tomte) or as we call them in the United States, gnomes.The plural of nisse is nisser and they are pretty darn cute as well as helpful!

Let’s make some Christmas gnome decorations from recycled wine corks! Tomte like it when we recycle.

Reycled Wine Cork Craft Idea: Christmas Gnomes!