The craft ofchristmas

Decorating the tree has to be my favourite Christmas tradition,’ says designer and maker Clare Youngs, as she adds the finishing touches under the watchful gaze of her dachshund, Otis. ‘The children still love helping with it, even though they are all grown up now. They light the fire, put on Christmas music and bring out the dusty boxes filled with decorations,’ she says, smiling as she talks of the ornaments her children made from pasta shapes when they were in preschool. They are rediscovered year after year and she still uses them occasionally. But having just published her twelfth craft book, this year’s Christmas is all about her own creations.

‘I’ve always been a maker,’ Clare says. ‘And I especially love making things with paper.’ This year she has made garlands using cut-outs from the pages of an old book and, here and there, cardboard reindeer with elegantly curled paper antlers peek out from her impressive collection of vintage studio pottery. In the sitting room, a constellation of 3D paper stars graces the mantelpiece. But thanks to her lifelong interest in making, Clare’s craft skills extend far beyond paper art. Elsewhere in the house, charity-shop jumpers have been given a new lease of life as Christmas stockings and as hand-embroidered cushions covers. The latter are one of the few decorative touches in the second sitting room, where Christmas decorations are kept to a minimum. In this room, with its Ercol daybed, Clare uses a mixture of sheepskins and a twiggy tree with fairy lights to create ‘a wintery atmosphere with a Scandinavian touch.’ The larger sitting room with its real tree is reserved for the main event, she explains.

A former packing designer, Clare turned to craft full-time seven years ago, having published her first book on contemporary paper art shortly before the family moved from London to Broadstairs. ‘I actually picked up a lot of my skills through doing up houses,’ she says. ‘For example,