We all think of certain colours when we think of Christmas, traditionally they are Red, White and Green, but also silver, blue, purple & gold. But why do we associate these colours with Christmas? This came to my mind whilst I was decorating my own Christmas jumper with crystal rhinestones, I knew instinctively what colours I needed, both on my jumper and for giving my jumper some Crystal Parade sparkle.
So, let’s look into this a little further and look at what craft rhinestones we can use for Christmas - whether it be decorating your own Christmas jumper, embellishing cards, crafting, nail art or creating some festive jewellery.
Here is a picture of my Christmas jumper...before it got the bling treatment! I bought it from Primark, I couldn’t help but be drawn to the cheeky little elf on the front, but you could choose any design you like.
Red
Red is synonymous with Christmas time. Historically, red is associated with the red apple Adam picked from the Paradise Tree, also red is the colour of holly berries and thought to represent the blood of Jesus in relation to him dying on the cross. More cheerily though, red is associated with St Nicholas (Santa) and more specifically his famous uniform.
Red was my first choice of colour. I used Zodiac crystals in the Light Siam colour. It's a vibrant bright red colour similar to that worn by Santa, so Light Siam was an easy choice to make. I decided to outline my Elves hat and collar in non hotfix crystals, whilst filling in her shoes and gloves for lots of lovely shine and sparkle.
When thinking about reds though, there are other options of rhinestone colour. Zodiac also do a Dark Siam which is a beautiful deep red wine colour and has proved very popular this Christmas. Alternatively for a red with a multicoloured feel there is Red Volcano, Dark Siam AB and Light Siam AB.
Preciosa do Light Siam (bright red) and Siam (a deeper red). They also do a Ruby red, which is a gorgeous as the name suggests...Ruby red. Garnet is also a big favourite for Christmas, which is a very dark red. Lastly of mention is their Red Flame which is one of their coated crystals. It's a lovely rich red similar to Light Siam.
Green
Much like red, we also associate green very much with Christmas time. We of course associate green because of Christmas Trees, but also Holly leaves and other Evergreen plants such as Mistletoe and Ivy. These plants have been used around this time of year for thousands of years - the Ancient Egyptians used to bring Palm branches into their houses during winter festivals.
Green features heavily on my jumper too. Emerald green was the colour I chose by Zodiac. It is a stunning bottle green colour and sparkles beautifully. I have outlined much of my elf in Emerald green. Other greens available in the Zodiac range include Light Peridot, a lighter lime green and Olive - well the name is self-explanatory! Zodiac also do the highly popular AB versions of these 3 greens.
Preciosa have a couple of other Christmas greens available. Green Turmaline is another bottle green shade and a good choice or the Shamrock which is a pretty vivid green colour.
White
Why White? Well firstly many of us associate Christmas with snow and it is widely depicted in pictures of Christmas. In the western world, the colour white is associated with purity and peace. Historically white represents Christmas in churches, for example Christian churches always cover their altars in white cloths.
My jumper featured white quite a lot, so I decided to use White Opal (I'm a big fan of the crystal opal colours), a beautiful pearlescent effect crystal. I was very happy with the results this crystal gave me. My other options in the Zodiac range were their Neon White or their Chalk White crystal.
AB
Probably Crystal Parade's best selling colour and synonymous with Crystal Rhinestones I had to get some AB onto my Christmas Jumper! I used the very pretty Zodiac Edelweiss Snowflake shape crystal in AB to bring some sparkle to the background of the scene on my jumper.
Overall I am delighted with how my jumper turned out, it was a fun Christmas craft project with rhinestones and I would recommend it as a therapeutic activity.