{"id":4837,"date":"2014-12-23T12:35:32","date_gmt":"2014-12-23T12:35:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/?p=4837"},"modified":"2018-01-05T16:20:28","modified_gmt":"2018-01-05T16:20:28","slug":"gothic-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/2014\/12\/gothic-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"A Gothic Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The holiday season is almost here but if you\u2019ve left things a little tight this year, here are some tips for a very gothic festive period! <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Have you decorated your tree yet? The traditional tree is a must-have whether you celebrate yule or Christmas but\u00a0you don\u2019t have to stick to a green one. Let your imagination and creativity run riot with these ingenious ideas:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Choose a sleek black tree and add silver ornaments and white lights for an understated but glamorous look.<\/li>\n<li>Or opt for all-purple or blood red decorations for a really eye-catching centre piece.<\/li>\n<li>Add small bone-coloured plastic skulls to a traditional green tree for a gothic twist and weave a few into your festive door wreath to match.<\/li>\n<li>Dig out Halloween tinsel and trinkets for a full-on spooky look.<\/li>\n<li>Customise shop-bought baubles with shapes cut from self-adhesive vinyl &#8211; snip out sparkly skulls, inky black ravens or even bronze-coloured steampunk cogs for cheap but unique hangings.<\/li>\n<li>Instead of an angel or a star, try topping your tree with a light-weight skull, spider, bat or raven &#8211; the possibilities are endless.<\/li>\n<li>Wrap your favourite Alchemy pieces around the branches; belt buckles (how about the versatile <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/buckles-belts\/93-alchemist-rex.html\">Alchemist Rex<\/a>?), fabric black roses and Swarovski crystal-accented necklaces (try the glammy Crystal Witch pendant) would look great as unusual trimmings.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>On the night before <a href=\"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/goth-xmas-tree-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" size-medium wp-image-4838 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/goth-xmas-tree-2-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"goth-xmas-tree-2\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/goth-xmas-tree-2-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/goth-xmas-tree-2.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/a>Christmas, swap tired Christmas stockings for plush velvet ones or even long striped socks. Sneak in a few homemade skull-shaped biscuits for a tasty but dark festive treat!<\/p>\n<p>Goth up your gift wrapping with black ribbons, lace and handmade glittery gift tags. All you need is some craft card, a hole punch and some string or ribbon. For a more personal touch, try jazzing up some plain card stock with glitter glue or sequins \u2013black, purple, silver or red with give your presents a gothic look while bronze and gold would be great for a steampunk theme.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">If you can\u2019t find any wrapping paper that shows off your dark side, opt for a plain matte black, purple or red paper and stamp silver skulls on it.Or, for a steampunk approach, use the text-heavy pages of old books that were destined for the recycling bin finished off with plenty of black ribbons. The only limit is your imagination!<\/p>\n<p>However you choose to celebrate, have a very merry festive season!<\/p>\n<p>By<strong> Natasha Scharf, <\/strong>the author of the books \u2018<a href=\"http:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/books\/974-art-of-gothic-book-by-natasha-scharf.html\">The Art of Gothic<\/a>\u2019 and \u2018Worldwide Gothic\u2019.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Skull-christmas-tree.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-4839\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Skull-christmas-tree-300x188.jpg\" alt=\"Skull-christmas-tree\" width=\"300\" height=\"188\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Skull-christmas-tree-300x188.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Skull-christmas-tree.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The holiday season is almost here but if you\u2019ve left things a little tight this year, here are some tips for a very gothic festive period!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[485],"class_list":["post-4837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-natasha-scharf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4837"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4857,"href":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4837\/revisions\/4857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}