Christmas wreath

I forgot to share with you some photos of the Christmas wreath I made, it was one of my advent calender activities.
It was so easy to make, I simply wrapped a polystyrene ring in thick hemp twine and some red ribbon, then glued on some white and red felt roses that I made by cutting a circle of the felt into a spiral and winding it up keeping one side flat.

My advent calander

I know it is too late to share this calender as a tutorial or anything, but I thought I would share it anyway just to show I do follow things through!

  

 

  

 

In each of the envelopes is an activity to do on that day.  I can't say I have stuck to it rigidly because I didn't want to stress myself out with it at probably the most stressful time of the year.  

These are the activities from the list:

1^st – Saturday - Photograph Orren in his Christmas outfit

2^nd – Sunday – Make Christmas gift wish list

3^{rd –} Monday – Design and make lino cut for Christmas cards

4^{th –} Tuesday – Print Christmas cards

5^th – Wednesday – Write Christmas cards

6^th – Thursday – Post Christmas cards

7^th – Friday – Drink spiced cider

8^th –Saturday – Bring in the Christmas tree and decorate it

9^{th –} Sunday – Do a Christmas puzzle

10^{th –} Monday – Get Christmas books out of the library for Orren

11^th – Tuesday – Make a gingerbread house

12^th – Wednesday – Buy a Christmas scrap book 

13^th – Thursday – Make a Christmas wreath

14^th – Friday – Watch “it’s a Wonderful Life”

15^th – Saturday – Buy new pyjamas for Christmas morning

16^th – Sunday – Make  a Christmas tree ornament

17^th – Monday – Make mince pies

18^th – Tuesday – Wrap Christmas presents

19^th – Wednesday - Make hot chocolate with a candy cane stirrer

20^th – Thursday – Make Christmas place mats

21^st – Friday – Make Christmas stockings

22^nd – Saturday – Have a candle lit meal

23^rd – Sunday – Drink mulled wine

24^th – Monday – Go to crib service at Church, read the night before Christmas

Shopping list:

I made the calender by making my own envelopes from Christmas scrap booking paper the used a typewriter to type the activities on corresponding paper.  I mounted the envelopes on a piece of mount board which I covered with brown wrapping paper glues down with a pritt stick, I glues a little peg to the mount board with attached each envelope to the board with this.  I made a little number on each envelope by gluing brown wrapping paper to thin card the drawing round the lid of the pritt stick and cutting it out. I then drew on the number and glued them to the envelope. 

 As for me, I am happily getting ready for Christmas and enjoying my lovely little boy who is getting bigger everyday, I can hardly keep up.  He crawls now and can pull himself up to standing, he is charming.

Hope you are all good and enjoying the festive season.

 

Advent Calendar Ideas

This year we are planning on having a really special Christmas at home with our new little family.  It will be our first Christmas spent at home together and Orren's very first Christmas, we want it to be really special and lovely, I also want it to be as stress free as possible which is why I am already thinking about it, as it is creeping up quickly.  Everyone's Christmas usually begins with a count down, often a gaudy cardboard calender filled with cheap chocolates and decorated with a tacky kids cartoon character, not very festive in my opinion, so this year I have decided to make my own.  Pintrest provided me with myriad ideas and I am pretty set on the idea of having pockets, I was initially thinking I could make a fabric calendar with large pockets to hold a tasty chocolate, but now I am thinking of making paper envelopes and putting a little fun, festive Christmas activity idea in each, I think this is more fun and thoughtful.
Here are some of the fab advent calendars I saw on Pintrest, honestly I could make any one of these, they area all so it is so hard to make a decision.

Really like the use of burlap on this one, it is a simple design which I think I could manage,

 

Love the idea of stringing little envelopes across a large picture frame,

 

There intricately decorated envelopes are so beautiful but I think this could be a bit expensive for my budget,

 

Love the idea of hanging little gifts of a branch, or tree, I have some driftwood branches that would work really well with this idea,

 

I like the simplicity of this design, but I would probably make my own envelopes with Christmassy paper of vintage music sheet,

 

I like the idea of using pegs to hold gifts or envelopes, but I am not sure what I would glue the peg to?

 

Another fun design with beautifully decorated paper envelopes, this one is probably more realistic for me to make as there are less embellishments,

 

I like this simple design, it has a sort of Shaker/ New England feel that I love,

Lace and doilies!!  Need I say any more?

 

Another simple envelope design,

I like the idea of using little boxes and decorating the lids with Christmassy paper, but I am not sure where I would get 24 little boxes from without spending money I don't have!

 

What do you do Advent Calendar wise for Christmas?  Have you made your own? What did you do?

Baby's bedroom

We went to Mamas and Papas a few days ago and I fell in love with their Jamboree range.  It is cute and fun and seeing as we don't know the sex of our baby yet it is fairly unisex.  I like the jungle animals theme and love the colours.  Here is some from their range:

Sadly we can't afford to buy all these delicious things so we are planning on buying a few key pieces like the wallpaper and then choosing fabric in co-ordinating colours and making a few matching items like curtains and a blanket.  I put together this colour way to make it easier:

I will take some pics of what I make...if I manage to make anything!  Stupidly I didn't photograph ANY of the Christmas presents I made but I might make some more things that are similar and put them in the shop.  Here are the things I made for my family:

Dad - bought three packs of nice and unusual coffee from Whittards, a cardboard (shoe box sized) box from Hobby Craft which I decorated with pretty vintage papers and some small jars which I filled with maple syrup, some nice hot chocolate and some demerara sugar that I infused with vanilla and made pretty tags for them.  I put verything in the box with some raffia to fill in the spaces.

Mum - Made some moisturiser by melting shea butter, jojoba oil and wheatgerm oil together and pouring it into a tin and letting it et, I then made a label for the tin with a piece of pretty scrapbooking paper.  Also bought a kilner jar which I filled with melted wax and a wick.  To make it more interesting I added some lavender oil for a nice scent and some shells and driftwood.  I tied the top of the jar with raffia, a shell and a piece of driftwood.

Brother - Felted a jumper and made a pair of mittens (much harder than I thought, lots of swearing involved), and I made him tie from some tweed that had some sparkly bits in which i thought was quite festive. (Again much harder than I thought, again, lots of swearing!)

Sister - Covered a small note book with pretty fabrics, lace and buttons, bought a hot water bottle and made a patchwork cover with pretty co-ordinating fabrics, some vintage.

Sister - Made some bunting with flowery fabric and bought some cheap towels which I embellished with some lovely Cath Kidston fabric along each end.

Everyone seemed quite pleased with their presents, although my brother less so because his mittens were about 3 inches too long for his fingers!!

Did you make any presents this year?  What did you make?  Did they go down well?

Christmastime in my house

I have been busy busy busy making Christmas presents for friends and family and trying to get the house nice and tidy before the big day. Also lots of Church things going on at this time like our Youth group Christmas party and youth drop in sessions, so not a lot of time for blogging.  However thought I would share with you a few pics I managed to snatch of our Crimbo decs that we have going on this year.  I went for a red and white theme with a sort of New England/Shaker feel (I think) with gingham and hand-made-looking (bought them in Wilkinsons for £1.00 each) decorations. Last year we had red and gold so I just kept the red and ditched the gold so everything matched.  Also wrapping the presents with brown parcel paper and raffia this year and sewing little name tags to tie on.
School holiday has begun so hopefully will have a little more time for blogging, it only occurred to me the other day that I could have been documenting the making of my Christmas presents and producing tutorials for everything, but by then it was too late, everything was already wrapped up.  I still have a few presents to make so will photograph them and see what I can do tutorial wise.  Having said that I wouldn't want my family finding out what they had got if they took a sneek peek at pics on my blog.
Anyhoo, here are some photos from around the house, the tree is one we bring in every year, it is looking slightly sad this year, for some reason it has started to grow in a curve!:

And then there is me, getting bigger by the day!

Making Christmas cards

Every year I like to make my own Christmas cards, I think they are more personal than the ones in the shops.  This year I went for a Robin Lino cut.  Here is a peek at the making process:

Christmas stuff in the shop

There is a little bit of crimbo stuff in the shop, would love it if you took a look, see what you think: