Merry Christmas!

The presents have been wrapped and labelled.  Goody bags have been filled with this, these, and this . . . (lovely family please don't look at the links!!).  The house has been decorated and there are more lights around than ever before!!  The crib has been filled and is being played with.  We've been jingling all round the house to Christmas music.  I think I'm ready - oh no - I keep forgetting there is one present left to finish off . . . !!

Here's wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year!

Excluding all drafts

I've been like a thing possessed recently, which is strange that it has only taken 10 years to sort out the drafts in our house!!  So armed with draft excluding tape I've been attacking the doors, filling in the cracks.

Then I had a quick delve in my fabric stash and made myself a pretty draft excluder.

Pretty, but not very practical as DH pointed out!  Oh well, when it gets mucky I'll just have to make another one!  I'd like to say it has been toasty in the house since but I'm not sure how much of a difference it has made!  Aethestically though, a huge difference!

Old and New

It is going to be a Christmas twinged with sadness this year, with the loss of both my grandmothers.  But although I miss them, miss buying presents for them, miss seeing them, they are both with me.  My dad's mother, who was a great horder, had this little gem hidden away in her box of Christmas goodies, still in the orginial packaging and still working if a little wonky.

Something old, that's new to us and that we will treasure and bring out every Christmas from now on.

Sat beautifully on my mother's mother's writing desk!

Finished Gifts

If last week was a 'making' week, this week is definitely going to be a 'finishing off' week - well it has to be as time is ticking by.  So remember these little gorgeous cut out Christmas shapes?  Well we left them to dry over night and they turned a lovely white colour and quite hard by the morning.  Then the fun began.  I decided on a minimal colour palette, mainly because the cost of the little bottles of acrylic paint would soon mount up.  So just metallic gold and silver and a blob of red glitter glue for Rudolph's nose!  Flopsy Bunny and I had a great time paining, leaving everything to dry and then painting the back.  Then the ribbon box came out and much ooooing and aaaahhhing went on as we selected the best ribbons.  And there we have it some very effective, if I can say so, Christmas decorations, I'm rather pleased with them, I hope the teachers will be too!!!

Well, they weren't all for teachers . . .!  A few managed to find their way onto our tree!

Making Gifts for Teachers

This post should really be called 'presents in progress', but I felt I had a bit of a 'making' theme going on this week so couldn't wait for the finished item!

 

As usual I've been totally inspired by SouleMama's blog and her post where they were making Christmas decorations which got me thinking that they would make really nice presents for the children to give, teachers, family and friends!  Especially as I had already made the teachers Peppermint Bark in the summer . . .  So I just happened to be passing Hobby Craft the other day and had a bit of a trip down memory lane when I ended up in the modeling isle and saw DAS.  It bought make memories of my mum making a nativity village out of boxes and then fashioning little people out of DAS which she painted.  We loved getting the village out every year, playing with the people and the crib scene but also loving the little people we had made.  It was that childhood memory which made me want to continue the tradition with my own children and prompted me to buy the crib set.  Anyway, I seemed to have drifted off the point!  DAS is a wonderful air drying clay which we just rolled out and using cookie cutters, cut out Christmassy shapes, added a hole to thread ribbon through later and we are now waiting for them to dry.  The next step - painting!!  Hopefully I'll have some finished articles to show you next week.

 

Have a wonderful weekend.  We will be spending the weekend making our house Christmassy and I can't wait!

Making Gift Tags

Its full swing on the making front at the moment.  Our after school activities are all geared up for present wrapping and card writing.

For the star stamp we used Flopsy Bunny's lino cut, but this time instead of a roller and some paint we used a gold ink pad.  It had varying results and we both got covered in gold - which was fun!  Flopsy Bunny went round the outside of some of the stars in glitter pen, we really did have some fun! 

 

I love this time of the year, there is something magical about Christmas and not just for the children.  I love decorating the house, getting presents together, wrapping them up into gorgeous parcels.  Lots of glitter and sparkle, just wonderful! 

 

PS . . .  the second roll of wrapping paper has been printed and I think I'm going to leave it as that (mainly because I don't have anywhere to keep the paper while it's drying!!)

 

 

Making Wrapping Paper

 

I got busted today.  DH had tootled off to see Flopsy Bunny in the Nativity and his parting question was 'what are you up to today?', 'Oh working' I said nonchalantly . . . Cut to 40 mintues later, the front door opened and DH was back (he was meant to be heading off to London on the train straight after) 'Ah working heh?' he said as he saw me, with a long roll of brown paper, a lino cut and some red paint . . .!

Well, what can I say, except when the mood takes you, you just have to go with it AND I've been itching to print my own wrapping paper for years now!  In fact I was looking back to this post, where I had mentioned wanting to do it!  I've always loved lino cutting, I got into it as a teenager and loved carving out my design.  I've had yearnings to print my own fabric one day and now that I've finally got round to printing the wrapping paper, who knows where that will lead . . .!

 

 

It definately has the home made look about it . . . but I'm happy with that.  One roll done, two to go and then there are the star gift tags and the 'hand' christmas cards!!  Watch this space . . .

 

Making Mary

We have all been very excited about this week, as it is - Nativity Week.  I have been doing some very special sewing to make my little Flopsy Bunny into Mary.  She was soooo thrilled to be chosen and I must say I will be bringing a lot of tissues with me to the performance on Thursday!