2013 advent calendar (a very late post!)

Hello! Season's greetings! I know I'm super late with a Christmas themed post, and you're probably well and truly over Christmas, if you celebrate it, but please indulge me in posting this, I really wanted to show off our advent calendar.



For several years now I've been making advent calendars using little disposable paper envelopes, but always had it  in mind to sew little fabric pockets, never quite getting around to it. So this year I elevated it to no.1 on the craft project list, did some serious daydreaming, a little Pinterest searching and gathered supplies.



I essentially sewed little pockets to hang from our silver stick (used previously to hang Christmas ornaments) in our corridor. They'd then be filled with treats or suggestions for activities. And as anyone with small children knows, the whole ceremony is quite exciting :-)



The pocket outers are made from one of my favourite oatmeal coloured linens, then each has a contrast colour used for embroidering the numbers and lining the pockets - as seen in the pic above.



Embroidering the numbers took a few days to complete - every kids soccer lesson, swimming lesson and play in the park saw me sitting stitching away, but I loved every minute of it. I find embroidery so enjoyable, particularly freeform style. There were also lengths of ribbon to cut and buttons to sew on - I used a mismatched assortment from my button jar, which worked out fine. What wasn't quite so fun was the production line style sewing of all the linings to the outers, but in the end it wasn't so painful.



And what I'm thrilled about is that we now have something that can be used year after year, creating a little tradition for our family. And with any luck it will be loved and cherished for years to come. The only thing that didn't work out so well was that as I spent so much time making it that the contents were quickly put together and sweets based, little chocolates and lollies mainly, rather than fun activities and outings. But hopefully that will happen next year, when at least one thing will be off my Christmas Craft list!!

Edible christmas gifts

For the past few Christmases I have cooked a batch of something to give to friends, neighbours and anyone who I'd like to know that I appreciate them. I enjoy the planning, cooking and making cute little packages, finishing them with hand printed tags. All very satisfying!

Last year I made jars of caramelised red onion chutney and packaged them with a box of crackers and some brie. The year before was peppermint bark in cellophane bags with pretty ribbons. This year I wanted to try cordials to mix with soda water or iced water (or possibly vodka for the grown-ups ;-) So I tested  out lime this time.



I tried this recipe, which I liked, though it was a bit sweet (the kids love it, obviously!) and I'll adjust it next time. I also love the look of this rhubarb cordial and will try that one too. And in preparation for the gifts I bought some empty bottles from Ikea.



I made a little citrus stamp and used it on a hand written tag with some jute ribbon. I packed up a bottle to give to a lovely friend as thanks for a favour, along with a fresh lime to slice and add to her drinks.



While at Ikea (and will food gifts in mind) I spied the lovely fabric above, which previously had not appealed at all to me, and thought it would make lovely shopping tote bags. See, the sewing sneaks in yet again ;-)

I'll also probably make some more celery salt, one of my favourite little condiments which we use a lot and is quick and easy to prepare, plus there's the opportunity to do some more stamping. And the colour fits well with the Christmas theme too. Important details in the scheme of things!



... and another option would be Apple Jam, a pretty safe bet that most people will like it.



I think I'm starting to get into the spirit of Christmas now. A little craft will do that! How about you - planning any edible gifts?

Shaking it up

I've been playing around with some new-to-me crafting materials this week with presents in mind - polymer clay and hemp cord.



That along with my relatively new obsession of screen printing and the favourite - sewing, of course. It reminds me of how nice it is to mix up the crafting now and then.

Hope your holiday crafting/buying/planning is going well.

An advent calendar at last

There's been a bit of angst around here about the advent calendar this year. All from me of course, with a little touch from the big girl because she was worried I'd scrap the idea altogether, poor thing. You see I started off excitedly thinking of ideas based around using the stick from last year as a holder for some little fabric treasure bags. Last year the kids loved opening a paper envelopes each day (though the then almost 3 year old didn't deal too well with sharing, poor poppet).



Then during yet another conversation about ideas for the calendar the big girl asked what would happen if someone else bought us a calendar? Now I know she was just angling for chocolate, but when the Mr said something about kids preferring store bought things to homemade I got in a huff and said that if they wanted boring mass produced stuff then they could have it!! I would go and buy them a cheap calendar from the supermarket and save myself a lot of time. So there.



Of course that was never going to happen when there was the opportunity for some craft waiting... but time was slipping away and I decided on something simple. I took some little envelopes and got the hot glue gun out (woo hoo!), got the red and white striped string that I'd bought from Kikki K recently and made numbers on the front of the envelopes. I like how they look like candy canes. It was fun doing all the different numbers (it's all about me you know!) and surprisingly quick.

I planned to fill them with a mix of treats and activity suggestions (bake Christmas cookies together, take a walk around the neighbourhood to see the lights etc.). I only filled a few so that I remembered what they were, taking a cue from Meg that the activities should surprise the children, not yourself! The activities are written on little notes then tied with red thread.



Then I used some little reindeer pegs that we'd been given last year and hung them all on a line of jute from the mantel. I added some fairy lights (which will enhance anything, right? ;-) and hoped that the kids would love it and forgive me for not buying the Cadburys milk chocolate calendar.



This morning the activity was Make berry pancakes with icecream for breakfast. Now if that's not bribery I don't know what is ;-)

Here's hoping your advent activities have been fun and bribery free!

Homemade decorations

With the kids getting excited about Christmas coming we've been digging out a few favourite decorations from storage before we go into full decorating mode, including these red glass candle holders and string of pretty lights on balsa wood circles from Ikea. And we've also made a few homemade decorations lately.



Inspired by the projects in this newsletter, and many others on all those great craft blogs out there, last week we made our first handmade advent calendar.

We stamped the Christmas tree (getting tired of that one!) onto the fronts of small envelopes, then stamped the date, added some fine red glitter, put a small peg onto each one then hung them on a length of string. I suddenly realised late last night that it was the last day of the month and at least one small person would be very excited about opening the first one this morning. It was my job to fill them and I found this the only non-fun part of the activity. I couldn't think of anything to put in them apart from lollies and chocolates, which would have been fine with the kids of course, but not so fine with me. I already feel like I spend a considerable amount of time listening to repeated requests for treats. Does anyone have any ideas? Maybe a handwritten note promising some sort of activity? Hmm, sounds like too much prep and follow up. Oh dear, I can see the lollies now...



I'm hoping advent calendar making will turn into an annual event, as it was fun making it with my big girl (the littlies are too little to tackle this one), and maybe next year's can be more purposeful and less sweet!

Friday goodness

When I get the time I like to bake goodies to have around for the kids to snack on, particularly on the weekends. Anyone with kids will tell you that snack requests are frequent and numerous and it can be quite overwhelming!

So I was making a batch of these anzac cookies today when I walked past some of the Christmas wrapping paper I've been making and thought what a cute paper bag stamp it would make. I decided to make up a little bag of them for my big girl when she finished school. She had a teary morning farewell with the Mr, apparently, so I wanted to greet her at home time with a cuddle and something nice.


I started stamping with this lovely chalky red ink and liked the way it faded out over the 4 prints, rather than re-ink each time. And I think it's the naievity and simplicity that appeal to me.


I'm thinking now that the stamped bags might be a quick way to give a few Christmas treats to friends. Obviously a lovely glass jar would be much more special but this might be a nice casual option.


Have a lovely weekend!