Christmas Pickles

I usually hope to have red cabbage ready to pick for 'pickled' Christmas gifts, but this year's cabbages are so tiny I had to buy some. At least it's still my own concoction of pickling vinegar so should presumably have the same cold-cure properties as 'home-grown' pickle.

Merry Christmas

In previous years I've made lots of Christmas cards but this year I only made one with bits and bobs saved from last year. 

Merry Christmas everyone

Christmas Cakes

I've made two cakes for Christmas. Firstly a bara brith variant for the lovers of traditional fruit cakes - soaking the fruit in brandy rather than tea and adding extra spices for a festive taste -









and a 'log' for those who prefer chocolate and cream.

Packing Christmas Away

The tree was taken down and all the Christmas decorations

 put away last week

 but I still had bits and pieces to sort

 through to see what might be useful.

A pile of cards, of course, to use probably for tags

 but some may be large enough for tiny boxes

But more exciting for a hoarder like me are all the bits that come from crackers and wrappings.

I'm sure to find new uses for these next year.

Home made Christmas

 It's Christmas - and the Advent tree is now fully decorated.

 My new twiggy wreaths have ribbons and 'berries' attached to finish them. Hung in a corner with two older home-made bird hangings.

....and a special Christmas angel - a joint effort between me and my youngest daughter when she was 4.

Advent Tree

I'm not sure how long ago we swapped from shop-bought chocolate filled calendars to our home made version but here it is again for another year. Each night I pop something into the next day's felt bag. The tray at the bottom holds decorations to replace the emptied bag on by Christmas it's totally decorated.

D I Y decorations

I've been fiddling away at these parcels for a while.

Originally they were intended for my daughter's den but she decided she didn't want them after all, and they've been sitting around unfinished. Now eventually they have some sparkly ribbons and ties, and are ready in the sleigh.

christmas decorations

my husband has several tin-working project books but they always specify a certain weight tin foil to be obtained from the craft shop or hardware store. I've never seen such foil for sale at all so, working with the idea of re-using and re-cycling, I decided to try turning a foil faggot tray into Christmas decorations and I'm very pleased with the result.
I'd expected a struggle to cut the foil but the flat bottom section is easily cut with a pair of kitchen scissors. the cut edges are quite sharp at first but flattening by rubbing something over them reduces this - I used the scissor handles - it's not something for young children to try though.


the embossed patterns were made merely by marking with a pencil - again I was surprised how malleable the foil was. I did have to buy the silver thread but the beads came from the little packets of spare beads that come with decorated clothes - I've acquired a lot of these, as the spare beads are kept in my mending box even after the clothes they belong to have been passed on. definitely a project which "uses what you've got"

Last Christmas - 3 - Cards

These are my Christmas cards from the past couple of years. I don't actually make every one by hand, but start with an embroidery or collage I have made which is scanned and several cards of each design printed.


Last year's card was taken from an embroidery I designed and made several years ago. It was scanned and edited to include the wording before printing.

These four collages were used two years ago. For three of them I used hand made (home made) paper for the background and in all of them the image is made of a variety of materials - paper, cloth, tinsel, sequins, old cards etc

Last Christmas - 2

another pony themed Christmas present for my younger daughter - a bag from home-made felt.

same yarn, different colour, but showing the knitted tension

it was made using some very old Rowan lightweight double knit wool; the yarn was knitted up doubled on quite thick needles and at a fairly normal tension
then, washed on a cotton cycle at 50 degrees in the washing machine
and it shrank a lot!

once it has shrunk, the knitting stitches can barely be seen

then I appliqued a pony cut out from shop-bought felt with mane and tail in embroidery thread and a small bead for his eye, some lazy daisy flowers and sequins and made a rope strap from the contrasting dark pink yarn.

Last Christmas - 1

it's that time of year when one begins to think of Christmas and all the present buying that comes with it. instead of just dashing out to the shops on a spending frenzy, we decided to make some things ourselves - mainly for our younger daughter. I'm not going to post any of this year's ideas; instead I'll put up those from last year.

this daughter is into anything "horsey" and all her magazines are full of horse- related things to buy as presents but we were looking for something a little special and hit on this idea of a pony mobile. the ponies are mainly made out of MDF offcuts from other projects as they are only about 2"(5cm) nose to tail; they're all cut to the same template, a fairly basic pony silhouette and painted in pastel pinks and lilacs (from tester sized pots) to co-ordinate with our daughter's room; they're suspended from pink crossbars with fairly heavy pink knitting cotton (again oddments of leftovers) and the purple felt saddles hide the point at which the cotton is glued to the pony. ALL of the materials for this project were leftovers from something else, which must make it one of the most environmentally friendly presents my daughter received last year.

more of last year's Christmas presents to follow