I never have been able to get used to the fact that literally the day after Halloween is finished, Christmas food and toys and presents appear in the shops and our store fronts slowly get transformed into winter wonderlands… I am that person that mutters ‘its only just November’ as she winds her way around the shops. I loove Christmas don’t get me wrong but it always seems too soon….
Then I became a mum and realised that both the cost and the excitement of christmas have to be spread over months. I also started to get crafty and write a blog and realised that it takes this long to plan and get making everything too!
I was lucky enough to jump ship this weekend with one of my best friends and we went to London. We went to the Country Living Christmas fair (I know, I sound middle aged but I just love that kind of stuff!) We also did a little bit of budget friendly Christmas shopping (H&M, Primark and my new favourite Tiger Tiger – the latter was like a little treasure trove for cheap great nordic christmas goodies and craft stuff – our stockings are already filled!)
Its mid November and after a weekend like that I feel so festive its ridiculous so, along with a lot of other blogging buddies, I thought I would share with you some of my Christmas favourites – from good crafts to foodie fun and present ideas, I want to share my personal run down of things I have loved and made that really work and things I cant wait to try and want to buy before the count down to Christmas actually begins…
As I can waffle and I have LOADS of things I want to share, I thought I would split this into three parts – Makes, Bakes and Loves
Part One
I went felt tastic last year. I made loads of lovely felt ornaments for my tree and as little presents or as gift tags for friends and family. They were pretty easy and actually provided a lovely way to spend my evenings on the run up to Christmas! I was sceptical as to how much people would like a homemade gift but i think people really liked a bit of something made with love. Now I hadn’t started blogging with such photographic perfection last year so haven’t got any pics of my actual creations but i do have my inspiration pinned on my Pinterest board. Heres where i got my ideas from and made Felt Trees like these from Talkcraftytome, Felt Robins which were very cute from ohmysocute.com and Christmas Puddings like these from bugs and Fishes.
Our favourite felt make however was making our very own felt christmas tree. The idea came from seeing this felt christmas tree on emptybobbinsewing.com and she has kindly made up some great instructions so have a look. The girls just loved decorating and un decorating the tree. I think I might make a few different decorations this year to improve on my not so great hurried versions I did last year or maybe even cut out some felt letters spelling Merry Christmas – might help Bea with the ever present reading practice!
I love this snowman picture idea as another bit of felt fun from Munchkin at home. It would be a great fun thing to make into a busy bag for the kids to have at those Christmas get togethers or to keep Freya entertained while I have a festive coffee with a friend (here’s hoping!)
Last year, I also gave this cardboard Rudolph a go and it turned out really well! I dont think it will have lasted the year in the loft so might just have to give it another go this year, the kids loved having their own Reindeer around!
Snow globes – we had loads of fun making what were our first attempts at snow globes like these. I have had my beady eye on the look out for fun mini characters and christmassy things all year so have a great little collection for our festive fun this year and can’t wait to make them again they were a big hit.
I cant wait to see Beas christmas cards all printed up. Her school, like many others here in the UK make cards with their pupils and get them made up with this company. I made one with Freya too and it was great fun knowing that the result would be made into real printed cards! What a fab way to send something a little more personal to our friends and raise a bit of money for the school too.
I really want to make an advent count down of some sort this year and there are some amazing ones around. I picked up some little pegs with numbers on from Tiger Tiger last weekend so I have something to make a start with – I just need to make it now… watch this space 🙂 for something easy to start with, I might make this from Martha Stewart – we certainly have enough odd socks around to do it!
I also really want to make Bea, Freya and her little girlie cousins my own version of these lovely wildwood wands (see pic above) that I saw at the fair last weekend. These are gorgeous… but I am going to try to make my own – I have a lovely vision of them poking magically out of the top of the girls stockings on Christmas morning with a bit of fairy dust sprinkled about.
