December...ing

Welcome to my December...ing post. There is never a shortage of images to plop into an advent themed post. We like to indulge in our creative side at this time of year but no pressure, if it is not enjoyable, then we don't do it. 

 Decorating - the tree. For the first time in family life, I did not touch the tree. I put it up and the girls did it all by themselves.

Buying - one new carefully chosen tree decoration each year. 

Unwrapping - my nativity characters and placing them carefully in the stable by mate made for me about 20 years ago. I have crafty friends too!

Creating - a tree from bits of a tree! We don't have room for a tree in the porch but a big piece of a fir tree blew down in storm Arwen so Andy made a chicken wire cone shape on a pole set in cement and I chopped up said branch and shoved it into the holes. Ta Dah! narrow tree. The wreath has been made by my wonderful floral design mate Beth... I know more creative friends.

Scrapbusting - the last of my Christmas themed fabric scraps. I don't ever actually recall buying Christmas fabric but I think it was probably in some donated fabric bags I get from time to time. 

You sew all the scrap strips together in one piece then cut out triangles. 

Sewing - a new set of eight napkins. I fell in love with the nature inspired fabric, the colour palette and the fact that it was not overtly Christmassy so they would have all year round use. I have a set of four white ones I bought in Eygpt when I was travelling in my 20's so now I have twelve which coordinate.

Knocking - up four crackers. I really love crackers but when I look at them in the shops now I just can't see past that much waste packaging for such frippery. The trumpets were prised off last years crackers, waste packaging tubes are inside and I used some tissue I had saved from a present wrap them up. I used to have some snaps but I must have used them all so this year we have silent crackers.

Opening - the box of Christmas cards I made last January. After I have taken the cards down, in the cold days of January, I like to make all of my Christmas cards for the next year using my favourite ones with added stickers, sticky gems and sentiments. Sometimes I delve into my stamp sets and make some from my own ideas. 

Struggling - with some daylight. It has been so dark here of late, barely getting light until lunchtime then very quickly entering dusk light again by 2:30pm. I feel almost Scandinavian.

Baking - Cherry Bakwell Cake eaten warm with cream as a dessert and then cold the next day with tea. On low light days the only thing that gets me moving is baking. The girls and I spent a lovely afternoon decorating cakes to give as presents. They love doing it and the older they get the less stressful it is for me and the more rewarding it is for them. Heidi made the wreath cake, Megan made the parcel cake for her uncle and I did the candy cane cake using a mash up of whatever was left over.

Wasting - not a thing! Hence the final design. Not enough fondant or royal icing for the whole cake as well as not enough icing left in the icing bag for a base line. I ended up peeling all the fondant bits left over from the girls designs off the worktop, then started to roll them up. While rolling a sausage shape, inspiration struck like lightning when I curled the top over and considered that my work here was done. Instant Candy cane! 

Finishing - my fur backed sweatshirt fabric Juno Pyjamas. The word cosy simply isn't enough to describe them but I don't know a word more cosy than cosy; suggestions welcome. Seriously good knitting pyjamas I can tell you. I have a winter plan for this donated Stylecraft chunky yarn stash which I will show you soon.

Enjoying - time outside on brighter days. We did have a few bright frosts earlier on in the month when I loved taking the dog out for a long walk with my camera.

Spotting - the moon shining out on a frosty morning. A different view for you to enjoy today, this one is from the back garden towards The Stiperstones which is the grey, low hill line to the right behind the wooded one.  

Thank you for calling in throughout the year, your supportive comments and interest in what I do. I am off to look at your beautiful Christmas tree photos and read your crafty endeavors to fill me with seasonal cheer. Best Wishes to you all!

Love from Jo x

Crochet On The Go

I love a portable crochet project. This little bag gets emptied and filled with all sorts of crochet projects which get taken with me to a variety of places. Monday is laundry day so it always comes with me for half an hour while I dry a weeks worth of washing. 

I sometimes throw it in my work bag for a little quiet crochet at lunchtime which doubles up as always being in the car if I get to school a bit early to pick up the children.

This yarn is Stylecraft Stars which is left over from a jumper my mum made for Heidi this Christmas. Ironically, it is perfect for making crocheted stars as Christmas decorations. The pattern is from Attic 24. I starched and blocked each one to stop the points curling at the edges.

Ta dah! These are going in my present box for friends and family.

Thanks for stopping by. I never did see the levi guy!

Christmas Mouse

Very few words today, just my usual blog vocabulary...

Left over yarn scraps...

Little bit of knitting...

 Find the pattern here...

Sometimes the pictures just say it all and I am glad you can't see the rest of my house! Jo xx

Crochet Baubles 2017

I made some crochet baubles last year and gave them as a gift very successfully so I thought I would do some more again this year. They are small, I can make one in half and hour and they are great to put in the post to far away friends.

These ones are made of sock yarn. Christina from Colourful Life sent me some sock yarn leftovers for my Autumn wander shawl but there was also some yarn in the parcel with a little sparkle. The baubles are cheap plastic ones but the yarn does all the talking.

The pattern is free from Ravelry here. Easy to do and just a bit more interesting than granny treble ones or plain double crochet.

Essentially they are a bauble cosy! You make two halves and join them together around a bauble with a whip stitch. 

Might do a few more. Are you still making?

Jo x

Christmas Gift Tags

Just messing around, nothing too epic...

Inspired by this post at Mamas Mercantile.

Have a go, it is a great way to fiddle through your button stash. 

You haven't got one? I don't believe you!

Jo xxx

Full On Elf Mode with Dancing...

Look at these, aren't they great? A superb present idea that only required me to walk to our local shop to buy some chocolate drops. The rest of the components I already had at home.

You can search the internet for ideas but the the chocolate brownie one is from here. The other jar is gingerbread. The jar includes all the dry ingredients to make a batch of brownies. The recipient just has to follow the instructions on the tag - add melted butter and an egg etc...

After rifling through my cupboards making these gift jars I found a surprising amount of half opened bags of dried fruit. I was not going to make a Christmas cake this year because it has taken me eight years to realise that it is only me who eats it but making one seemed the best way to get the cupboard tidy. 

To solve the problem of eating a 9 inch cake to myself (that is not a joke) I split the mixture between two tins and I will freeze the smaller one for later in the year. Big Sis likes a piece or two but Bloke and Little M don't eat it at all. 

I varied the recipe a bit to accommodate the fruit I had so it includes dried cranberries and blueberries instead of so many currants so I am hoping it will be deliciously fruity.

A day to myself today, I am going into full elf mode - music, occasional solo kitchen dancing, Christmas card writing and present wrapping. 

Happy Days. Jo xxx

Crafting Saved My Memories

I lost my digital photos on a worn out hard drive in November and although at first I was really upset, I reflected that because I used to be such a keen scrap booker I had not lost as much as I first thought. Today I am going to share my Christmas album with you. It is nearly full but it feels particularly special now that the digital photos have gone.

It started life as a plain grey board album with book rings. I have added twice as many pages and bought bigger rings to hold the bulky binding as the years have gone on. This album is nine years old. I started it for Big Sis on her first Christmas.

It is a jumble of materials: some bought, some leftover from cardmaking and some recycled items. Here are some of my favourite pages...

Because it has book rings, the pages could be moved around so after Little M was born two years later we could insert pages which had things in common. I really like this one.

There are pages that are made of old envelopes. These hide cards that tell a different story to the photos. I like this one because Big Sis looks so happy about seeing Father Christmas for the first time but the card inside the envelope shows her running away and crying with a recount of the event on the back.

This page is what made me photograph the album yesterday. I wanted my Christmas cake recipe and I knew exactly where it was. It was in the envelope full of cards or tags of the children decorating Christmas cakes over the years.

This page has a pocket to hold their hand written letters to Father Christmas. The girls love looking at these to compare their writing to now.

Craft and cooking are always a big part of our advent and these are some of our favourite crafty pictures.

It does have an ad hoc scrapbook feel. Between these full size pages are Christmas cards punched as smaller pages both horizontally and vertically.

I like to include the good, the bad and the ugly in my scrapbooking. I love the photo of Big Sis on the left who does not really like dressing up so she didn't want her photo taken.

More recently, I have enjoyed the photos of them doing helpful things at Christmas time to prepare for our family meal.

Finally, last year, the laughter we had watching them use a pair of new swimming goggles to stop dust getting into their eyes while getting a gemstone out of a mock fossil just had to be recorded for prosperity.

I will add to it this year of course but I am so thankful we have it to look back on our Christmas traditions and memories. 

Hope you enjoyed that little peek inside my Christmas scrapbook.
 I only have to work one day this week because I had holiday to take and my learning courses have come to a seasonal end. The children have one more week of school left. Whoooo! 

Thanks for dropping by.Jo xxxxx

Christmas Skirt

I have been busting to show you my Christmas Skirt. Now that it is the 1st of December, here it is. 

From a distance it looks like a fun spotty skirt but close up...

...BAUBLES! 

I have a loathing for Christmas Jumpers - the acrylic, the lack of what to wear one with and still look nice, the sweatshop behind them etc. etc. Last year I received a serious barrage of teasing at the 'wear a Christmas jumper to work day' because I don't have one or wish to wear one. So this year I am coming back fighting with a sewing alternative.

A cotton A-line skirt which is lined so that it will always sit well on tights in December. Excuse me, it is a Saturday. I have been sewing, the girls are dancing to the radio and bloke is at the farm hedglaying therefore today is not a day to see my Saturday at home face!

I used vintage Simplicity 7725 view 4 which is still too long for me so I shortened it some more. 

I have already worn it to the school Christmas fayre. It's also earmarked for work drinks, watching the girls school play performances at school, Christmas shopping and of course Christmas day!

What do you think? In my head, I have won!

Jo xxxxx

PS. I have learnt this week that the hard drive on my PC has gone bang and the data can not be retrieved which is so frustrating. I have lost so many pictures of the girls, all my lesson plans and activities for work along with photos for here. So bear with me while the PC is having a new hard drive fitted - I don't have photo editing software on Blokes laptop so things are not the quality I would like them to be. Everything for work is taking twice as long so time is short for blogging. I wrote a lesson plan with a biro today and I haven't done that in 20 years! Back up your stuff folks that is all I am saying.