Christmas

I did try to make as many gifts this year as I could, my other half pitched in and drew an amazing picture for his Dads Christmas gift as well.

For my brother I assembled a personalised first aid kit complete with Dora the Explorer plasters as he has a 2 year old daughter. For my sister-in-law I made the bag in the photo below (I didn't get it finished in time for her birthday in May). Made from Ikea fabrics with a plain black cotton lining. I filled the bag with all different pink sweets and sweets with pink packaging.

For my other-half's second eldest sister and partner I made a selection of jams using the apples and pears from the orchard behind my parents house. I wrapped one of each (apple pancake sauce, apple chilli jelly and pickled pears) in a record bowl shaped to fit the three jars in.

For there two children I made toys. For there eldest who is five I made a sock monkey which I did make in time for Christmas last year whilst we were living in France but we didn't return to England till after Christmas. I dresses the sock monkey as a pirate especially for him.

And since they had a baby in October I made a taggy blanket out of really cute owl fabric with a fleece back. To go with it I made a tiny sock monkey out of baby socks which was very cute but I forgot to take a photo of it.

For his youngest sister (still older than him he's the baby of the family) and her partner I made home flavored vodka, I decided to use retro sweets, after researching on the Internet I decided on Black Jacks for one and Fruit Salads for the other. Then I made a very flat record bowl to wrap up the two bottles in with a packet of each sweets.


And for my very good friend I made some little decrative owls out of felt. I made these from out of a magazine, I much prefer the off white and purple one, I think all the colours work really well.

Christmas is on it's Merry Way!!!

This year I decided to have a go at making my own decorations! I saw this idea online... its just fabric strips knotted around a wire. This one is just little, I used a bit of wire and made a loop at the top for hanging it up - I have seen others use a wire coat hanger and bend it into a circle.

This second one is massive and very heavy! I used a wire wreath box frame which aren't so easy to get hold of in the UK! I had to order it from the US and the postage was more than the frame, but I think it looks quite impressive! I started using the fabric above but realised it would cost loads if I used my expensive fabric so I found an old green double flat sheet and it used the whole thing and I could have filled it out more if there had been more fabric!!!

The great thing about these are they are both sided, I'm going to hang the big one in my window so everyone can see it! I might try to find something to decorate it with, my mum suggested red berries and I was thinking a big red bow, but I'm not sure yet...