Crafty Christmas Presents

I hope that everyone has had a relaxing Christmas and New Years with family and friends. We have had a lovely holiday and a big family Christmas, but unfortunately my parents went home yesterday and Nathan starts back at work today (sigh!). The girls and I got some lovely homemade presents for Christmas so I thought I would share some of these:

Since I made buba an entire wardrobe, I thought I should probably make Ellie something too! I made her this elephant using this tutorial. I had plans of making more for other babies in the family but ran out of time!




My Mum made every couple in the family a mushroom bag from calico to store mushrooms properly. She included a recipe on how to use them. A quick and useful gift I thought!

My aunt and uncle gave Ellie this lovely tunic made by Chelsea Thorpe who had a stall with my cousin Holly. She has a degree in fashion design and her clothes are gorgeous. My sister Erin got a very cute romper suit as well for her new buba.

My cousin Holly made these gorgeous shorts for Ellie.

I love the little bow details both Hols and Chelsea put on their clothes. Definitely stealing that idea! Holly also made some tights with doily knee pads for Erin. Stealing that idea also!

Holly made Mia this skirt with gorgeous smocking. She was going to try and take credit for the smocking, but in the end owned up to it being a pillowcase. What a great idea!!

Here is the smocking detail.

And finally the best for last. The quilt my Mum made Ellie. My friend Susan had also sneakily contacted her to get some of the fabric to make Ellie a coordinating pillowcase!

Here it is up close. She made Mia one too!

Aren't we lucky having such fabulously creative family and friends!?

Merry Christmas!

We are off on holiday in a couple of hours! Yeah can't wait! All the presents are wrapped and we are almost packed. We are spending a couple of nights in a cabin for a short family holiday, and then are off to Gisborne to spend Christmas with my extended family, which I am very excited about, although I am sad that my sister and her family won't be there as she has just had a baby.

The Christmas ornament draw is done and dusted, and there have been some amazing creations shared. Here are some of them:

Pietta created these:

Leigh created these. Check out the gorgeous lace:

My friend Pip created these beaded angels:

And she took so much care with the wrapping! In fact lots of people did ( I am ashamed to say I wasn't one of them!)

My cousin Holly made these cute buntings:

And my friend Ang made these stars. They look even better in real life!

Monique made this cute heart, Cara the wool angel, and my friend Susan the doily ornament, which has a pretty bead in the centre you can't see very clearly.

My Mum made the heart on a square background and Sandra made the sweet red and white heart.


Mia and I also made these, fimo hearts (which I wasn't that impressed with - too shiny) and woven decorations.

So nice receiving little packages in the post! I hope that everyone has a wonderful Christmas and New Years break. That you eat too much, spend time with loved ones and get a well deserved break. Thanks so much to all those who participated in the ornament swap and I will be holding onto your email addresses to see if you want to participate next year!

I am taking a break from blogging until mid-January. The last couple of weeks has been very hectic and I have no back-up projects, so I am taking a break to relax and hopefully to get some new years projects on the go!

Ginger-mans

You know how your kids have cute words that they use and then you have to keep using them long beyond when they can say them properly because they are just so cute! Mia calls gingerbread men "Gingermans". She also calls containers "Tain-gers" and called icecrea "Ice-esh" when she was about 18 months so we still use that one.

We have been slowly working our way through the activity advent, completely out of order. So far we have collected stuff on the beach to make decorations, made orange pomanders (a bit of a disaster as I didn't realise that cloves are actually quite sharp for little fingers!), got Xmas books out from the library, made an Xmas cake (not on the list but still Christmasey!), wrapped up a present to put under the Xmas trees for kids in need, and today made Gingermans!

Here is the recipe:

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 c treacle

1 1/2 t ginger

1 t mixed spice

1 t cinnamon

2 t baking soda

125g butter

1 egg, beaten

3 1/2 c self raising flour

1. In a pot heat sugar, treacle and spices until they come to the boil, stirring occasionally.

2. Remove from the heat and add baking soda (make sure your kids watch this, it is pretty cool!)

3. Gently stir in butter until melted.

4. With a fork, stir in egg then gradually incorporate flour.

5. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead until a soft dough.

6. Roll out to about 5mm and cut out your gingermans, or whatever shape you desire.

7. Bake at 165 C for 8 - 10 mins. They cook pretty quickly so watch them quite closely.

8. Decorate using icing and raisins or mini m and ms like we did!

Christmas Advent and my Mum is O for Awesome!

Its the first of December! Time to start (officially anyway!) our activity advent. My Mum made this gorgeous advent calendar for Mia last Christmas. It is a quilted tree with little ornaments that you hang up each day in December.

My Mum has made Mia some lovely handcrafted things since she was born. She sewed and knitted for us when we were kids too, and preserved, and baked and grew veges. I wonder where I got my love of all these things from!? She is much better at paying attention to detail than I am, so the things she makes are beautiful, and Mia is so lucky to have a grandmother that is so talented.

Here are some of the other things she has made:

A cross stitch Christmas stocking. When we were kids she made us these too. Actually quite big kids, probably too big to have stockings!

Dolls for both girls when Ellie was born. They have reversible dresses. This is probably a better photo of the cute baby than the dolls!

A bag of little dolls that will be wonderful if we ever get a dollshouse. Mia likes putting the dolls (or rocks or whatever!) into the bag when she is playing one of her elaborate imaginery games!

She has knitted for Mia including this jersey

She is currently working on a rainbow quilt for Ellie that I will share when it is completed.

I am so lucky to have such a legacy of handcraft talent in my family. My grandfather knitted, my grandmother spins and is a potter, my other grandmother was a talented sewer. It goes back even further than that. When I was a child we received several handmade toys that my great-grandmother had made, all the way from Petersfield in the UK, and I grew up playing with a dollshouse that both her and my great-grandfather had handcrafted for my mother and her sister. It is still at my parents, although is a little worse for wear!

I know that most people my age haven't had this background that has inspired me to try and follow in their footsteps and I feel very lucky.

Xmas card

Every Christmas since I have had Mia I have made a photo card to send to friends and family. It is so nice to have a record of where the girls are at for both ourselves and for people who don't see them very often. Here is this years version, hot off the press:

I am completely aware that it is cheesey as, but oh well its Xmas and I am allowed to be cheesey!

My inspiration for making these cards is my Aunt Anna, my cousin Holly's Mum. Every Christmas when we were kids she would make an Xmas card photo of her 3 kids. As I am 10 years older than Hols I have vivid memories of a lot of these cards, even ones before Holly was born. There was the Xmas chef one of James and Liz (before Hols was born), paper chef hats and all, the baby Jesus one (with Holly in a manger) and the sand dunes one, which must have been the next Xmas when Holly was about 18 months. Holly and I are both lucky to have creative Mums who have set the example for us!

Anyway, back to the cheesey card and a little explanation. I hate telling this story, but about 4 or 5 years ago I drew strength from such stories so thought I would put it out there. I am not the kind of person who likes to draw attention to themselves, or feel like I am asking for sympathy, but this is now very much history and with my 2 beautiful babies, I don't need sympathy!

Before I had Mia I had 3 miscarriages in 18 months. I had all the tests and everything, but they couldn't find anything wrong with me. When I got pregnant with Mia I didn't allow myself to get excited for ages, but once my pregnancy got past 12 weeks it was very easy and straight forward. When you are in that position you get told that it is just a matter of time, you have to keep trying and it will happen for you. Not much help being told that by a doctor, but it did help me to read stories from people who had got through the other side and have babies. Once I was in that position it was amazing to realise how many people had been in a similar position, or worse, but they had all ended up with a baby, or babies if they kept hoping and trying. I also have friends who had had to go down the IVF path, or are about to, and that has brought happy results as well.

When it came to getting pregnant with Ellie I geared myself up for a long road as well. We even talked long and hard about just having one, and set an end point "3 miscarriages and we give up and enjoy Mia". But then I got pregnant straight away and had another text book pregnancy, and birth! We are definitely drawing the line at 2 though, stop while we are ahead!

My point is, enjoy your beautiful families over Christmas, regardless of how easy or hard it was to get them. They are so precious and the holiday season can be stressful so take time to look at them, breathe them in and realise how wonderful it is that you have them!

Countdown to Christmas: Activity Advent

Christmas is so exciting when you are a child. I remember the huge build up to Christmas day when I was a child, christmas cards given out to classmates, all the end of year school activities, and excitement about going to stay with family for Christmas. For years now my family has had 3 generations of adults, but in the last few years we have started to add to the 4th generation, and the eldest of that generation are starting to be conscious of Christmas and all the excitement that comes with it. The bonus of having children who are beside themselves with the happiness of the season is that it can't help but rub off on the adults around them!

I have decided that for Mia's enjoyment, and my own, I am going to start a tradition of an activity advent in December. Ellie can join in properly in a couple of years when she realises how exciting Christmas is. I have been trying to come up with a mix of activities, and here is what we are going to do each day in December:

1. Take out the advent calendar my Mum made last Xmas.



2. Write santa a letter (Mia has been asking to do this for weeks!)



3. Make fimo ornaments. Here are some pictures of ideas:
   
   From etsy:
   

From meet the Dubiens:

From etsy:

From geekabella:

4. Make gingerbread men

5. Go to the library and get some Christmas books

6. Go to shop and let Mia pick a decoration each for her and Ellie

7. Buy a present for a child in need and put under Xmas tree in Coastlands. Talk about why we did this.

8. Make orange pomanders (Image from sjarmerende jul)

9. Buy a present for community in need from world vision and discuss where it will go and why they need it.

10. Collect things from the beach and use them to make decorations.

11. Decorate the tree.

12. Watch an Xmas movie with treats.

13. Photo with santa.

14. Make christmas mince pies and take them to an old peoples' home.

15. Make woven decorations from the crafty crow.

16. Take Xmas baking to friends.

17. Take food to the food bank and talk about why people need to use the food bank, especially over Xmas.

18. Wrap Xmas presents.

19. Make Xmas making and take to the maternity hospital for mothers and staff working over Xmas.

20. Pick up rubbish.

21. Go out for a family meal together.

22. Colour in Xmas pictures.

23. Sing Xmas carols.

24. Open 1 present from under the tree.


Depending on the weather and whay is happening I reserve the right to mix the days up a bit! In fact we have cheated and already done a couple of them. The food bank did a collection so we put a bag out, and Mia wrote her santa letter:


Who wants to join some of our new traditions?

Christmas Decoration Swap: Bunting and garlands

If you haven't already, sign up for the Christmas ornament swap I am organising with my two blogging friends a green and sometimes blue life and Holly Made. Check their blogs out to get some inspiration!

It can be a little overwhelming checking out all the amazing ideas online, but don't feel you have to make something that belongs in an expensive gift shop. The idea is to have fun creating something, especially as most of us participating have little kids and are pretty time poor!

At the moment I am loving bunting and garlands. It would be something easy (although a bit time consuming) to make for the Christmas tree. Here are some of the ideas I have found on line:

• Pine cone garland from twig and thistle

• Doily bunting from fete fanatic

• Heart garland from paint chips from DIY girl

• 10 ways to make a garland from A Beautiful Mess

• Apple and burlap garland from homemade serenity

• Use this idea to make bunting from old Xmas cards on Baby Gardner

• Christmas Bunting from etsy:
  

Actually pretty much any Xmas decoration could be made into a garland, you just need to make lots of them and string them up! I am really looking forward to seeing what everyone makes!!

101 christmas ornaments link and ornaments for kids to make

I have had a few "yes's" to the Xmas ornament swap. but who else is keen? Good small scale way to get those creative juices flowing! Here is a link to 101 christmas ornaments you could make.

Here are some ornaments that would be good to make with kids:

- that artist woman: Orange pomander

- Curbly: Borax crystals (probably older kids!)

- Toilet paper lanterns

- Meet the dubiens fimo snowflakes

- The crafty crows weaving decorations

- Felt and sticker Xmas trees from parent.com (also has others)


Store these away to make with your kids on the build up to Xmas! Or make them yourself for the ornament swap!

Christmas Ornament Swap

I know that Christmas is still a few weeks away, but if you are going to be creative and avoid pulling an all-nighter on Christmas Eve (I remember my aunty doing that!), you have to plan ahead! So I am going to propose a Christmas ornament swap!

The details:

Participants will be put into groups of 6 people, and you will "swap" ornaments. That means making 6 handmade ornaments, one for yourself, and one for each of the other members of your group. You will be given the postage details of the others in your group and be expected to post them an ornament by the end of November. You should end up with 6 beautiful handmade ornaments for your tree!

How to register:

Email me at sarajspeight(at)yahoo(dot)co(dot)nz. Give me your name, email address and postage details. Check in on my blog regularly as well as Holly Made and A Green (And Sometimes Blue) Life for inspiration. You will need to register by the 1st of November.

What to make:

There are soooo many choices. Below I have listed some "catergories" you may wish to draw inspiration from, as well as a few pictures and links. You may also wish to check out my pinterest christmas board .


From nature:

Twig stars from A foothill home companion:

Michelle Made Me:

Wool:

Crochet snowflakes from Coats Crafts:

Christopher and Tia:

Sewing:

Simple Hearts from Epherial design

Felt owls from Juicy Bits:

Little Birds from Stumbles and Stitches:

Jingle mouse from Pimpstitch:

Snowfish on etsy:


Paper crafts:

Musical stars from Better Homes and Gardens

Christmas Baubles from Homemade Gifts made easy


Please, please, please email me a photo of your decorations so that I can share them with everyone in December after the swap has finished. I am really looking forward to seeing what everyone makes!