Tree top

On Wednesday, I showed you my lovely lovely Christmas tree. I love it so much, I just find it so cute and pretty!!! Anyway, I've said that before and I don't want to bore you!!! But you may have noticed it was missing something. That's right, it didn't have a tree topper.

A couple of years ago was the first time I had my own tree and I left it too late to find one in the shops and so we did without one. Last year I went back to my mum's and therefore didn't have a tree in my flat. But this year I was determined to find something. That was until I actually had a quick look in the shops. Honestly, does anyone else have the same problem?? They sell so many different types of baubles and ornaments, all prettier than the next, but the tree toppers, goodness, they're either dead ugly or plain tacky. I just don't get it. So I put my thinking cap on. And I went to make myself a cup of tea. As mad as this may seem, this was the turning point, the moment the idea flashed into my head. I had it. Wanna see it? Follow me!!!

So my main material for this was wooden stirrers. Yep, that's right. Thin wooden sticks you use to stir coffee or tea. All ten of them.

What I did was draw a line in pencil half way across each stick. I then glued two sticks together, so as to have two halves overlapping each other:

And then I made a star out of the five newly made sticks!

I then promply got my glitter glue out and got glitter happy!! I started with one side with some bits in red, others in gold, but then decided I much preferred the gold, so the side you see when you walk up to the tree is all gold.

I then attached it to the tree with some thin wire.

And guess what. It makes me really happy!!!! xxx

ps if you're in England and you've got snow today, hope you're enjoying it as much as I am!! It's lush! And means I'm working from home ;-)

My needles are happy

Today we're having a quick break from all things christmassy! I'm back at work today and have something else on my mind (apart from wanting to go stray back home - honestly, we had snow yesterday afternoon and this morning, I couldn't believe it!!). A couple of weeks ago, I told you I was feeling a little knitting-deprived. Well all that was promptly put to an end this week. Oh yes, more happy knitting for me!! What you see below might ring a bell with those of you who've come here before. It might even make one of you super happy skippy-happy... Am I right?

The reason why I'm showing you this is because I want your opinion. When I made my first pair of mittens, I used cute little red buttons. Those buttons got such a great response, I reckoned I should put some on this pair too. I don't have enough red ones left, but I have plenty of other colours. Click on the photo below to enlarge it if you need to. I'd love to hear what your favourite colour combination is.

So we've got dark blue, light pink, dark green, purple, yellow, light blue, dark pink and orange. Sorry I really tried my best with the photos but as you can see with the change in tone of the background (the blue mitten), there's a bit of unwanted variation. And by the way, there's no reason why I need to use the same three buttons on each hand, we can mix and match! The possibilities are endless. Anyway, I'd love to hear what you think! Have a nice Thursday xx

Mon beau sapin, roi des forêts

My beautiful tree. I love it. It's beautiful. Even if I do say so myself ;-)

It cute and short, and it's alive. Yep, I like a live tree in my flat. Mostly because it means it doesn't drop its needles, but it's also nice to think it's alive and well (and can be replanted after the holidays should I wish to).

A couple of years ago, my mum brought my some ornaments. They're very special to me and it definitely brought a smile on my face to get them out again this year. I hope I get to keep them for years to come.

Presents have also started to accumulate at the bottom of the tree...

See the triangle one on the right? That's my nan's shawl. Unfortunately, I learned yesterday she won't be able to come this year, which makes me really sad. Hopefully, something will get sorted out.

Anyway, see the blue package? It's actually made of fabric! I won it from this lovely lady (thanks again FrenchFrogTouch!) and it's great. For all of you out there who know how to sew, it's such a brilliant idea, so ecofriendly!! And that tag is so cute, I love it!

Oh, and one last thing. Completely different topic though!! Did anyone watch Jamie's Christmas programme last night? How cringe worthy was it???!! I usually quite enjoy watching him, but last night was something else - bringing people on who obviously have nothing very interesting to say and feel uncomfortable in front of a camera, what was the point?!

Welcome home!

Good morning all!

Well what can I say, despite your well wishes, I'm still feeling rubbish today, so much so that I haven't made it into work. So it's just me, my duvet, my warm slippers and some warm milk and honey! And I should also mention wi-fi - thank goodness for that!! I couldn't bear not to come here today! I felt I just had to show you what I'd been up to at the weekend. Well I say at the weekend, but this really started last week. Hours of cutting up strips and folding, and folding, and folding!!!!

I was inspired by this lovely blog (this website has a really clear tutorial though, all in photos). I loved those little stars so much I just HAD to make some. You know when you have this irrisistible urge to do something? Yep, it was like that. So I selected some christmassy paper I had lying around.

But I also very much liked the version Lina had done with some newspaper. So I picked up a free paper on my way home and got on with it.

The first star probably took me about an hour to make. Honestly, I was that bad. But after a while, I started to pick up this little crafty skill and turned into a star making machine. I'm not kidding you. The stars made out of newspaper were definitely a lot easier to make as well, something about the paper sliding more easily I guess.

These little stars of joy are now proudly displayed on my front door, well on both sides of it actually! And it makes me really happy to see them every day when I come home.

Hope you have a nice day all, I'm just going to rest my eyes for a bit! x

Monday

Good morning everyone!

Right this is going to be a short one. First of all, sorry about being so quiet, I really feel like this little blog has been neglected! Nearly a week since my last post, I'm ever so sorry. You know what, things just took over. And I wasn't always sure what I wanted to write about, or if I even wanted to write about anything. So I thought it would be best to leave it till I felt ok again. Now I'm feeling ok with it, I've picked up this horrible cough and I'm wondering what I'm doing at work. Should have stayed in bed this morning. I also had some pictures to show you, but with all the rushing around this morning, I forgot my memory stick. So boo hoo me. I'm sorry. I'll try and do better tomorrow. Promise.

Hope you all had a good weekend and are getting all excited about the upcoming festivities!!

xx

Winter wonderland

Well not quite, but nearly. On Sunday, we had a little walk around some local woods. We were trying to find sweet chestnuts, but soon gave up when we worked out we were way too late. But this didn't bring me down (I just bought some in the supermarket instead), and made the most of our walk. The weather was refreshingly dry and crisp. The sun was low in the sky, giving everything an enchanting glow.

Not only that, but I found some interesting looking fellas growing around the leaves... Doesn't this one look like slithers of parmesan cheese??! Maybe it's just me ;-)

And this one with a little pool of water, how delicate...

This one was truly truly tiny!! If I'd put my foot down for scale, that's probably all you'd see, my foot - and let's face it, that doesn't make for a good or even remotely interesting photo!

An expected package also came at the weekend... and it was brilliant!! I knew I'd won a little giveaway over at Swirly Arts, but I wasn't exactly sure what I'd be getting. Well all I can say is that I'm super happy with what I got!!!! Thank you Lynsey! A selection of gift tags and lots of envelopes, including some christmassy ones which are going to be put to good use very soon indeed!

So, halfway through the week already. Last night was Kirsty's Homemade Christmas on TV. Did anyone watch it? What did you think of it? I must admit I was only half watching it, doing crafty stuff (more on that some other time!), but I wasn't too impressed I guess. I enjoyed watching her Homemade Home programme earlier on in the year, but really, the average person can't really get to do what she does on a budget. Cutting your own Christmas tree? Making your own glass bauble?? Very nice ideas, but let's face it, it's not exactly for everyone is it. I'll give her another chance and watch it tonight (and probably tomorrow as well because I'm a sucker for it!), maybe she'll come up with more affordable and realistic projects. To be continued!

Have a lovely Wednesday x

Christmas bunting Part 2/2

Well hello there! Yesterday I showed you what made my weekend christmassy outdoors. Now, something made it a lot more christmassy indoors... Yep, you guessed right, the bunting is finished!!! If you have no idea what I'm talking about, have a look here for a little explanation. Now that everyone is up to date, let me show you the finished article! First the left side...

And now the right side...

Here's a little close up of some glitter added for some extra festive cheer - not all over, just added here and there, I didn't want to go overboard (although did very nearly get VERY glitter happy - but my glue spray stopped working so well so I guess that put me back on track!).

And for a complete view (sorry about the plant in the way, it's going for the light!!!) - TA-DAH!!!

Makes me feel all happy inside every time I look at it!! Now all we need is a Christmas tree...! xx

T'is Christmas time!!!

Good morning all!!!

Did you have a nice weekend? Well I hope you did, I had a great time myself. Started on Friday night with a trip to Ikea - rock and roll, I know!! No but honestly, it was a good time to go, so quiet and empty, quite enjoyable actually. And we were quite restrained, didn't fill up the bag with lots of small Ikea stuff that we don't really need, so all in all, a success!! Saturday we went down to London to have a lovely curry in this small south Indian restaurant - honestly, I live for curry. I could have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day of the week. And I'd never even had a proper curry until about 7 years ago. Before that, I was more into tex-mex - anyway, more on that some other time! For the time being, I want to show you the lovely Christmas decorations we enjoyed while strolling up and down Oxford Street, making the most of it whilst it was closed to circulation. So, do you want to join in?

Come on, you know you want to!!

And again, a little closer!!

Congratulations, you made it!!! (Ha, think I'm going mental!!) - no seriously, let's have a look at these decorations, it was so pretty and magical, with buildings covered in lights...

Streets all lit up...

Some advertising thrown in for good measure...

Some longed-for roasted sweet chestnuts...

A multi coloured Christmas tree made of ice in St Pancras station...

Lovely Christmas carols and music (in M&S and St Pancras)...

Hope all your Christmas planning goes well! xx

ps The Girl, they weren't Christmas cards, they were birthday cards on my card holder!!!

I'm going round in circles

A couple of days ago, I bought some clothes pegs.

Wooden clothes pegs. (Oh yeah well done Petit Filoux, what's so special about that??). Well, no, don't worry, this blog hasn't suddenly become verrrryyyyyy boring. HA! I got another surprise for you!!! See, I couldn't just sit still and twiddle my thumbs, I HAD to find something to do. So Tuesday night I got my superglue out. Last night I got some glitter out.

And there, magic, it all happened!!!!

A card holder!!! If you remember the other day when I showed you my woolie wreath, I mentionned I put it on my kitchen door so I could enjoy it as often as possible (let's face it, I spend a LOT more time cooking than staring at my front door). This meant some ribbon was dangling on the other side of the door. And I'm not the type to leave ribbon dangling. Oh no. Not me. So I had an idea. I remembered seeing a fantastic idea on the Martha Stewart website here. As you can imagine, no time was wasted. And to be fair, this has got to be one of the quickest and most satisfying projects ever. All you need is an embroidery hoop (I used a 10" diameter one) and some wooden clothes pegs. Glue them where you want and leave to dry for one day. The following night, it'll be ready!! I sprayed some glue on it and then sprinkled some red and green glitter (I got the idea for this from Attic24, one of her readers mentionned it to her for one of her projects and I thought it was brilliant!). And finally, I put up some of our birthday cards for illustrative purposes, because I'm nice like that. The beauty of it is, it can be used at any time of the year really, for any occasion. So it definitely won't be going in the bin at the end of the festive season, no chance!!

I've gone into a wreath frenzy. It's official.

ps: to Monica who left a message a couple of days ago, you didn't leave me your email address so I can't send you the pdf for the advent calendar!!

Secret project... TA DAH!!!!!

I've finished it I've finished it!!! Finally!!! Can you sense the feeling of relief??! This project has been lying around in the flat for a few weeks now and I'm sure Boyfriend is as ecstatic as me that it is done. Because honestly, it was starting to take over floor space. Between the yarn, the polystyrene balls, the glue, the distorted wire hanger.... oh, so you don't know what I'm talking about? Well let me show you hehe!!!!

I was inspired by this blog originally. I give credit where it's due. But I was rather disappointed when I asked a question about the "putting things together" process and was told the answer was "elf magic". Not extremely helpful in my book but hey, what can you do. What you can do actually is use your little grey cells and work something out for yourself!! So that's what I did, after nearly giving myself a headache!

So here it goes. I started with this lot which I showed you a little while ago....

Then I bought a few polysterene balls in three different sizes in a trusted super mega giant craft shop (I don't like to name drop, but we all know I'm taking about the big H here). Here's one of the small ones pictured with my trusted double sided sellotape (sticky tape).

Added some double sided tape to cover the balls one by one.... Gosh that took a long time!!

And that's what I ended up with, a lovely pile of feather light yarn lovelies!!!

I know I showed this to you the other day, but I've got to do this little revealling thing properly!! So, after some rearranging, bow making and excessive use of super glue (the fumes made me feel all heady!!), here's the finished article!! Do you like it? I'm so happy with it!!!! (so sorry about the light, but it was a real struggle to get anything half decent, hence the less than perfect photo below, but you get the idea!)

It's far from perfect, but it's my first ever homemade Christmas wreath and I'm pleased with it. I decided to put it on the kitchen door, so that I can enjoy it to the full. Putting it on the front door would have meant seeing it for about 2 seconds in the morning when I leave the house and 2 seconds at night when I come home, and considering the effort that went into making it, that just wasn't good enough!! So there, my lovely woolie wreath.

It makes me HAPPY :-)