been and gone

been


and gone!


Well, I have been browsing the photos we took over christmas, just a few you know, like 490, yes four hundred and ninety photos collectively, and trying to sum up the lovely time we had. I have tried a few times to write this post, and failed, so I was pretty relieved today to see my sister in law Anamama has done a brilliant job!!! if you want to see more of our christmas festivities pop on over and take a look.

pirate hat ready

As hoped I finished the hat in time for the trip to the mountain zoo. The skull and crossbones are vintage blanket wool felt appliqued onto the (shop bought, as my knitting is nowhere near this level!) stripey hat. I googled for jolly roger images and found one like this here at Hello Yarn (thankyou!!), so i drew a quick pencil sketch of it and then just cut it from the blanket freehand.

Cute enough for a little pirate I am sure you will agree.

paper doll garlands

its nearly christmas now!! last night we travelled up to Granny and Grandpas house in North Wales, where we will be spending christmas this year. The children were so excited to be coming here and to be with their grandparents and with their cousin Ana and their auntie and uncle too.

today we have had a fairly relaxed day, the children really enjoyed making the garland of paper dolls and decorating them with card and paper clothes made from grannies stash!!( and the mummies had fun too!).We like the way when we hung the garland on the wall, the people look like they are crossing the road in the picture.

and we have eaten lots of yummy food already, more to come I am sure.

tonight I am hoping to sew Lauries pirate hat, a quickish project I have had sitting around for several weeks waiting to be done. there is talk of a visit to the mountain zoo tomorrow and I have a feeling it will be chilly there, he will be needing it.

well, I am off now to play homemade 'deal or no deal' with everyone else here - hubby has found that those matchboxes have come in handy for more than just advent activity ideas!!

lucky me

Another day trailing around town trying to get christmas sorted. I was pleased though to find this book at a discount -opened just for christmas- bookshop, especially after I had been lusting after this nativity set earlier in the week. I bought it for myself, as it was only £2. It has the christmas story with a tiny cardboard pop our nativity scene to play with as well, and arent those little angels so sweet??


I have had some pressies too, My friend Julia, (who is blogging again, pop over and say hello!) and I always set a christmas challenge present, where we decide a theme and buy each other gifts each christmas. She gave me my pressies on wednesday, and this year our theme was (kitsch) religious items/charity shop /market finds. She found some jems too, 2 little framed vintage postcards (you can see one on her blog, my photos came out awful) and then the sound of music on vinyl 7 inch, and 2 more vinyl records, The trumpt of the Lord and Harry Seacombe!!!

I got her presents today and am pretty happy wih my finds, hope she likes them too.

Last, but definitely not least, I got a candyswap parcel in the post today!! We swapped at the end of October, but the first parcel Sibille sent me got lost in the post and never arrived, so disappointing, but she was very lovely and sent me another parcel. I have just been tucking into the amaretto milka and it is lovely (and gone!!). Thanks again Sibille!

The gingerbread house.

Amazingly sill intact, but the kids are under the promise that they can eat it when they get home from school tonight!!!

I have switched to blogger Beta now, hope it will be nice to me.

uurgh blogger trouble

was going to show you the gingerbread house I made with the kids today, but blogger isnt letting me add pictures. mayed this is just another reason why I should change to beta (it doesnt ask me if I want to any more). I did paint the decorations, and they look pretty cute, I think.

can someone postpone christmas for about 3 weeks. thanks!!

got the tree

It is really hard to photograph a christmas tree, so here is a tiny bit. I need to do some work on it, I let the children put on all the decorations, and they did a pretty good job, but this year I wanted the tree to be really bright colours, previously it has been folky/red but i am feeling a bit bored of that for this year. I got new coloured lights though, and have plans for a few new homemade baubles (its ages until christmas yet isn't it??....). When I get round to that I will try again to do it justice with a full length shot, its a pretty nice tree and has taken over my 12 foot square room.

In the mean time I thought I would share with you some of my oldest and newest christmas decorations.


This nativity set used to be my Grandmas. I dont know how old it is, its plastic but probably some of the earliest plastic. I love it for many sentimental reasons, she used to wait until I visited (she lived the other side of the country) so that I could get it out with her and we would arrange all the little figures. It is well worn, the sheep are not original but I remember her adding them in one year so they are probably at least 20 years old too. One of the angels has lost her wings, and baby Jesus is loosing his paint, but it still has pride of place in my front room (well out of the reach of little fingers for now)


And these are my newest additions, christmas limited edition Sonny Angels. pretty cute arent they, I especially love the reindeer one, so cute. They are small, only about 3 1/2 inches, and have travelled all the way from Hong Kong via Ebay, I love the internet!!!

Back to my tree for a moment, I found lots of these in my decorations, do you think I should paint them bright??

hot and cold

A few weeks ago we moved the woodburning stove in our front room out from its hole in the wall (where all the heat seemed to get absorbed by the wall) into the room proper. and it is so much better! It is deliciously warm now, I am only sad that I have to come into the other room to use the computer (oh how i wish for a laptop!). Anyway the fire is good, because the rain and gales here have calmed a little but it is getting colder, like it should be really at this time of year. proper winter weather please!

We have been making paper snowflakes to decorate the windows, last year we cut our own designs, but this year we have also been enjoying patterns from the childrens advent calendar sent by their Granny.

I think she got them from this site. I noticed earlier today there are also some on Martha Stewart (found via Kiddley).

Last night my friend Julia also told me about this snowflake site that she had just discovered where you can design snowflakes then save them and animate them to all fall together. it is absolutely brilliant fun and very addictive, I think the kids might enjoy it too, though it might be a bit tricky for little ones.

And I still havent got my tree, but when I popped into the shop earlier they assured me they will be arriving tomorrow!!

possibly the worst photo you will see in blogland today, but hey it is winter in Wales and there is no daylight, it is raining and raining, so I am forced to take photos indoors with flash or wobbly hand (or both) or there would be no post again today!

Anyway, the dodgy photo is of some of the seriously cute stuff on my pinboard right now. the little guardian angel my friend Julia (dear old weirdbunny) sent me in my christmas card from her, along with some other little cards and cute stuff. she also prides herself in being the first to give me a card each year, although now I have another one too (we usually have a running competition of sorts of who has got the most). The card on the left is from my sis in law Isabel, it is the most gorgeous retro wallpaper print, and i just wish i could still get wallpaper like this as i would definitely buy it for my daughters bedroom. on the right is a Mabel Lucie Atwell card which is pretty cute too. These things make me smile.


Also making me smile, Kelli sent me some pudding mixes, how lovely is she??? there were 3 but I have eaten and lost the box for the french vanilla one, but it was scrummy. The pistachio pudding she sent me in particular so I could have a go at making these pistachio cookies, definitely on my to-do list! And I have just discovered last week that I can buy the chocolate Jello brand pudding in the small american foods section in Howells (a big shop) in Cardiff, at import prices of course, but i will be getting it once in a while as a treat as we all enjoyed it, I made a biscuit base then just made it up and set it on top - yummy.

How is everyone doing witht heir christmas preparations and shopping? my corner shop still does not have their trees in, I was almost tempted just to get one at Ikea on the weekend but I resisted. and dont even ask me about writing christmas cards or present buying, I seem to only be able to function by leaving everything until the last minute then going into overdrive and running about like a headless chicken. I will let you watch though - you have that to look forward to in the next couple of weeks.

Always a bit behind.

Finally, it is back!! and so I am back. and wow, it is December already.


The matchboxes above are supposed to be pretty boxes with fun activities in like this, however it is the first day of December and I only just got them today. so that is me, always a bit behind. But hey, they are pretty cool and pop-art, I might just keep them plain, and I am already further on than last year when I just saw them and thought about doing it.

So, what have I been doing during all my computer down-time? well, not an awful lot, I have read a couple of books.
this one

and this one

I have been involved in the making of 16 angel costumes for school (nasty silver fabric, very cross, best to say no more).

I havent finished even one of the UFOs that i thought I might have done.

And thats about it. mostly I have moped about.

Anyway, now it is advent and that is exciting. I cannot wait for the local shop on the hill to get in their locally grown christmas trees so I can go down with the children and choose one and carry it home. I also cannot wait for the decorations to come down from the attic and be rediscovered for this year. Christmas is pretty fun, especially with three small children around to help with the preparations and to get excited about it all.