Christmas Snippets

Hello Lovelies, 

Christmas came and went in a blur of busyness and laughter .

 I love the Christmas eve feeling of anticipation. The moment before guests arrive is rather special........

Though the boys are getting older they are still happy to put out a mince pie for Santa and a carrot for Rudolph before going to bed :0).........

On Christmas morning my red tulips looked stunning on the kitchen windowsill..........

      Love the little nest box, bought for me by the boys.I did drop a lot of hints :0)

I also loved this butterfly fridge magnet from Mum............

The weather remained grey and damp this Christmas day............

But one of the joys of not  cooking  is having  the time to get out for a little walk in the morning.
Love these glossy Holly berries dripping with rainwater..........

The ground is saturated and my walking companion loved wading through some very deep puddles........

We stopped of to admire some  pretty and  festive Holly and Red Carnation wreathes in the church porch....

Soon it was time for all of us to head to my brother and sister in laws, where there were more pretty Holly and Carnation displays.........

I think the whole family feels fortunate that we can all sit down together and enjoy a wonderful home cooked meal together on this special day...........

After Dinner , along with the high tech play there was also some good old fashioned fun...........

 Does anybody remember this game? .....throw a six to put on the hat,scarf and gloves then try and get some chocolate with a knife and folk. But be quick or somebody else will get a six and grab a turn. This was hilarious to watch .
It took me back to childhood parties :0)

There were also some retro presents.
My niece had an etch a sketch......... I always wanted one of those.....

 And middle son had a Stylophone ( he saw it on You Tube :0)  ).........I did have one of these........they were promoted by Rolf Harris in the seventies I remember..........

                                    Think it even came with the same songs mine did :0)

I've actually been at work a lot over the past few days (only got Christmas day off ) but it hasn't stopped me reading the whole of this book............

I saw it praised on a couple of blogs and asked for it as a present............ I wasn't disappointed............. It's a heartwarming true story and it really made me count my blessings. 

I hope you didn't mind me sharing some prezzies here.... just thought you lovelies would be interested.

Jacquie x

Happy Christmas

Wishing all my lovely readers a happy,colourful and fun Christmas

                                         ♥♥♥ hope you all have a great time ♥♥♥
Thank you so much for the warm Christmas greetings many you have already sent.
I'll be back soon,with more news on my latest crochet project.......... these cute Owls :0)

Jacquie x

The Icing on the Christmas Cake

Hello Lovelies, 

just a quick post this evening to share our cake decorating efforts. And boy it was an effort. I had rather grand plans for this cake. Holly leaves with lots of red berries etc. But it turns out cake decorating is very tricksy. 

The natural food colouring  I bought did not give strong colours when mixed with royal icing, and I had to abandon the red altogether ( it turned out a strange dirty pink ....yuck) .

So this is plan B. Green hearts and white Doves. Middle son was a very calming assistant when things were getting stressy .............

At least these plastic fellows are user friendly. They are Mums from my childhood. Poor Robin has just about lost his red breast........

It's far from perfect and I really hope the cake is yummy........think it got a bit over baked , but hopefully the brandy I've been adding over the last month will have helped :0)

Phew after all that I needed a strong cup of tea and a (bought) mince pie.......

Hope your preparations are going to plan.
Jacquie x

On the Shortest Day.........

...............In the morning I  braved the supermarket crush to do my Christmas food shop. We and very lucky to be invited to family for Christmas day so mine was just my weekly shop plus buffet food for Christmas Eve. Twenty family and friends this year. 

It was a bit crazy but I was very happy to find  some red tulips to pop in my trolley...........

It's just a small bunch but thankfully I have the perfect jug to display them. I got this vase in the spring when I visited Yorkshire . That was a special weekend.........

This is the first year I have bought red tulips for Christmas , they are yet another blogland inspiration and I LOVE them.
Behind them you can see my card hanger. This in not new this year . It's been used every year since we came to this house but I still love it . It keeps most of our cards out of the way but easy to see and makes a lovely feature......

I'm not keen on cards on every surface but one or two especially pretty ones do make it onto the mantle......

...........This afternoon , after taking these first photos I decided to leave the housework a bit longer and make something from my new crochet book. I first saw this book over at YarnRoundHook and somehow , when I was ordering Christmas books for the boys it ended up in my basket :0)

                                               at under £5 it was an affordable treat

Quite a bit of the book is about leaning to crochet, but there are also some tempting projects. This is Erika's delightfully named "ice crystal" table mat  It's made by holding two strands of yarn together and grew super fast. In fact this took less than an hour to make ( I seem to have a thing for quick projects this Christmas).
The book  says to steam   iron the finished motif on the reverse , and thankfully it worked well.
So much quicker than blocking.........

I think it's a great , modern take on the doily and it looks perfect under my jug..........

..........In the evening I lit a couple of candles on my kitchen windowsill to quietly mark the winter solstice.........

There may be plenty of wintery weather still to come but after today the days will Slooooowly be getting longer. Yay :0)

Jacquie x

Christmas Making

Hello Lovelies,
This year I didn't plan to make any particular things for Christmas. However some seasonal making has  occurred.
They are all quite quick and simple projects .....some times I do love making things in one sitting.
The most simple are paper snowflakes.......

I make a few of these every year , the boys usually give then a go too. They are super simple and I love the way you never know what they will look like when you are snipping away at the folded paper. It's not till you unfold them you get to see the final pattern revealed. I've stuck them up in our conservatory.........

 As you can see I've also been making these huge paper stars, inspired by Tina over at Tea and Woolly socks ........

There's a link to a clear video on how to make these in her blog post HERE.

As I mentioned in my previous post I've also made some chutney to give as gifts. I've kept a small jar for our house which I have tested ...it's yummy.
 It was really easy to make , worked out costing about £1 per large jar ( bargain ), and I got to prettify the jars with fabric and ribbon......Perfect :0)

HERE is the recipe link again, thank you for sharing, Gillian.

Another spur of the moment make , this time inspired by necessity rather than blogland, are some simple cards. I had these window card blanks lying around so looked for something to pop in them. Last year mum painted me a lovely picture of a Robin on some frosty Hogweed, which I had photographed already. So I simply cropped the picture and printed off a few copies.

I used some sticky letters from my stash to add festive words. And cut out some simple holly leaves to add to the ones that only got small writing :0)

This really was a quick, use up what you've got, project . Great fun and very satisfying. In fact I liked them so much that I kept one to display on my Welsh dresser.............

I'm still loving having this wonderful piece of furniture to play with and I change things around quite regularly. It's great fun.

Another fun thing I did , just yesterday, was to revamp my old door wreath. It's artificial and I've had it for quite a few years. Gradually all the old bit's and bobs are falling off so last year I added the Merry Christmas sign and this year I added some more artificial holly.........

I thought it looked pretty good . Then yesterday I saw Lucy's wonderful crochet creation. I would love to make something like that. It's so inspiring . I particularly love all the different crochet mixed in with shiny baubles.
I may have a go at something similar next year but in the mean time I decided to do a quick makeover  on my door wreath by adding baubles to it............

The great thing about this is, again I just used what I had . I nicked a few baubles from the tree and tied them on with yarn . It would be super easy to take them off and try a different colour theme next year.( I'm thinking candy canes and multicoloured baubles ).

It was yet another super fun project and makes me happy, happy happy.

 Lucy described her wreath as "a bit bonkers and over the top",well if mine looks a bit bonkers too I'm glad........

Christmas is the perfect time to go a little bit over the top, don't you think ?

Jacquie x

P.S. I'm also looking forward to Kirstie's Vintage Christmas . 8pm Channel 4 this Wednesday.

 Some of her latest series is available on the internet at the moment HERE. I love her enthusiasm for all things hand made.....but wish she could try nicer crochet projects. Did anybody see the crochet jelly fish in last weeks episode ? Why oh why did they not just make some colourful granny squares !

Looking Festive

Hello Lovelies, we haven't had any snow here yet but,  by heck it's blinking cold ( minus 5 in the garden right now ) .

 Yesterday there was a hoar frost and once again the countryside looked wonderful. A mist hung in the air all day and watery sunshine added to the beauty of it.........

Ice crystals were everywhere........

Making the skeletal remains of the hog weed stand out along the verges...........

 It looked so pretty in the bare trees and hedges......

And was particularly thick on these teasels..........

I love this close up and I think it really shows how chilly it is here at the moment. It's not quite midwinter yet but being out in this harsh but beautiful landscape THIS special carol came to mind...........

Thankfully at home we are warm and snug and enjoying the Christmas traditions. The boys decorated the tree without much interference from me this year..........

It's loaded with all our decorations , collected over many years. Many are sweet handmade items bought at school fairs and the like.........

Or things made by the boys..........

It's a  real fun mix up tree but I do enjoy a bit of colour co-ordination too.
My red and white archway decoration is full of things I find attractive , along with simple warm white lights and It really makes me happy ( it's held in place by 3 cup hooks screwed into the wooden frame ) ............

My crochet snowflakes and on their fourth outing now (Lucy's pattern ) and they could really do with a bit of re-stiffening but I'm not sure I will find time for that.

 It's getting a bit hectic around here now. School plays, present buying, present making, present wrapping etc,etc.
I'm enjoying it so far but I will admit to finding it all a bit stressy on occasions too.

I've recently found a lovely blog....Tales from a Happy House ( wish I had time to try and  make a felt gingerbread house like that) ......Gillian made some yummy looking chutney so I had to give it a try.
Lots of wonderful ingredients........

Were chopped up and simmered in my biggest pan..........

This lot made 5 big jars of hopefully yummy chutney. I'm going to give them as gifts so I will make the jars look as pretty as possible and I'll share pictures when I manage to squeeze in another post.

At least I remembered to buy some wild bird food when I was dashing about buying and making gifts this week. This weather is tough for our feathered friends............

Hope the build up to Christmas is going well for you, and you have enough time to enjoy it.
Jacquie x