Season's Greetings!

We can hardly believe it is that time of year already, but it seems it is! Christmas is only a few days away!

Before it arrives, however, we would like to take a moment to thank all our wonderful customers and blog readers for your support throughout 2013. It regard it a privilege that you would choose to bring My Sweets Prints into your home and spend your valuable time stopping by the blog! Thank you!

We will be taking a break over Christmas and New Year. Orders placed between
Thurs 19th December 2013 - Fri 10th January 2014 
will be posted from Monday 13th January 2014 onwards.

From our homes to yours, we wish you and your loved ones the happiest Christmas. May it be a time filled with love, joy and the true Spirit of Christmas and 2014 be a year of good things beyond measure!

Stay safe and we will see you in the new year!

Janette + Amanda xx

[Photo from Chic Déco]

Last Minute Christmas Crafts for Kids

Christmas might be just over a week away, but with many kids already on school holidays and those that aren't yet, will soon be, there's no better time, or reason to set your kids up with some of these fun Christmas crafts to get them in the festive mood and keep them occupied while you are making your own preparations for the big day!

The six crafts we have selected to share with you are simple and inexpensive, but are sure to delight your little ones!

1. Snow Globe Ornaments from iCraft Daily

2. Candy Cane Reindeer from DIY Center

3. Christmas Tree Window Decoration from Family Education

4. Pipe Cleaner Candy Canes from Fountain Avenue Kitchen

5. Popsicle Stick Christmas Trees from Revamp Homegoods

6. Nativity Finger Puppets from Craftaholics Anonymous 

Happy festive crafty fun!

Happy Christmas from My Sweet Prints

Wishing you and your family a safe and happy Christmas and a wonderful New Year!
Thank you for all your support this year and I look forward to sharing all that 2012 has to bring!

Love,

Teacher gifts done and dusted

 

I finally finished Will's teacher gifts last night. Here they are ready to go. I made personalised Christmas tags with his Santa photo on them.

This is what is in each bag...
 The Reindeer Noses I blogged about last week.

Two gingerbread Christmas tree cookies...

This one is my adaptation of the cute reindeer cake pops you might have seen on the web. My version is not as good but was easier. I stuck two marshmallows on cake pop sticks and then dipped them in chocolate. I stuck googly eyes, a red rhinestone nose and the pipe cleaner antlers.

And these are little mini puddings covered in chocolate. They look best with white chocolate on top to look like the cream on top of the pudding but I just couldn't be bothered to be honest :)

So I think that is all my Christmas shopping/gift making done! YAY!

I love making handmade gifts but these were the only handmade gifts I made this year unfort, it's just been so busy with My Sweet Prints and Christmas parties etc.

Have you finished your Christmas shopping? 

I will be shutting up shop this afternoon as I'm having a break over Christmas and New Year, back on the 9th January 2012. 

It will be so nice to have a little break from work, although I know I'll miss talking to my lovely customers and stockists as well.

Are you getting a break over Christmas too or working through?

Have a great day,

A beautiful white christmas

 

I've just discovered the most gorgeous Christmas blog called 'All the beautiful Christmas'

It is filled with the most beautiful Christmas photography from somewhere in Europe. 

Lots of winter wonderland gorgeousness...

I would love to have a white Christmas like this one day.

Have you ever had a white Christmas?

All images from http://allthebeautifulchristmas.blogspot.com

Have a lovely day,

Getting the teacher gifts ready...

You might have seen this idea online as I did...

I thought it was so cute that I decided to make my own version for Will's daycare teachers along with some other handmade tasty goodies I'm yet to make.

I showed my BFF today who is a teacher and asked 'Do you think teachers like handmade treats or just prefer the typical box of chocolates/coffee mug/soaps and lotions?' She said that handmade it much better and she always likes the handmade gifts the best even if they're less extravagant that store bought gifts. So that made me feel better :)

What are you giving as teacher gifts? I'd love to know!

Free printable chevron Christmas tags

I have designed an A4 sheet of chevron Christmas tags which you can download and print for free from my website! Just click here http://www.mysweetprints.com.au/#!free-christmas-printable-tags

 

See all the colours when you download the sheet

I might add some more designs in a week or two, I'll keep you posted.

Print them on 200gsm (or thicker) matt paper stock. Print as many times as you'd like then just cut out and hole punch. I think they would look great tied with a pretty ribbon  and attached to a simple brown paper present :)

Enjoy and feel free to pass on too.

Have a lovely day,

Our Christmas Day

Here are a few snaps from our Christmas Day.

First up my bubba next to the Christmas Morning presents...
The three of us were quite spoilt but no body as much as Will who got so many presents I've staggered their opening, there is even one left to open just so he wouldn't go too crazy with all the new toys (see he has his Santa shorts on?).



I had a lot of fun decorating the table for our Christmas family lunch. We had two tables put together with my bauble laden candlier as the centre piece.


I went for a subtle theme of neutrals like gold, silver white and beige.
Pretty white daisies on the table added some extra prettiness.
I made the napkin 'rings' from air dry clay and my Christmas cookie cutters with 'JOY' stamped into them. They held the napkins really well!


It was the perfect weather for eating outside, not too hot and not too cold and the flies weren't out in force which was good!

Here we all are sans me (photographer) and Will and Michael who were having their day sleeps.

The food was delish!!!! I did a roast chicken with my homemade stuffing and bought some yummy prawns and made a shallot vinaigrette to go with them. Mum brought the Turkey, she made the pudding which was yuuuuummmm and Susy (my sister in law) made a beautiful ham with the most delicious gingery gravy. We also had about 5 salads and rum balls, cherries, chocolates and cake so we were all well and truly stuffed by the end of the day!

Here you can see the chaos of the present opening - the kids just loved it!

And they all had fun playing in the backyard, rumbling, backyard cricket, the treasure hunt I put on every year for the kids and the two girls next door and we also did a secret Santa which is always fun.

Here is my bub with his new lawn mower - a big hit!

Did you have a great Christmas Day? What was the highlight for you???

Have a lovely evening,

Christmas Decorating Part 3

Here is the last of my Christmas decorating (well before the actual day that is)...

I decided to give our candlelier on the deck a bit of a Christmas makeover and it will be the centrepiece of our long Christmas table as we have our Christmas lunch with the family on the deck.

Here it is at night, with the bauble bling glistening :)


And a close up during the day... I attached the baubles using beading wire so they wont get tangled. I had so much fun decorating it!!!
And you know, I nearly enrolled in a visual merchandising course after school (basically to become the person who puts together the window displays/installations) and maybe I should have as I enjoyed this so much.


And the piece de resistance is my crochet star garland hanging over the french doors leading out to the deck. I bought it from the super lovely Tina from Rubies Place's etsy shop. Isn't it beautiful and it matches our curtains so well.


I don't think I'm going to take it down after Christmas, I think I'll leave it up for a while because it's so pretty.
Today is my last day of work as tonight the My Sweet Prints shops will be 'closed' well not closed, you can still place orders in my shops but I wont be sending out orders till Monday the 10th January onwards. Ahhhhh... it will be so nice to have a little break and not worry about printing, posting, spread sheeting etc for just a while.

I hope you have a great Wednesday, only three sleeps till Christmas!!!

Christmas Wrapping

I started my Christmas present wrapping yesterday...

I am using red or gold paper with one of my many assortment of paper doilies attached and then tied with either red and white Kikki-K twine or red and white stripe ribbon.

Then I just attached a gift tag to the present, this one above is from my Another Donkey Design collection that the wonderful Kate made!

I love wrapping Christmas presents each year and I hope that the recipients enjoy the little touches on their presents.

Have you started your present wrapping yet? I now have to make sure that the presents are stowed away so that:

a) My 'assistant' doesn't get into them and rip the paper off
b) My other 'assistant' Minky doesn't try to make a bed out of them and lie all over them

I better go, I think William's just made his own 'present' for me - a stinky nappy - ah!

Have a great day everyone,

Christmas Decorating Part2

OK so my tree is pretty low key this year but when you've got a toddler who is on a perpetual search and destroy mission I think this is just about the only tree possible - simple and out of reach :)


I collected branches from our massive gum tree which is in the front yard and sprayed them silver which doesn't show up that well in the pics unfortunately...

I made these lace 'doily' stars last year from lace gathered together with ribbon and tied together and using the rest of the ribbon to make the loop.

My Mum saw the idea of putting baubles in a glass vase which adds a bit of Christmas bling to my 'tree'.

And here is my simple Christmas wreath on the front door.

I bought the round wreath last year and decorated it with gum leaves but this year I used the little pear which was part of my gift bag from the ABCD Meetup and made by the very clever Dandi girls and tied it on with white ribbon.

So very simple this year... I'll look forward to putting up our big 6foot tree next year as I'm kind of missing it.

I've got some more Christmasy decorating to show you in the next few days.

And what about this Oprah hype! I wish I was down at the 'Oprah' house to see her today.

Have a great Tuesday,

Christmas Decorating - Part 1

I haven't quite finished all of my Christmas decorating but as everyone seems to be sharing their beautifully decorated homes I thought I'd show you mine in parts.

The first area is my entrance way mirror which I have decorated with a Polli garland in blue.


My lovely friend Anna (who is my neighbour down the road and you might remember she found the fantastic cane chair for me)? Well last weekend she was up in the Mountains and when shopping, saw the Polli garland set. I had almost bought the set for myself online last week but I resisted the temptation.

Anyway, Anna wanted the red and yellow ones but not the blue but she knew I'd love the blue so she bought them to share with me!!!! Isn't that sweet!

Sorry not a great photo, bit dark...

Here are the red ones

My blue ones...

And the yellow ones!

Aren't they gorgeous! You can buy them here.

The kit contains 30 decorations with 6 meters of red twine to either make a garland, hanging decorations or gift tags.
Printed in Australia on 100% recycled card. Deco size 85mmx90mm.

So there you have my part 1 of my christmas decorating... I'll show you my 'tree' next :)

On another note, we had a lovely afternoon at Will's little school end of year concert.
And in typical William form... as most of the kids were sitting down doing their song and dance with actions, my son was standing up, dancing around, waving his little arms in the air being very funny then after the first song, retired to the sandpit :) I love my funny bubba!

Have a great Friday afternoon!