Oh Christmas Tree...

This year I took it upon myself to make all the decorations for our Christmas tree. Mainly for the reason that all our decorations are glass and we've got an 18 month old son, nuff said!!! I tried to use things I already had in the house, so no more money needed to be spent, I nearly managed. The colour theme is mainly red and white but there is a little bit of green thrown in there too.





These button stars are my favourite. The ribbon is slightly skew whiff on this one, but I can't tell from where I'm sat on the sofa! So I'm not going to get worked up about it!





These snowflakes were cut out using a Sizzix Sizzlit die and the Sizzix Sidekick machine. I found the felt circles very tricky to sew on the sewing machine. It won't be something I'm going to do again for a very long time!




To save a bit of time I made the decision to sew this bobble trim on wonky from the start. I figured it was better to start off wonky from the outset than to try and do it straight and then mess it up! :)


I made these decorations using the Maya Road Supernova chipboard set. To speed things up a bit I chose to cover them in white card instead of painting them. The paper in the star is sandwiched between the layers. I used my lovely Crop-A-Dile to punch the holes out for stringing them together. That has been one of my best purchases ever, I don't know how I ever managed without it!

Instead of buying a shop bought Advent Calendar this year (or ever), I made my own version and hung it from the tree. I bought these bags from Hooray Design on Etsy and stamped all the numbers on from 1 to 24, on the front of the bags. I used a set of Bam Pop acrylic number stamps. I love Bam Pop, but that's another story! To prevent any ink from bleeding through to the reverse of the bag, I placed a piece of card in the bags before stamping. Then I placed a chocolate coin inside each of the bags and a chocolate Father Christmas in number 24. I can't believe how good Dylan has been with the tree, considering it's covered in chocolate!
Next year I'm going to make a new star for the tree, I think it deserves a better one, than the 5 minute rush job I made this year. I can't decide what to do though, so if anyone has any suggestions I'd be very happy to hear them.
I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!

Secret Santa Swap

I was absolutely thrilled to receive some happy mail on December 1st from Victoria. It's my first swap, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I was super duper pleased with all the Christmassy things I received. My favourite item had to be the jazzy Christmas socks followed very closely by the Santa salt and pepper pots, so cute! There were also some great craft items for me to get creative with over the Christmas period. Some glittery felt, a felt reindeer to stitch together and a 3d letter R to alter. Once again thank you so much Victoria you made my day.

Also that day I managed to wrap and post the Secret Santa Swap present to marryannlucy, it was so much fun putting it all together. I'm trying to do a completely hand made Christmas this year, so most of the items were hand made by me. I hope there all ok, I get quite nervous about making things for other people!

I can't wait to take part in another swap, it's so much fun!!! Thank you so much Victoria and Kelly for organising the Secret Santa Swap. I hope there's another one next year!