The 'ta da' moment for my little house!

I finished my little house tonight, and I'm so proud, have a look around (Unfortunately I was so excited, I couldn't wait for good light for the photos!)
Anyway, here's the front:

 One side:

 The back:

 The other side:

 The vegetable patch - I love how the carrots turned out (hopefully other people recognise the carrots!):

 The pond:

 A view of of the indoors and outdoors:

And that's it, my little house will be winging it's way to Scotland tomorrow complete with a Sylvanian Mouse Family, so my little house is now a Mouse House (sorry couldn't resist!)

Homemade presents WIP

I'm having a ball embellishing my little house, have a look:

There's still a way to go, but I'm so happy with it!

Homemade Christmas presents

It's been a while since I've blogged about my 20 Minuters pledge, partly because I haven't had my camera handy and partly because I have to admit I haven't strictly done 20 minutes of craft every single day. But today, I am glad to report, I've more than made up for my lack of crafting.

I have another cold, can you believe it? I felt so ropey this morning that I didn't go to work. Usually I battle on but today I just couldn't. Sitting watching daytime TV was very depressing, so in the end I went to get my sewing machine, gathered a blanket around me, and got started on a project I've been dying to do all year.

I have coveted this little house for so long, but I lack confidence when it comes to using the sewing machine so imagine my surprise when I managed this:

It isn't finished, but I am so chuffed with it I couldn't wait to post it! I'll do a final 'tada' (and show off the cute floor boards) when I've put in the fireplace and doors and windows. This one is for a very good friend's 2 year old, but I want to do another for Little Miss. If you like it, the tutorial is very easy to follow, and there's a Flickr group who offer huge amounts of inspiration (I really love the bird box!)

I also joined a Secret Santa last week, so I crocheted this scarf for some 'lucky' person:

 I'm not sure about it but it's too late now!

96 sleeps until Christmas...

Little Man is planning his Christmas list and we haven't had Bonfire Night yet!

I love this season, as the trees turn yellow, brown and orange, the nights draw in, the air turns crisp and Christmas is just round the corner.  There is only one thing I don't like  anymore and that is coming up with gift ideas for everyone.

I've been organising the present giving for so many years now that I have run out of inspiration, everyone's had the ornament, the socks and the soap that (for some reason) I thought they couldn't do without. So, if only to give me some inspiration, I've decided to try putting a few homemade presents this year.

My first effort has to be to finish this off for my brother and his fiancee:

She asked me to do it three or four year's ago but I never finished it, so with 96 days to go I'd better get busy!

Over the next few weeks I'll look for inspiration, and blog about it, any ideas gratefully received!

Christmas bake off

Little Man took this picture - it's better than anything I could do!

Well, it's all over and I'm missing it already. For the first time ever we had most of it by ourselves. Usually, my parents come to stay for at least a week and after a while things get a bit fraught. But in the summer, we took a selfish stand and said we wanted it on our own. This didn't go down very well, but they were good enough not to say anything, and stayed with my brother instead, hee, hee, hee!
Anyway, we had Husband's parents for lunch on Christmas day, and my parents came for afternoon tea on boxing day(yesterday). We are all feeling festive, happy and relaxed, it's been the best Christmas ever!
With the lack of house guests, the children and I got down to some serious Christmas preparation. We got busy gingerbread decorations for the tree (they never did make it to the tree!). We used the recipe we use every year, and I honestly can't remember where I got it from, but it's good, so here it is:

Ginger Bread Tree Decorations
12oz plain white four
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
2tbsp ground ginger
1tbsp ground cinnamon
1/2tsp ground cloves
4oz butter
6oz light brown soft sugar
4tbsp golden syrup
1 egg

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celcius.
Sift the spices, bicarbonate of soda and flour into a bowl.
Rub the butter into the flour mixture, until it forms fine breadcrumbs.
Warm the syrup (I put it in the microwave for 20 seconds).
Beat the egg into the warm syrup (wait for the syrup to cool slightly, so it doesn't cook the egg!)
Pour the liquid mixture into the dry ingredients, and mix with hands or a wooden spoon.
Roll the dough out into a 1/4 inch thick layer (if you roll it too thinly the biscuits will be very crunchy. I like my gingerbread soft and chewy, so I roll it out a bit more thickly).


Then use a selection of cutters to make Christmassy shapes. Line some baking sheets with greaseproof paper, ready for the cut out gingerbread.


Pierce each shape with a large hole and pop them in the oven for about 10 minutes. Let them cool on a rack and then get busy with the icing. This year I opened my baking cuboard and got all the cake decorations that I've collected over the year, and the kids had a ball! Here are the results, Christmas bling:


We also decorated the Christmas cake I made three weeks ago. I love bloggy before and after shots, so here's mine:
Before

After


Merry Christmas!

Our upside down Christmas tree

It all started so well. I packed the Little People into the car (Husband was too bah humbug to come, so stayed at home with his paper!)and off we went. We headed up to Whittenham Clumps, the highest hills around, to the place we get our Chrismas trees. It's quite hard to find, because it's in someone's back garden. About thirty years ago, the man who owns the garden planted a tree which has self seeded again and again. He's turned it into a truly magical place.

Snow was still on the ground, and a the Little People ran through the trees and disappeared, all I could hear was laughter breaking the freezing silence. I was getting all nostalgic, until Little Lady ran towards me saying 'Mummy, I need a wee'.

We had to find a 'Den' in amongst the trees and she got to melt some snow.
Any way, we couldn't find a beautiful small tree, so the owner said he'd chop the top six foot off a twenty foot tree for us - they needed to be thined out. Little Man shouted 'Timber',and we got our tree! I got it into the car - just!

And when we got the tree home, Husband pointed out it was too big for the house. He rushed off excitedly to get his electric. He sawed and chopped a bit off the top, a bit off the bottom, a bit more off the top, a bit more off the bottom, until we could get it into the house...
The problem was there was a bit too much taken off the bottom, so we ended up with an amazing upside down Christmas tree!

It still looks beautiful to me though...

...in the dark!

Homemade Secret Santa

I had a rare two seconds to think at work about two weeks ago, and I put it to great use. We do Secret Santa every year, but it's got a bit tired, so I took the initiative and sent an email. It read 'This year, in honor of the credit crunch, it's homemade Secret Santa, the budget is limited to £5.' A frisson of excitement went through the office and then everything went quiet.

Once I'd set the ball in motion, I had creators' block, great! So I did some blog stalking (I will leave a comment one of these days!), and then typed crochet into You Tube. I love seeing what people make films about, and I can't believe how much you can learn about crafting from the tutorials people make and upload. Anyway, I found these two VERY easy tutorials:
Simple hat
Threadbanger hat
I sort of combined the two, got some wool that's been hanging around for ages and made a hat. When it was finished, it looked a bit dull, so I went back to You Tube for a flower tutorial. This one was great:
Crochet flower
The end result is my first ever crochet hat:



The crochet bug had me in its grip, so I bought some cotton yarn and followed no particular pattern to make up this hat. It looked a bit plain, so I went back to You Tube and found out how to crochet a heart and some leaves, and voila - a strawberry hat:


I loved it so much I sent it to a friend's two year old daughter for Christmas. Now I have to make a pink one for Little Lady, I'll keep you posted!

Cosy for Christmas

I have a great friend who forces me out most evenings for power walks, gym sessions, aerobics classes and we never stop talking! I'm fitter than I've ever been and I've got to know a really lovely person. Now Christmas is round the corner, I've been trying to think of something to give her.
Earlier in the year, (or was it last year?)I crocheted a blanket in a little over a week. Every time my friend babysits for us, we find her snuggled under the blanket at the end of the evening. She's also mentioned the blanket several times, so it occured to me that she might like one of her own.
I've labelled this post as a tutorial, but I feel like a bit of a fraud! I'm sorry if you were expecting more detail, I'm not proficient enough with crochet (yet!) to do any better than this! Anyway, it was really easy, I just bought two types of wool, got out two sizes of crochet hook(8mm and 5mm)and started making a chain, then I just double crocheted(I think it's triple crochet in the UK, but I'm no expert)for four nights and Voila:

I got carried away with the camera, so I took a few arty shots, as you can see I'm no professional!

I'm dreaming of a white christmas...

Well, I can dream can't I?! I'm starting to think about Christmas, and before you bury your head in your hands some of my friends have finished their shopping and are sitting back smuggly! Meanwhile, I've found this wonderful website:

http://organizedchristmas.com/

It's great, so I know where I'm spending my evenings this week...