Christmas Tree!

So after the unplanned trip to my hometown, I have been slow in sharing a pic of our Christmas tree. Here it is - lots of simple hand-made decorations that Miss Chooken and I created together. Miss Sunshine loves pulling them off, so luckily they are fairly indestructible. My favourites are the dough-craft ornaments, and the general idea is so applicable to other occasions through the year, I am sure we may do some more before next Christmas. Miss Chooken loved gluing the paper patty-pans too. Only a few presents have been placed under the tree, as the girls can't quite resist opening them, and we have said that Father Christmas leaves presents under the tree and gifts from mummy and daddy will be in a stocking for each of them. Next year I plan to make the girls a slightly larger stocking each, with a monogram of their initials.

(And sorry about the flashed-out shot of the tree, lighting technician I am not ;) ).

One Pretty Thing mention!

Thank you to One Pretty Thing for giving our dough-craft a mention in today's post on "Fun Christmas and winter themed projects for kids". Miss Chooken and I had so much fun making them, I hope someone else does too :).

Keeping it real - it's Friday!

Well we have had a great week - got some Christmas decorating time with the girls (although not finished yet), Miss Chooken finished her first term of kindergarten, then got hit by a gastro-bug and is still recovering. After a very restless night (where I couldn't sleep as I jumped every time she groaned, fearing a mess from one end of the other covering me in my sleep), we were up nice and early to find our summer weather gone, replaced by some showers and subsequent puddles. Didn't think too much about it until Miss Sunshine's presence was noted missing...here she is outside playing in the puddles and wet furniture,

Her pyjamas soaking and certainly not too clean anymore. Note the pile of wet chalk that Miss Chooken will have fun with once she picks up a bit today -wet chalk always draws easier.

And while I am keeping it real, I need to confess about our Christmas tree.....Hubby did a trip to our home town (some 500km away) last weekend to pick-up some stored furniture we had there. Seeing as the town is surrounded by pine trees, he thought it a great opportunity to cut his own tree and lug it all the way back to the city (well, he had a trailer-full anyway!). All good, except in true dad style, the tree was huge and required some doctoring to fit in the house ("It really didn't look that big out in the paddock...").

The tree then required a little more doctoring when we got it inside only to smell realise that a visiting canine had used said tree to mark his territory while tree was outside waiting to be doctored to fit through the door. Luckily, it was only some lower branches (easily cut off) and the smell no longer permeates our lounge room. Yes, I was more than willing to ditch the whole tree (even after travelling 500km!) if the smell did not disappear....it was not the authentic Christmas pine perfume I was after!!! But all is now good in Christmas tree land, and we should have the decorating finished over the weekend. More pics then!

Have a great weekend everyone, and keep it real out there!

Feeling nostalgic

This year is one of only two in 13 years that hubby and I have not returned to our childhood home to spend Christmas with our extended families. I was feeling OK about it, excited even, as I now have the opportunity to plan my own menu for a small gathering on Christmas Day......but I have just seen a few images around that are bringing back memories of "home" (yes, I still call it home after more than a decade).

Gnome book - both my dad and Opa had this book and I loved it as a child.....there is one particularly gruesome picture in it of a troll and a gnome....and a nearly nude-shot of a female gnome that I thought was so racy as a kid (!!!!). Book spotted over at A Cup of Jo.

This fireplace.....where do I start? It has so many memories for me. My family has one exactly the same. It began life in my Oma and Opa's lounge room and my Oma would heat a kettle on the hotplate. It has gorgeous little windows to watch the flames and I love the chrome coal-bar at the front and the curved legs it sits on. It also has a side-door (not visible in this pic) that you can use to place any extra-long logs in the firebox. When my family built our own home in the early 1990's, my grandparents replaced their fire with a new one, and my dad and I restored their old one......it took some elbow-grease with a wire brush, a coat of pot-black, new fire-bricks and a new flue, but it still goes today. Our beautiful family home was bought by my cousin a few years ago, and he still lives there with his family, so I occasionally get to visit my most special childhood home. Hopefully I will get there in the next couple of months and take some photos to share my memories. Image found here.

All the Christmas posts with pine cones and pine trees has me missing the tree hunt we would have as children each December. Our home was nearly surrounded by pine forests and our block of land used to have a plantation also. There are still a few stands of pines from the 1970's standing, and there are always some young pines to choose for our Christmas tree. It was always a joke that dad and us kids would come back, dragging a tree that ended up being 12 ft tall and barely able to fit through the french doors.....even with fairly generous ceilings, the tip would be bent over and dad would have to chop a couple of feet off to make it fit in the house. Which reminds me, I need to take some photos of our Christmas tree....post to come in next couple of days :).

Christmas Craft for the Craftless #1

I love hand-crafted goodies, be it ornaments, food, furniture - you name it. However, I am not that crafty.....love the idea of it, just not so good at the application of it, lol. But this year, I was determined to do some fun, easy Christmas craft with my daughters, that did not cost the earth. I have a great children's activity book from the late 1970's that had a recipe for modelling dough and it brought back very fond memories of my mother making us dough dolls. They were beautiful - I believe mine had a red ribbon and a white dress. I have been inspired by gorgeous white ceramic ornaments, some of which I mentioned here.

I have also been inspired by paper-craft, especially the "use-what-you-have-around-the-house" kind, as demonstrated by stylist Megan Morton in the Christmas edition of Australian House and Garden. Although my attempts are base-line basic, it looks good on the tree and has been fun to do with my children :)

Here is Miss Chooken gluing paper patty-pans together to form a cute white chain for our Christmas tree...

Note the patty-pan chain forming in the background.

Next we had a go at the modelling-dough:
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 cup salt
1/2 cup water
Mix till smooth, roll out and cut desired shapes, remember to make a hole with a skewer if you want to hang them.
Let dry in a slow oven or at room temperature for a few days.
Once completely dry, paint, decorate, varnish...whatever is your fancy!

Above - the uncooked ornaments. Once dried, they are a slightly whiter colour. We decided to paint ours as that is more fun for a 4 year old, but I think they would also look great spray varnished and adorned with red ribbon.

Patty-pan chain nestled in the tree also.

I also had a go at making some simple paper ornaments. Cut out 4-5 strips of paper of your choosing. Join each strip end-to-end. Loop each circle through each other and join with a decorative pin. On the opposite side to the pin, thread through cotton or ribbon to secure and to hang. I used some of the dough-beads Miss Chooken and I made out of the left-over modelling-dough. Cute as.

These decorations don't get much cheaper and were lots of fun to make together. I hope to do a similar paper-ball for the place-settings or Christmas day, but if you had letter stamps, you could have a go at stamping someones name on a dough-tag as a place-setting, would look really sweet. They probably wont last for next Christmas....the paper will get squashed, the dough will eventually go mouldy.....but I love the proud look on a child's face when they see something they have made on display - priceless :).

xxx

Christmas is calling!

Yes, believe it or not, Christmas is getting a little closer every day....I know, it is unbelievable, lol. How are your preparations going? Do you have to plan a meal? a trip away? We are having a small Christmas lunch at our place this year, with my mum, brother and sister-in-law. So far I have decided on the menu for the day.... and that is about all! I still have not done the present shopping, although I do have a list. We have not finished our decorations yet, I need to buy some paper. I did buy some cute vintage napkins the other day, so my table setting idea is coming together slowly. So still plenty for me to do in the next few weeks.

To get more inspiration I like to peruse magazines.....I think I have every Christmas edition of every magazine in the country (am I sounding like Sarah Palin???). I also find it really hard to throw away Christmas editions....so some of my ideas come from the last few years. I just change the colour schemes etc, to suit what I have planned for this year. My favourite magazines include ideas for table settings, decorations and meals that are achievable in a family home :). Tomorrow I will post me favourite Christmas ideas from the latest editions so you know which magazines to purchase (if you haven't already!). Where do you get Christmas inspiration from?

image from here.

Real quick - some nice finds!

ok, so I am meant to be packing etc for the weekend trip, but I stopped in at the local op-shops this morning on the way back from one of Miss Sunshine's many medical appointments. Picked up a few nice things and quickly wanted to share! Nothing has been cleaned up, but you get the idea...

First up, inspired by Eddie Ross' recent adventure, I rummaged (seriously, it is two ramshackle sheds behind a church!) and found the collection of silver and wooden spoons. Also a pink hand-bag for Miss Sunshine (not shown). The silver ones are pretty beat-up (not sure yet if they will be ok to serve with) but I will give them a good polish and see how they come up. Now I need to learn more about silver marks/stamps. The wooden ones I grabbed because I love wooden spoons! I like to wonder what recipes they have contributed to, who's kitchen they lived in, who's bottom they may have smacked (lol)...etc. I want a nice white ceramic pot to display them all in. If you have any ideas of how else to display wooden spoons, let me know! The $3 total I paid there also included the mid-60's edition of an Australian vernacular book. I am a bit obsessed with Aussie slang, so I have been keeping an eye out for an older book like this.

The second stop was at the Salvation Army where they are far more aware of how to display and what to charge for the goods. However, I just couldn't go past the white and cream queen sized heavy woven cotton bed spread. I love these old things and this one was in great condition so for $10 I snapped it up! The brass candle-stick matches one I already own, so it was too good an opportunity to not grab it and make a pair (and it was only $1).

I was also thinking of Christmas time and my "green theme", and I could picture the (rather ugly) green cocktail glass, put to much prettier use as a dish to hold sweets on my Christmas table. I also grabbed the little silver cake (maybe cheese?) server and the (not so vintage) glass cloche. I think it was a cheese cloche (?) and I am not keen on the two-tone wooden base, but thought I could either paint the base (white or charcoal maybe?) or use the glass dome on a white ceramic plate stand to present Christmas tarts or similar. Or maybe leave the wood plain? It is about the diameter of a large bread/side plate. Any other ideas? I would love to hear your thoughts! So all up I spent $20 - I think my favourite purchase is actually the retro bedspread :)

Time to hit the books!

Well, after taking this past semester off from study (I thought we would be moving), I have signed up for a couple of subjects over the summer semester in the hopes of catching up a little. Some years ago I completed a degree in Environmental Management and worked in native vegetation management for a few years before becoming a mama. For a new challenge I am undertaking a degree in Commerce (maj. in Human Resources). I have really enjoyed it so far, and I love the idea of combining the two fields and working in recruitment or training/devlopment for environmentally orientated companies. I am not sure how the study will go over the crazy Christmas season about to begin, but it will be great to tick off a couple of more subjects and get myself that much closer to returning to the (paid) workforce.

(And I wish my text books were as enjoyable as some of the classic tales Lucy Tartan has compiled above, but Law and Business texts just aren't that exciting!)

Pic from Flickr

Christmas decoration inspiration

I recently saw this material over at ABT and was really taken by the colour and pattern. I have dreams of covering a couch in this fabric one day, and since hubby was in no way amused when I casually mentioned repainting our living-dining rooms (and I don't do major paint), I figured it may just be easier to find a fabric that works with our existing wall colour. Anyways,when I saw this it seemed perfect.
What does that have to do with Christmas decorations?? Well I am glad you asked! I then thought that by going with a green-white (maybe some silver for the glitter value) colour scheme for our 2008 Chrissy paraphinalia I will get the chance to really decide if I like that colour combo in our home! And cheaper than recovering the couch too. Good thinking hey?!?! Yes, me thinks so too. It is certainly not the deep green usually associated with Christmas, so I am guessing that finding ornaments may be a bit tricky. I will have to get quite organised and make some of my own decorations or really scour the shops or look through the near-by op-shops for some goodies that can be re-purposed for Christmas(or all of the above).
It will be a work in progress, so I will let you know how goes it over the next 5 weeks leading up till the big man in red visits.

Christmas Pagent

The annual Christmas Pagent rolls into town this weekend.... much to Miss Chooken's disgust we will not be attending. Unfortunately the hubby will be at work and I simply can not entertain the idea of arriving early enough to get a decent view, trying to convince Miss Sunshine that the safest place to be is in her stroller, plus trying to convince Miss Chooken to stay sitting/stnading near said stroller. I am a bad, mean mummy, I know. But lining kids up along a road with thousands of strangers around just does not appeal. The pagent itself does appeal, and I will have it on telly for our viewing pleasure. I like waving at Father Christmas and listening to the commentary on the history of the floats...

I guess that the pagent means I really need to get some present shopping done....yes, that's right - I haven't completed any gift shopping yet. I'm not even sure what to get for the girls and hubby this year. The rotten lemons I mentioned here really distracted me in the past few months, but it is time to pull my socks up and get on with things a bit. I will let you know what I find!