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!

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 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.