Preparing for advent

Hyacintvas from julia's store

I found some fantastic new Scandanavian blogs over the weekend

den gode feen

jenny shemoch harmoni

julias vita drommar

&

was inspired to start my advent celebrations sooner than I had planned.

As I mentioned in my last post I have grand schemes for lots of handmade festive creations this year and I spent lots of lovely hours this weekend crafting away. In honour of my new blog finds I am going to start my advent decorating one piece at a time tomorrow.

I love Mr LB, and his handiness.

I was sitting at my desk on Saturday surrounded by all sorts of materials with only a clear A4 sized bit of desk to work on and I went in a huff. Mr LB listened tentatively to my gripes about not enough space, too much stuff, can't get tidy......... and disappeared. 20 minutes later he suggested I take Pablo out for a walk to clear my head.

(As he will delight in telling you, he is always right!), it was just what I needed. Fresh air and a run around with a tennis ball.

When we returned home I could hear drilling sounds coming from our house..

As we went in the close I could smell saw dust......

When we went into the hall I could see screws and hinges......

Mr LB had built me a desk extension!!!!!

I now have a bit of clear desk just for doing computer stuff and I am such a happy bunny.

So with all this new found space I set to work on a few of my projects.

I designed my 2 christmas cards and ordered all the needed supplies. I even got an order from a great patron of my arts, and she wants 150 of them!

I have made a date with my Mum to make ginger snap biscuits as gifts. I'm heading over to her house tomorrow armed with cookie cutters and silver balls. (I will take snaps.)

The tree decorations and ornaments have rolled into one and I made batches of these with air dry clay. I love them! I'll write up a little tutorial and post it on wednesday.


And last but not least a terrarium update. I mentioned my plans to create a world of moss and mushrooms in a jar to my bestist friend Holly, who I knew would understand. Then the following night she turned up armed with beautiful jars ideal for terrariums! We have set a date to go collecting moss ect and I am really looking forward to it!


So this weekend has been busy and I'm quite tired today. How was your weekend?

Festive Crafting

1. first christmas decoration, 2. Christmas Trees, 3. Snowflake Curtain, 4. Linen Bird Ornaments

My little head is buzzing with ideas, I have had to bring a new note book to bed to scribble down all my ideas. I dreampt about working in a Christmas decoration shop last night where people would come in and commission us to decorate their rooms for the festive season. So today I have been so distracted by all the things I want to make!

It all started on Sunday when we got a snug new carpet for our living room. In order for MrLB to lay it we moved everything out of the room and I got to dust, declutter and clean all the skirtings. One of the things we moved out was our beautiful thrift find cabinate,(I'll post a photo soon) but I had to empty it first!

I made about 40 trips to the studio with piles of books and magazines and re discovered all my past issues of Ideal Home magazine. I decided that I wasn't going to put them all back and forget about them, and that I would go throught them all and tare out all the pages that inspired me.

Well this turned into a mamouth task, and I decided to be ruthless. Going through the pages I found so many fantastic ideas for Christmas decorations and handmade gifts. I always try and make at least 50% of our presents, but this year it will be more and all the gifts we give will be hand made. So today I set myself a budget and set out a plan for all the things I'm going to make and time scales (easier said than done I might add!) So over the new few weeks I'll be sharing little tutorials with you on what I've been making.

So here are my plans:

2 x Christmas card designs

biscuits

chocolates

tree decorations

ornaments

garlands

gift bags/ boxes

terrariums x 2

Are you having a handmade Christmas? What are you going to make?

Christmas is coming

Having a lovely weekend, made soup, veggie currie, cards and 3 braceletes and even managed to sqeeze in a bit of shopping today. We were on our way to B&Q tonight when we remembered seeing one of our local hardware shops was having a closing down sale. BARGINS GALORE! I got 3 x storage tubs for my beads, 20 paint tester pots for £3!!, and beautiful Christmas decorations.
This beautiful star is one of a set of 4, bargin of the day, £2! I am going to make a feature of them on my fire place.

Bobbles galore! I am going to use the small ones for my tiny tree and use the larger gold and burgandy ones in a vase. I have been using my glitter glue to decorate some of the larger ones but they look a bit ropey at the moment so I'll need to think carefully about the designs.

And this was only 50p so I had to have it! It has really put me in the mood and I am really looking forward to start decorating and getting into the spirit of things. It was all helped along by a recent issue of the Ideal Homes magazine which is full of beautiful ideas and goodies and I plan to make my own versions. We also watched "Elf" tonight, it was so funny and cheesey but made me feel warm inside. So when I have my place all done I'll take some photos to let you all see.