Homemade gift No.3 - Thread bind bangles

I made these little token gifts for my dear friend. I used some ancient old bangles I had knocking around, some embroidery thread and some pritt stick. All it takes is some patience to sit and carefully bind the thread around the bangles. I put pritt stick on the bangle to help hold the thread in place. I also ended up using a little bit of superglue on the end piece after I had knotted it off. 

This idea has a lot of future potential. I really enjoyed the effect once I got a bit more creative with the colour striping. The possibilities are endless in terms of colour combinations! I hope they liked them. I am always really embarrassed when I give a home made gift. But I hope they appreciated the sentiment, and I chose colours that really reminded me of them to make it more personal.

A very satisfying way to make something from nothing.

Homemade gift No. 2 - Mug cosy

I made this mug cosy for Ollie's teacher present this Xmas. It's not as flashy as it looks. I cheated heavily! I cut a portion of the sleeve off of one of Charlie's old cardigans. I then crocheted with wool around the edge making a loop on one side as I went. I then sewed on a large button. Bob's your Uncle a mug cosy, with a fitting mug, one teacher Xmas present done. Nothing nicer than wrapping your hands around a hot mug of hot chocolate/tea/coffee on a cold wintery Scottish day, when you have to look after 18 odd 5/6 year olds! At least I hope that is what she will think....

Christmas pudding cake pops

Christmas cake pops

Made using a bought chocolate cake crumbed with some homemade butter icing. Rolled, covered in melted chocolate, then some white, vanilla candy melts. Then I bought some holly and berry sprinkles from an online cake decorating suppliers.

Reindeer cake pops

I made some reindeer cake pops to go with the Xmas puds. This time with milk chocolate, red dragees, choc chips and pretzel sticks. The cake itself was a shop bought coconut cake and butter icing. Hoping they will be kind of like a bounty bar.

Melting Snowmen Biscuits

 More baking for the fayre... well not technically baking! Just putting some water icing and a marshmallow on a rich tea biscuit. I used some sugar belt sweets as a scarf and then coloured icing for the buttons, arms, eyes, nose and mouth. Max (3) did a lot of this with me. We had great fun.

Reindeer cookies

I have been baking for Ollie's Xmas Fayre. These were quick to whip up. I used the raw cookie dough rolls that I keep in the freezer for cookie based emergencies, the recipe is posted under best-chewy-gooey-cookies.
Just as they came out the oven I quickly put in some short pretzel sticks for antlers, a red dragee for the nose and stuck some choc chips on with water icing. As they cooled the cookies firmed up and held it together.
Hopefully they will go down well at the fayre.

Our names as Snowflakes

 Today we made some paper snowflakes to decorate the front windows. After doing quite a few we stumbled upon the idea of writing our names and cutting them out to make our own personal snowflake. The effect was quite cool (excuse the pun)

Homemade Gift - Cupcake case store

Homemade Xmas present No.1

The reason I haven't been posting much lately is that I have been busy making and doing for the festive period. A lot of what I have made can not be shown here until post Xmas as the wrong people will see it, but the person I compiled (not really made!) this for is not likely to look here. The husband just said he would be really upset if he received this as a gift, but I disagree and so will the recipient (or at least I hope she will!!). I would love to receive this as a) all my cupcake cases are just loose in the cupboard and so get misshapen and slightly damp, plus I can never warrant the expense of nice cupcake cases as they are such frivolity! But this friend bakes and bakes goooood. I hope this gift will look nice in her new kitchen.

Trying to figure out money and coins

Both the boys are struggling a bit with the concept of more coins not equaling more money! So I drew this to try and explain the fact that 1 coin can be worth as much as one hundred coins depending on what the coin is. I think it helped a little, but think it will be a long road!

Practicing Presents

Today Max played practicing wrapping presents by wrapping his toys in newspaper, and then, when he got home from school, Ollie played trying to guess what is inside the present before unwrapping it!

Our trip to Edinburgh to see the German market and Ice rink

Outing to see Santa

We went to see Santa in his Grotto in Rejects Department Store. What a wonderful day!

We are now a 4 tree family!

Advent Calendar

 

We put up our advent calendars today Wooo hooo. I had managed to meet the deadline of the 1st of December to finish making one for Charlie, though he won't get any sweeties this year, it seemed wrong not to have one up for him.
This year as well as a wee sweetie, the boys will be receiving a little note telling them what Christmassy task they need to do that day to get the next day's sweet.
The list includes such harsh and arduous things as;
Watch a Xmas movie
Make mince pies
Wrap Christmas presents for the people you love
I didn't think the boys would be that bothered but I think they may even loo!k forward to the little black slip of paper more than the sweetie! Well, maybe not that much!

St Andrews Day off school

The boys had today off due to the strikes, so we made a bit of a big deal of St Andrew's Day. We looked up who he was on the internet, drew pictures, made Saltires and then made shortbread and dropped it round to all our neighbours to celebrate.

A boy's eye view a.k.a. funny thing they say

I made a jar which I keep next to some notelets and a pen so that I remember all the funny and cute little things the boys say. When they say them I write who said what and when on a notelet and fold it up and pop it in the jar. I will read them all at the end of the year and put them into their yearbook photobooks that I do on photobox in a quotes page. A good way to remember them and their development.

A sausage-ish plait

We made this sausage plait pie by mixing together the meat from 6 sausages, a small packet of turkey mince and a mini haggis (for 1) together. We seasoned the meat and wrapped in readymade shortcrust pastry, Gave it an egg wash and sprinkled on some sesame seeds, and baked in the oven.
It was delicious as dinner and really nice cold with some pickle the following day. And not too (?) unhealthy as it was about 50% turkey mince but tasted very sausagey with all the spices and flavours from the haggis and sausages.

Fuzzy Felt Face Cushion

Hello Jacob, if you are reading this then you have received your "well done on becoming a Big Brother" present and are wondering what on earth it is!
Well, it's a fuzzy felt face cushion. In the pocket at the back you will find lots of different coloured shapes. All you do is take them out and place them on the front of the cushion and go wild making all sorts of crazy funny faces! Bet you can't pull a funnier face than your cushion can make!
We hope you don't mind but we had a play before we wrapped it up so we could show you the faces we made  to give you some ideas. We would love to see what funny faces you can make. I bet your baby brother would love to see them to, though don't get the little bits of felt too close to him!

 

 

If you lose any bits then Mummy can easily make some more- you just cut them out of odd bits of felt.
The cushion was made by cutting out 3 rounds of white felt (one folded in half) sewn nearly fully around, pushed inside out through the gap, stuffed with cushion filling and the hole sewn up. Not sure if it is washable to be honest. I think it probably is as most crafting felt is acrylic rather than woolen now.
We hope you enjoy your wee pressie...