Christmas Crafts...

I have been busy doing more Christmas crafts over here.

Since my last post of the handmade advent calendar I have been crafting away a few more Christmassy things.

It all started when I was Christmas shopping and whilst in a large department store, I spotted a beautiful rustic style twig star. It was a star shape made from twigs. Simple but very pretty. I was pretty shocked at the £15 price tag! I thought "Whoa! £15!! I could make that for pennies". 

So I did.

Just a few days later, I found myself trudging through snow in some local woods in search of the perfect size and shape fallen branches. I had lots to choose from again thanks to the recent Storm Arwen.

I took a bundle of sticks home and dried them off using an old tatty towel.

I then got to work with tying the twigs together with string and wrapping some battery lights around them which cost around £4 from Aldi.

Without feeling too smug I have to say that I think my star looks more rustic and natural than the one in the shop.

The only cost were the lights as I already had the string.

£15! Pah! 

Still having the itch to craft, I took myself and DD off to one of our favourite (and cheap!) charity shops.

I was deeeeeelighted to find an old style Scrabble set for £3. I pounced on it and that afternoon I was gluing the letters together! 

I also put some (dodgy!) fake snow on them (cotton wool) and attached string.

I also did my children's names with these too. 

They look pretty cool on the tree with the rest of the decorations.

I dread to think what this sort of thing would cost from somewhere like Notonthehighstreet.

Again my five hanging decorations cost £3 and that was just for the Scrabble set - I still have more letters left which I'm sure I'll use for another craft in the future.

In case I don't get a chance to write another post before Christmas, I just wanted to wish you all a very Merry Christmas in whatever way you celebrate it.

Take care,

A x 

Handmade Christmas...

The Christmas that I was expecting my daughter, I set about making her an advent calendar.

I sourced the fabric from charity shops in the form of men's shirts. I knew I wanted a red tartan fabric along with a few others and luckily I managed to nab exactly the sort of thing that I was looking for.

During the last few weeks of my pregnancy, I absorbed myself into measuring, cutting and hand stitching. I really enjoyed the process of putting it together.

It took me some weeks to complete the 25 little pockets but when I did I was quite pleased with the result. Definitely not perfect but imperfectly perfect to me.

This week whilst scrolling online I came across this picture......

It's definitely an eye opener isn't it? :( 

As a family who have drastically reduced our use of single use plastic over the last few years I knew that I wouldn't be buying my children a supermarket chocolate advent calendar.

I am not preaching to anyone here but this was just something that I personally chose not to buy.

So whilst DD was in nursery, I got to work with putting my handmade version together.

Luckily, I managed to find the perfect size branches in my garden thanks to Storm Arwen!

I then rummaged in one of my craft boxes for some string and started to glue gun the string to the pockets.

I will pop treats in each pocket which will NOT include any plastic tat but will be useful and purposeful.

I hoped that my daughter would love it as much as me and I'm pleased to say she does!

This cost pennies to make and something that I can bring out year after year. Bonus is that there is no plastic involved so a success in my books :)