Maybe Christmas means a little bit more...

I am one of five sisters and this year was the first year we have decided not to get presents for each other. I decided that I would make something instead, something that doesn't cost a lot but means a lot.
I had borrowed my mums photograph album of when we were all little a while back with every intention of scanning them in but never had got around to it. So I set to work on scanning them all in its quite a laborious and tedious task so I started in the summer holidays and finished it in half term. I was just going to put them on a cd then give one to each of my sisters but one of the teachers who I work with always makes a video montage of the children's time in infants and plays it to Take That's 'Never Forget' its lovely and there is not a dry eye in the house when it is played at the school concert at the end of the year, so I decided to do something very similar, using photo story 3 which is easy to download onto the computer I set to work making a DVD that would display photos of us throughout the years all to the sound of Take That's Never Forget. It's very straight forward then you burn it onto a DVD it's fantastic. The final part of my gift was packaging I took some old CD cases, printed a old picture of each of my sisters and a group photo of all of us and mum for my mums to stick in the front of the case, this would act as the label to tell me who each one was for, then I made a label to go with each on each with a quote from 'The Grinch' which summed it up perfectly. 'Maybe Christmas doesn't come from a store maybe Christmas perhaps means a little bit more'

Handmade Christmas

This year I wanted to really get into decorating the house for Christmas as well as using old favourites to decorate the tree I wanted to add more that I had made myself.
I started with the tree , most years I decide on a theme and stick to it duck egg blue features highly in my lounge so on previous years I have had red and gold with blue, but last year I was given some small vintage style baubles as a present from one of the children's parents at school. This gave me the inspiration for this years tree , they were small, one was gold, purple, red, orange and green made out of crackled glass. I wanted my tree to be colourful like these. So first step- lights I had coloured lights instead of the usual white. I keep some of my old baubles but added more different coloured ones luckily I was able to borrow some off my mother in law who bought new baubles near enough every year and had lots to choose from I also borrowed some quite retro looking lantern decorations which reminded me of some we had as a child I was told that these were older than me!
I also had some old favourites that I had picked up along the way. My glass stars/snowflakes I bought from Jo Downs glass in St Ives, the two handcrafted snowmen I bought from the Christmas markets in Manchester, the Father Christmas and angel I bought from Woolworth's for our first tree in our new house 9 years ago and a little Venetian glass angel given as a present off a friend from her holiday in Italy. I also added this year a handmade decoration to remind us of the year we got Max. A little felt Max the red nose reindeer decoration.
I like to look at a tree and remember the different stories that go with each one.

I also made some crochet snowflakes to hang in the windows, some small ones and big ones and next year I'll do more. Pinterest has been a massive inspiration for Christmas decoration ideas I pinched an idea for hanging candy canes with ribbon and a garland over the kitchen window, I also got an idea for making a driftwood tree that I stuck on to a canvas and put battery operated lights. The driftwood I collected on a beach in Anglesey when we went camping in May at the time my sister slated me for collecting it but even she had to admit it looked pretty good.
I also had a party and made bacon wrapped sausage rolls or pigs in duvets as I like to call them! I made my own mince pies and snowmen cakes.
It has all been time consuming and hard work at times but in the end it all looks good..I'm actually wishing I could decorate the house the whole year around because it gives me an excuse to be creative.