Festive fun

First of all, I would like to thank everyone who has ordered from my new shop, I hope that your orders reached you ok, and you are happy with them.

As my last sewing order has been delivered, I can now chill out a bit and enjoy the run up to christmas without feeling guilty that I should be working instead of having fun.

So in the last couple of days, I've been doing a bit of crafting for myself and Ella, which is nice to get back to, because although I love sewing, and love that it's part of my work, it does tend to get a bit repeatative, when your doing the same thing over and over.

On Sunday my sister came home from uni, and I went over to Mum and Dad's to 'Do The Decs'. So Libby, Mum and I, with a little help from Ella got the christmas music going and set to work on decorating the tree. You'll never guess, all the lights worked! Hurrah, this was a good christmas sign, and apart from a little bit of gold bead untangling, and dad complaining after realising that mum had given me their pale duck egg blue baubles, because they match my living room, things went quite smoothly.

For lunch we had homemade chicken soup made from the roast chicken that we had the night before, which was very yummy, and Danny who finally made an appearance (he watched the boxing that night or should I say morning) took Ella to see his dad, so that left me child free for the rest of the afternoon, so Mum, Libs, and I set to work on make some mince pies, and I could be a daughter, rather than a mother for a while. I don't know about you, but sometimes I like to revert to my childhood, when life was much simpler, and the only worry I had was bickering with my siblings!

My aim in life for Ella is to try and recreate some of those moments in my childhood, that I remember with fondness, like baking, and making things with Mum, days out on my own with Dad doing 'grown-up' things, like going to his favourite antiques shop in Hertford, and getting a special treat for behaving nicely.

So with that idea in mind and my most pressing jobs all done, I wanted to spend this week doing some 'nice' things with Ella, and give her some memories to look back on, except things don't always go according to plan do they!

Tuesday morning we set about constructing the 'flat-pack' gingerbread house that I bought from Ikea, and it was a bit of a messy start to say the least.

It said on the box to stick it together with melted sugar, ok, I thought, I can do that, so, sugar in the saucpan, melted, ok, right, how to get it on gingerbread from pan, knife maybe? Lets try, mmm.., bit messy, - by the time the melted sugar went from pan to cold knife to gingerbread it had already set so wouldn't stick the two bits together. Ok, plan B, dip edges in pan and stick together swiftly, yes, that seems to work, ohhh, until you get to the last corner, what next, how about..., ahh yes this wooden kebab stick, so about an hour later, and with sploges and stringy bits of harden melted sugar all over me, the hob and the worksurfaces, eventually the house was complete.

However all this time, Ella has been standing next to me on her stool, saying 'can I do some', 'when can I help', etc and me saying, and getting more stressed, but trying to stay calm, 'In a minute' (my favourite sentence) 'careful darling, this sugar is very hot!', 'I'm nearly finished, and then you can help me decorate it with sweets', and finally resorting to 'why don't I put cbeebies on for a bit while I finish putting this together'.

Next step, the decorating of the house, this went slighty better, as I iced, I got her to stick the sweeties on, working well, good, this is fun, that is until Danny arrives home early from work, and for Ella, all things gingerbread go out the window, while she cuddles and plays with Daddy, Oh well, never mind, I had fun finishing it off anyway, it even has a curly-wurly fence, and it smells absolutely delicious!

Yesterday, I finally got round to getting the tree, and in the morning, before nursery, Ella and I decorated it, after a half and hour of moving all the furniture around, and struggling with the stand to try and get the bloody thing to stand straight!
I'm not that happy with it this year, when I got it home and in the stand it looks a bit lopsided from some angles, but I suppose thats just the way with a real tree.
I always have trouble with the tree, because we don't really have a good spot for it, no corners available, due to the fact we have a corner sofa, and two many doors! so it has to go on a table, against a wall, not ideal, but I have to have one.

The glass star baubles are my new purchase for this year, not cheap at £2.99 each, but I limited myself to three.

The other day I got an urge to make a pomander so I spent the evening on the sofa sticking cloves into and orange, with Danny looking at me funnily, here's how the conversation went:
'what are you doing'
'making a pomander'
'what's that then'
'it's an orange with cloves stuck in it, it smells all lovely and christmassy'
'bit of a waste of an orange isn't it'

Mmmm...., men just don't understand, well mine doesn't anyway.

Hope the run up to christmas is going well, or as best as it can for you lot, Good Luck!!!