Snowflake Cookies

My mother gave me an early Christmas present, she knows I like to do a lot of baking for Christmas. Love the packaging and the cookie cutter!

There was a lot of butter in this recipe, plus one egg and whatever was in the supplied mixture.

I had imagined they would turn out to be shortbread but they were actually very similar to cookies made with a biscuit press that I remember as a child.

Thanks Mum!

Faux Suede Platypus

This is the Faux Suede Platypus that fits on a swatch, my project for December 17. He was designed a while back with the others in my Cut & Sew animals that fit on a swatch collection. This time I stitched him by machine and the only slightly tricky thing was turning his feet through.

Festive Nutcracker

Over the last two days I have been working on a design for the Nutcracker contest at Spoonflower. This design co-ordinates with my Scandinavian style cut and sew designs. Now just to decide on which colourway to enter.

Bobby Bunny

This little project is another mini animal on a swatch I designed a few months back. As with Pumpkin Cat the arms and legs would have been difficult to turn through so Bobby Bunny is stitched with blanket stitch. Bobby Bunny is printed on the faux suede so fraying is not really a problem.

Felt Trees

My project for Saturday the 13th were felt trees. These look great with a chain of felt pom-poms hanging on a bare branched tree.

Felt Bird Decoration

For December 12 I finished making this little felt bird that was started last year. Some days are pretty busy so I was just happy to get this done. Hopefully a few more of these will be finished before Christmas.

Felt Toadstool Decoration

My project for today it this little felt toadstool decoration. I hope to make more of these before Christmas.

Winter Wilderness

My project for the last two days was a design for the latest Spoonflower contest, Winter Wilderness.

My original illustration.

This is the colourway I entered. My son said there needed to be a fox so one was added, as well a few other little changes to add contrast.

Photo Books, Nutcrackers and Zipper Pouches

My project for Monday the 8th were photo books which will be Christmas gifts for family. Each year I get them done at Snapfish for the grandparents, this year I also made a special Christmas book from Christmas 2013 at Torquay for each of my brothers.

 Here are a few other things that were made recently and will be soon wrapped as gifts for family and friends.

These zipper pouches are made from my Toadstools and Tiny Creatures collection available at Spoonflower.

These nutcrackers are part of the Festive Cut and Sew panel also available in my Spoonflower shop.

Paper Houses

Paper Sweets Houses are my project for December 7th. These are based on my Scandinavian Cut and Sew Festive patterns. I thought it would be fun to make a little house and fill it with chocolate truffles or gingerbread as gifts, they can also hang on the tree.

Pumpkin the Cat

Pumpkin the cat was my project for December 6th. A while ago I designed a few animals that fit on a swatch of faux suede, Pumpkin is based on the cut and sew pattern for Scary Kitty which fits on a yard with My Little Zombie Dolly. As the pattern for this kitty is quite small I decided to use blanket stitch so that I didn't have to turn the arms and legs through.

Gift Tags and Cards

For a creative project on Friday the 5th of December I decided to make some cards and tags from my Scandinavian style cut and sew designs.

Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies

For the 4th of December we did some creative cooking and made chocolate gingerbread cookies. The boys had visitors after school and this was a fun thing to do and eat.

CHOCOLATE GINGERBREAD

300g plain flour

50g cocoa powder

1 teaspoon ground ginger

120g butter

120g brown sugar

140g golden syrup

Combine everything and process in a food processor. When it comes together take out in portions and place between two sheets of baking paper and roll out to approximately 3 mm thick. Cut with cookie cutters (we used a bell for the reindeer's face) then remove excess cookie dough and slide the baking paper onto a tray.

Bake approximately 12 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius.

We used a mini m&m for the nose and pretzels for the antlers.

This is a great tasting recipe for adults and older children but little ones may not find it sweet enough, maybe because of the high quantity of cocoa.

Felt Robot Decoration

My project for December 3rd is a felt robot decoration for my son Jimmy. It did take a little longer than I expected as there is more stitching than on the fox.

Little Felt Fox

Creative project for December 2nd is a little felt fox decoration. My youngest son loves foxes so this will be his decoration, maybe I will make a robot decoration for his brother in the next day or so. 

Advent Calendar

During December I am going to attempt to do something creative each day, either a Christmas project with the kids, or new design, a home made gift, finishing off an existing project or just some creative cooking. My project for December 1st was an advent calendar for my children.

Firstly I had collected a range of small toys and sweets, the little halo figures were a great buy as they were out on special for a dollar each. Some days they will have a little gift and other days a small candy cane or chocolate coin.

 The wrapping took way longer than I expected, fifty little presents because they are having one calendar on each of their doors. I used some white and red envelopes as well as silver and gold paper, there was no time to add too many details as I was rushing before they got home from school.

They were pretty excited to open the first one which was a little halo figure. 

Not too many problems with them sticking to the door although the gold paper is a bit tricky and we had to use extra tape.

Adelaide Christmas Pageant 2014

One of the highlights every November for our children is the Credit Union Christmas Pageant in Adelaide. We have been going for at least the past eight years and then before that I went as a child with my family. It has changed a lot over the years but here are a few highlights from this year.

Tea Towel Calendar Win

This year it was very exciting to win the tea towel calendar contest at Spoonflower. I am very grateful to everyone that voted and also to all those who have bought one of the four designs in the series that I designed featuring four different environments forest, desert, sea and jungle. 

The four designs are also available together on one yard and designed to print on cotton-linen as it is a wider of fabric and most suitable for tea towels.