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.