Last minute table decorations, rag-rugging, Christmas 'stocking' decorating, the Christmas tree, and other December activities

Just time for some last-minute making of table decorations.

During a quick trip to the local park this morning we - er - "borrow" some holly, leylandii and ivy.

Using a potato as a base (instead of florist's foam) the potato is wrapped in foil. The kids use a barbecue skewer to make holes before poking in the greenery.

Some garden wire and bows made of leftover ribbon give it a more professional look.

While scrabbling around in the loft I re-discovered some rag-rugging attempts.

This week the kids have started their own rag rugs. These will probably end up in the loft after Christmas, but perhaps one day they'll be finished.

In the afternoon the kids decide to decorate small hessian onion bags with felt and ribbon shapes to make Christmas 'stockings'.

And yesterday we celebrated ds1's 14th birthday. No photos allowed on here (by his request. Where did my little boy go? ;)


In the past week or two...

Dd decides to make a cat tile to go with our others that reappeared during our pre-Christmas tidy up.

We sow cress, mustard, broccoli and alfalfa sprouting.

The Christmas tree gets decorated

Ds1 makes this year's Christmas cake. Now marzipanned, but still to be iced.

The kids open some discounted body parts (models)

Intestine-man causes some problems, but eventually we jam in all his internal organs and shut them in with his ribs. (No doubt at some time in the near future his ribs will give way and fire his guts across the room).

More microscopy

And at the beginning of December, a Christmas fencing team competition

Easy Peasy Christmas bunting

We were in need of some new Christmas decorations and were shown how to make these by another home edder at a home ed group. Really really easy bunting!

First cut squares out of scraps of material. We used pinking shears to reduce fraying, but ordinary scissors are fine too (and the fraying just makes them look authentically rustic!).
The squares don't have to be a particular size (2-3 inches square works fine with thinner fabrics, you can go larger with stiffer fabric (light fabric tends to flop a bit if squares are large, as we discovered!). Vary the sizes and don't worry about making the squares precise unless you are totally retentive.


We used mostly free fabric swatches (checked and silk furnishing fabric samples) so the material was stiffer and worked well.



Use an ordinary running thread to sew diagonally across the square. We used our hand-cranked sewing machine which is evil, but easier for the kids to control than my equally evil electric one. Don't fasten off, just keep going.

Sew a couple of stitches after you come off the diagonal point and then tuck the next square in and carry on going. Having a couple of stitches between squares helps them to twist and spin a little.



We found some shiny fabric and popped that in as well to make it look a bit more Christmassy.


When you get to the end of all your squares just do a few stitches back the other way and fasten off.

You can choose to have short bunting strands and hang them vertically, or do like we've done and make a super-long string of them to go across the room in a zig zag.

The photos don't do them justice, but you get the idea.

Like I said - easy peasy! (And a good way to use up those not-so-nice fabric scraps that you can't bear to throw away)


(Spot the lovely hanging paper Christmas tree we got from Wilkos this year only £1!)

This year's bunting hung above last year's strings of pot pourri and little hand-sewn padded hearts:

Apart from exploding pressure cookers...

We've been

visiting a local archaeology & art museum:


making Christmas decorations at home ed group:


Christmas fencing:
enjoying late night 'Light Night':
eating candyfloss:

Why I never appear to get anything done...

...and why my house is always messy.

It's because I find things like these (see below) kicking around the house. Dd's 'Christmas' lights were hanging from her bed for several years until they started behaving strangely in December and we replaced them with some boring but cheap lantern alternatives.

So this bundle of lights has been sitting on the windowledge at the top of the stairs for at least 2 months now. Waiting for some purpose.



Instead of doing all the essential things I should have done today, I set about cutting the wires and making the dysfunctional lights into little perspex Christmas decorations.


The leftover wire I cut and bundled up as garden ties or general use.


To be added to one of my many piles of boxes of 'useful' things...

Which is why I don't have a tidy house and never seem to get around to doing all those things I probably should be doing.

I had finished cutting up all the bits of wire, had put them safely away in boxes and was feeling frugally and resourcefully smug. That is, until dh came in and said 'Oh. I could have mended those. It was only a loose connection'

ARrrrrggghhh!!!!

I did mutter something about the fact that if that was the case then why had they been sat on a windowsill untouched for more than 2 months...and how he'd told me that once led lights go wrong there's no point trying to fix them...and something along the lines of 'if you'd told me that I wouldn't have cut them into little pieces and bought dd a replacement set of lights' in a polite restrained manner.

[Obviously although we live in the same house we reside in parallel uncommunicating universes and there are times when the everyday sentences that come out of my mouth slip straight under the male radar (because men really are from Mars) and disappear into intergalactic worm holes.]

'Never mind they were only cheap, you can get some more'

'Er actually no. They were expensive and we've looked everywhere and can't get replacements.'

So much for resourcefulness!

But, on the brighter side. Dd has been drawing:

And the kids brought back these free kits from our local science festival

The finished result

Engine meets Spaniel.

It's that time of year...

Ding dong (couldn't think of a better title)

Oooh...did I sound a bit Bah Humbug yesterday?Sorry. Winter gloom 'n' all that.

Well, Advent Calendars up. Kids offered to fill them with chocolate coins. I noticed that dd has stuffed several of her pockets with more than one coin...I wonder how long it will take for the boys to cotton on to this. Got the kids' Christmas trees down from the loft (a couple of years ago I bought them little ones for their room for some strange reason which I've now forgotten). I'm yet to get the rest of the decorations out of the loft. Perhaps that's because I don't feel quite ready yet: I like the house to be at least part tidy and decluttered before it has the optical overload of tinsel, lights and streamers.

I've wrapped some presents. Still a fair few to go. Best to do these things in short bursts. I still have a few things to buy/make, but getting there. I'm knitting hats at the moment, hoping to do the kids two each (different colours), which I will sew together to make one single thick reversible hat. Well that's the theory. I'm using double thickness of some skinny-but-nice wool from our local scrapstore (I think it's Rowan, so yes, it's nice) and a pattern for hats knitted with chunky wool. Well with different thickness yarn and pattern the sizing is a bit hit-and-miss, but hey, the good thing about wolly hats is that they stretch! So one hat finished (sort of blue-grey with coloured flecks in it) and one on the needles (green with coloured flecks). Deadline approaching.

And I' ve made a load of candles. Well dd and I have made candles. They do look quite cool. Now I just need to persuade the boys to sew some material gift bags together for me to pop them in.

All in all, not bad in the preparation department.

Will post up some photos soon.

p.s. just found a wonderful blog with a fab idea for making pixie hats, really simple and quick. Look here for instructions :http://mamauktalesfromwales.blogspot.com/2009/02/10-minute-pixie-hat.html
with more pictures in this post: http://mamauktalesfromwales.blogspot.com/2009/12/pot-spills-over-plus-giveaway.html

Now how's about that for a Christmas present!

Not sure my mum and dad would wear one (or even the kids), but they look so fab I might make myself one!

The C word.

Christmas of course! (whatever else it was you were thinking, wipe that thought off right now!)

For the past 3 weeks the kids have been nagging me to get the advent calendars up, and yes, in true form, the advent calendars are still in the loft. Well, except for the one that needs mending which is still in the pile in my bedroom, awaiting repair.

Long ago when ds1 was little I protested about buying advent calendars each year and instead purchased material calendars with little pockets that I fill with little chocolate coins. In my day of course, we didn't have anything as luxurious as chocolate coins inside our advent calendars and had to settle with being excited about opening a cardboard door to see a little picture inside. You know the thing, robins, angels, a piece of holly, something weird that might or might not have been a donkey. And there was always a baby Jesus in a manger behind no.24 door (yawn). Often we would peek at days that we weren't meant to have opened and then try and close the door again so noone would notice. Sometimes we would peek at each others and then moan because the other sibling had a better picture in no.17 (or something similar). We even kept advent calendars from one year to the next, so we'd have the excitement of seeing all the same pictures again...and again...and again...until the cardboard doors fell off. You have to understand that we lived in a small village in the country and there wasn't a huge amount of entertainment :)

But this is now a fast-paced world, where even my kids (and I) have succumbed to the wonders of the computer, digital tv, the Wii and nintendo ds. For the past 2 years I've done pretty much all my Christmas shopping on the internet now. Mind you, if you've ever tried doing 'secret' Christmas shopping in a busy shop with 3 children in tow, then you'll understand the temptation of the internet (oh the strained life of a home educator - without the luxury of free nationally-sponsored child care) . Not to mention how much easier it is to compare prices online (remember the days when we actually had to visit all those high street shops to compare the prices of what we wanted to buy??).

But does this internet shopping save me money? Well yes. And no. Mostly no. I mean, there's almost TOO much choice when I look online. And then when I visit sites such as the fabulous http://www.hotukdeals.com/ and see all those bargains and vouchers, well, in the end I probably spend just as much, if not more. But at least I can do it without small child pulling on my sleeve, or begging for sweets, or pushing ALL the buttons on ALL the electronic toys in the aisle, or decided to rampage through the photo booth and climb on the Thomas the Tank engine toddler ride (and that's just my 10 yr old!).

Now where was I? Oh yes, Christmas.

I think I need to summon up the energy to put decorations up. Normally I've peaked by now and am well up for a bit of tinsel and baubles, but winter drabness has settled in with its usual symptoms.

And it's probably not helped by me being here at work, where their idea of decorating for Christmas is to hang some old CDs ('Index to Legal Periodicals' in case you wanted to know) in front of my desk on skinny red plastic ribbons. Every now and then I get the irresistable urge to blow at them and send them waving around...ok, I confess, I'm actually attempting to tangle them, but with no success so far. Oh, and there's also a poor scrawny artificial tree that has been drowned in those little tinsel strips and some depressed-looking baubles. Is it possible for baubles to look depressed? Trust me, yes.

Anyway, soon I'll be home and perhaps I might even get around to mending that advent calendar...