Festive Jar Lights
Candles and lanterns are an obligatory part of Christmas decorations, and after our success at making a stained-glass window picture, we decided to make our own lantern using the same technique.
You'll need:
- a jar
- PVA glue
- coloured tissue paper
- black paper or card
- scissors
- pencil
- candle
- Draw out the outline of your design onto black card (the festive jar lights template is here).
- Cut out the parts that will be let the light through.
- Glue coloured tissue paper to the reverse side and leave to dry.
- Wrap it around a jar and glue it into place, I used a small amount of sellotape to help hold it in place.
- Place a tealight candle insight, rest on a heatproof mat and light the candle. (Never leave a child unattended with a lit candle, or leave a candle burning unattended).
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'Counting Down To Christmas' is a craft bloggers link-up held each week in the eight weeks preceeding the big day itself. Each week we will be posting a different Christmas craft activity.
Rainy Day Mum ~ The Boy and Me ~ The Madhouse ~ Here Comes the Girls
Frosty The Snowman
When I became a mum, I will confess that a small part of me squealed at the thought of being able to dress The Boy up at specific times of the year; Hallowe'en and Christmas especially. He happily dressed up for his first two Christmasses, was incredibly reluctant last year and I had high hopes that he might have changed his mind for this Christmas.
Luckily when Jokers' Masquerade asked me if I'd like to review a Christmas costume for him, I tested the water and he was more than enthusiastic about it. He didn't stop asking when the nice man was going to send him his Christmas outfit and when it finally arrived, he was overjoyed.
This cute snowman costume is an all-in-one white jumpsuit with two black fabric 'buttons' sewn on the front, and yellow snowflakes embroidered on the torso. The jumpsuit does up with a few velcro fastenings on the back at the neckline, and The Boy finds it really easy to put it on and take it off himself. There is a red and green striped scarf made of double-folded fabric, and a black, floppy hat with green holly leaves red berries sewn on.
With a price of £10.99 (although it is currently on sale for £8.99), quite frankly this is an excellent price for such a good quality item. I've paid a similar price for a supermarket outfit which was badly made and a poor fit. I normally have to buy the next size up for The Boy, and opted for the medium (5-7 years) size based on past experience. Luckily the PR asked me to double-check the dress size against The Boy's measurements and the small (3-5 years) is the perfect fit for my tall boy, with plenty of room for it to be worn again next Christmas.
The Boy is completely delighted with this costume and doesn't stop asking if he can wear it, while trying to remember the lyrics to Frosty the Snowman. And that is endorsement enough for me!
I was sent this product for the purpose of this review, my opinion is honest and unbiased.
Cooking Ideas To Surprise Your Family This Christmas (Guest Post)
Bring some home spun-magic to Christmas day and delight and surprise the one's you love. From the present opening ritual at the crack of dawn to the adults-only wind-down supper afterwards, we let you know how to make the day go down in family history.
Rudolph Breakfast Pancakes
Surprise and delight the kids on Christmas morning with Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer pancakes. The ingredients take their inspiration from Canadian style pancakes: bacon, maple syrup, raspberries and pancake mix. The structure is simple: for each serving, use one large pancake and then put a smaller side dish-sized pancake on top. Then place a raspberry in the centre for the nose, two raspberries for eyes and position the bacon at the top like antlers. Lather with dollops of maple syrup and voilà – Rudolph gets eaten for breakfast, without needing to touch any venison!
Snowballs
Another cool idea to surprise the family is creating homemade white chocolate snowballs. Simply get a pack of marshmallows and coat them in liquid white chocolate and then roll in desiccated coconut. These ones are safe to play with indoors, and won't leave a trail of wet wellies in the hallway. For more Christmas ideas that are truly unique and delightful, check out the Vintage Christmas Ideas page on Pinterest.
The ultimate surprise
Probably the most deliciously unexpected surprise that can be given on Christmas morning is a food and wine hamper. Try ones that include cheeses, wine and chocolates for dad. Get a luxurious breakfast hamper for mum, who should be allowed a lie in now and then (probably not on Christmas morning, let's be realistic). Kids will probably like a selection of sweets and cakes in the hamper. Although ration them carefully or else they won't eat dinner. Take a look at Forman and Field hampers for an example of the ultimate surprise packages.
Party starters, movers and shakers
One way to kick off a post-dinner party once the kids have nodded off to sleep on Christmas night – is to introduce more adult food and drink into the equation. Try blinis with smoked salmon and vodka infused crème fraîche, and trifle infused with brandy and Frangelico. Perhaps a trend is building here. The complementary plonk should be light and bubbly. Try champagne cocktails with lychees and chilli Bloody Marys. After a day of shrieking and yahooing from the children, this kind of supper will be music to the ears. Christmas food hampers offer a great selection of sumptuous foods that make a wind-down supper go smoothly, like mulled wine at midnight.
Wednesday 12th December 2012 – 'A Glitter Snow World' (347/366)
Tuesday 11th December 2012 – 'Message From Santa' (346/366)
Monday 10th December 2012 – 'Exhaustion' (345/366)
This is the second time in a few weeks that he has fallen asleep in the car and we've had to carry him in to sleep in our arms. The Boy still naps during the day, much to many parents 'disgust' or disbelief, and I find myself having to justify my decision to them, it makes me cross. Occasionally on weekend, if we're busy, we don't allow him to nap so that we can carry on enjoying our family time together. On Monday when I was out with mum we did that, having also done it on Saturday. He was completely exhausted and fell asleep within minutes in the car on the journey home. Today he is very poorly because of over-tiredness.
This is why my son still naps during the day.
Sunday 9th December 2012 – 'Mister Mixer' (344/366)
The Gallery: It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas
I seem to be running short of time to do The Gallery most weeks at the moment and to my shame, I had no idea what the theme was this week until Tara's e-mail dropped into my inbox at 6pm this evening. When I glanced at the theme I knew that I'd be able to easily take part as I'd uploaded these photos last night to Instagram.
For me, it always feels that Christmas is on the way when we get our 6 foot high and 4 foot wide Christmas tree out of the attic and assemble it on the first weekend of December. This is the gold, red and wooden decoration tree and the main one of the house. It's a big family affair decorating this tree with my doing the top, The Boy doing the bottom (under a teenie-weenie bit of direction) and Mr. TBaM doing the back.
These are my favourite decorations on the tree:
A mixture of twee characters, home-made wreaths by The Boy and the robin which always nestled in my own childhood Christmas tree. I've bought The Boy one to have on his tree in the future.
Carefully unwrapping the treasures of Christmasses past is such a joy; watching The Boy discover his own decorations which we have bought him every Christmas brings back a rush of memories from each festive season.
Hopefully his future partner will like the decorations and allow him to use them on their tree when he's an adult!
Incidentally, I'm trying to start a hashtag on Instagram so I can have a nosey at the glitz and glamour on other trees. I'd love it if you'd join in? Search on #showmeyourdecorations.
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Christmas Tree Stained-Glass Window
A few months ago I posted about our stained-glass butterfly picture and it proved very popular with both The Boy and people reading my blog. The picture stayed up until a month ago when the tissue paper had faded too much to be effective.
We've made a Christmas tree version for the festivities and I wanted to share it.
You can find a christmas tree stained glass window template here if interested.
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