Getting ready for Christmas

So there's only 24 days to go until Christmas, time to start getting organised.  I've bought my new decorations for the year but I haven't started decorating yet, that's this weekend's job.

This year I've been trying to get our Christmas shopping done early for a few reasons, mainly because I hate Christmas shopping with 6 billion other people in the week before Christmas and also for budget reasons.

I am feeling pretty organised so far although both G and I come from pretty big families so we have a few presents to buy/make. The main thing is though I have written my list and I know what I'm buying for about 90% of the presents and that definitely makes it a lot easier.

Now I need to work out what baking I need to do, and get organised for our trip to Melbourne.

I'm going to keep my tally here, so I feel super-organised. I have 29 presents to buy and so far I have 13 all done and another 5 half done.  Go me!

What I've been up to...

This is why Christmas gets here so fast, it's been 2 weeks since my last post and I feel like it was a couple of days ago.

I have been doing a little Christmas sewing, one little pencil roll anyway.  But I am not too stressed, yet!

And we're still getting through birthdays around here. Yesterday we celebrated my little cousin's 4th birthday party in their local park.

We had lots of fun running around, playing cricket and boccee and swinging on swings.

I decided Matilda had nothing suitable to wear to a park party on a hot November day so I finally made this dress I've been wanting to try for awhile.

It's a little bit big, but I think if I adjust the straps it will be all good. It's also a lot more pink and cutsie than normal but I loved the Japanese material in the main dress so much (I bought it awhile ago from Funky Fabrix) and pink just seemed to go so well with it, so pink it is.  

My mum's birthday is on Tuesday and my sister's is on Wednesday and then it's full steam ahead on Christmas.

We also celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary last week and G bought me some beautiful peonies, I think we made a wise decision getting married in peony season despite the heat and storms.

3 more weeks until we head off for Melbourne for Christmas, I am going to try posting a lot more regularly again for those 3 weeks at least. (That also means 3 more weeks until my 20 week scan eek, but then we find out if we're having a pink or blue bean, yay! Just before Christmas too - picking names should be a good topic to discuss on our 3 day drive down to Melbourne).

Thiry-One

Yesterday was my birthday, I am 31.  I am officially and old married woman with child now. Not that I mind.

I had a lovely day that started with a breakfast of scones made by Matilda and G. Followed by lots of visits from family and friends, I was very spoiled.

And speaking of birthdays, today I finished my last handmade birthday present due before Christmas. I made this little tutu and little headwear/crowny thingy for a little girl who is turning 4 in a couple of weeks - that's right people I finished a project before the actual birthday!! Quite proud of myself for that really.

Hope you are also having a lovely weekend.

I am a birthday present making machine.

I finished another present today.  So proud of myself.

However I have yet to do any baking for the cafe tomorrow, but let's focus on the positives.

This little pencil roll and the Hungry Caterpillar colouring in book on their way to a little 2 year old, again in Melbourne.  This time it's only one week late.  Seriously proud.

And on the inside...

I don't think either of the recipient's mums read my blog regularly enough to find out before the parcels arrive, but if you do and you know who you are - act surprised when you get them :)

Before i can even think about Christmas...

I have eight birthdays to get through, one of them being very important (my own!).  Not to mention the 6 coming up in the two weeks following.  I am making presents for three of them so I'm hoping I can get them finished in the next few days so I can move onto the list of things I want to make for Chrissy.

Two of them are actually already late but that's ok, people have come to expect that of me.  Is that bad?

Anywhoo, I finished one of them this morning.  This one is the most late, it's for a friend's little girl in Melbourne who turned one about a month ago, oopsies.  I am off to wrap it up straight away though so she can head off in the post tomorrow.

I bought the pattern for the Happy Chibi Girl from this girl a little while ago and am so happy I've finally got around to making it! I love her little shoes. 

I want to make Matilda a doll for Christmas too, but now I can't decide whether to make her a Chibi, a Poppy or an Olive.

Final craft night of 2009

Oops I didn't mean to disappear like that.  Seriously, what happened to the last couple of weeks?

This Tuesday just gone was our last craft night of 2009, our Christmas 'break-up' (think primary school) if you will.

Of course we decided we would all have to do a Christmassy craft, so we all made some soft Christmas trees using this tutorial.   That lace is an old tablecloth of my Grandma's that my Grandpa was throwing out about a year ago and since a few of my auntys/cousins are fellow crafters a few of us made trees out of the lace with natural linen underneath so we all had a little tree to remember our Grandma by each Christmas.

Here's the 2 trees I made. We gave the big one to my Grandpa so he could have one too.  These trees really are so quick and easy to make.

My little tree goes well with the two I made last year, and I'm happy with my little set now. In case you're wondering, the small tree is the same size as the one in the pattern, the middle tree is enlarged 130% and the big tree is enlarged 163%, which just fits on an A3 piece of paper.

As per usual some slightly decadent (and this time, Christmassy) food was required for craft night so we ate turkey with cranberry and water chestnut stuffing and cinnamon and vanilla blancmange for desert.

The biscuits are meant to be decorated with edible gold leaf to make them extra special... and we tried. You could hardly see it on the biscuits though. I am not sure how you are meant to apply it, but the only way we could get it on was basically to rub the biscuit onto the gold leaf. Any one used this successfully before?

Finally, to complete our Christmas celebrations little presents were in order.  We made up little recipe booklets for everyone that includes the recipes for all our craft night meals.

We finished them off with covers made from Heather Bailey's scrapbook paper (from Spotty) and some pretty blue or green bakers twine that I bought at Mathilda's Market last weekend.

I actually have 3 spare copies, so if anyone wants one (not that they're that exciting) just tell me in a comment that you want one and I'll email you to get your details, first in best dressed. (Make sure I can get your email from your profile or email me your email address after you've left a comment).

And I was very spoiled and was given this beautiful bunch of flowers for hosting craft nights.  I think I am going to miss them.. we're on a break now until the first Tuesday in Feb.  See you then crafters!