Christmas Crafting

I have been so busy this week!  It was my sister's birthday and we had a day out and a night out!!  We went to places we have not seen for years! Places we could not possibly take 4 children.  And it was AMAZING!  Craft shop, out for dinner, Christmas gift shops and out for TWO cuppies!!  We had to fit in everything we never get to do into one day :) All the gift shops were Christmas decorated it was like a real life pinterest :) Came home with tons of ideas and some new decorations for my tree...

 Here are my two little elf "helpers"...

oops I mean here :) 

(The Finlay elf was a present from my friend a few years ago so I made Eliza one when she came along :))

This tree I actually hated once it was up so I went to buy a better one :) 

 All gold this year...my usual red and gold was not pinteresting enough :) 

I tried this bow for the bottom of the tree since the tree skirt I usually use is red but it still looked too rubbish so I came up with my own idea for hiding the stand

I saw these in the shop the other day and had to have them - endless possibilities :) 

Then I drew round my Christmas cutters (I have a million cutters - I have an addiction to buying them and have still  not found a way of storing them that I like - any ideas??)

I used my Sharpie bronze and gold pens to colour in the shapes - all on my favourite BROWN paper!

 I covered a box in my decorated paper and hid the stand for the tree inside.  I cut a hole in the top for the tree to fit into the stand.  (I really wish I had done this BEFORE I decorated the tree!!!)

So here it is.  Not the best idea in the world but tree skirts are DEAR! I will think about a solution for next year but this year this is how it looks.  

Here are a few of my favourite Christmas tree decorations...

Glass Christmas tree with gold decoration

Little gold tipped glass star

Finlay's little elf hat bought for him from his Granny and Grandad when we were all in Canada (where my sister surprised us with getting married in a helicopter over Niagara Falls!) The colours don't match my tree but it still made it on because it holds a lovely story :) 

Beautiful little glass ballerina with gold pumps I bought for Eliza's first Christmas

Little glass snowman which Finlay picked when he was a little boy

And I re-homed the bow from the base to the top :) 

  


















The rest of my tree is made up of mostly old but a few new gold hanging decorations - all the red decorations are now hanging (practically all on one branch!!) on the old tree, which I put in the lobby for the kids to decorate so they would keep off my beautiful gold dust tree! 

What do you think Eliza?  Isn't it beautiful?

"Hmm, just a few tweaks Mummy..."

"Now it's perfect!"

Next I started on the window...I saw a pin for a candy cane window and I remembered about it but did not remember to check the actual pin so I attached them to one long ribbon whereas the pin has each candy cane on an individual ribbon and looks MUCH better!  This looked too pathetic.

So I replaced it with this...I did see a pin for this I am sure but it doesn't seem to be on my board and I didn't check my board anyway as we have already seen :) 

I didn't have many gold baubles left but just enough for a small vase with a Merry Christmas ribbon

And on to my fireplace

I bought the lovely garland from my day trip with my sister and spruced it up with some lights, baubles, cinnamon and candy canes and I hung my Love, laughter and friends sign up that I bought a few weeks ago.

Also bought this wreath a few weeks ago (I blame pinterest for all my spending this year!)

And I made a Santa wreath for the fireplace and decorated it with holly (I never use the fire don't worry!)  The wreath I made out of a mini foam wreath wrapped in red wool with a black ribbon and white tulle.  To the black ribbon I added a silver sequin ribbon (using my glue gun) to make a belt.  I had seen something similar here but changed it a bit.

I also made this tiny little wreath with bells - using a shower curtain hook wrapped in red wool and a little Christmas ribbon.  I saw this in a pin too 

Tonight me and Finlay made some new decorations to add here - little Santa baubles.  We saw these in a magazine I had cut out the page and saved it last year but I am much more crafty this year than last!  We took some of the plain red baubles from the children's tree and painted a black band round them for the belt and a yellow buckle which we sprinkled in gold glitter.  Finlay is going to give his teacher one of these for her Christmas tree.  I really like them - so simple!

Next my display area needed Christmasising.  Lots of reds and some of my good old Christmas decorations. 

And my trifle bowl had a makeover - got lots of lentils needing re-homed now :)

Some red baubles under my cloche (cloche ♥ !!)

The candy cane banner from the window was moved over to here

And some lights to make it even more Christmassy! 

My milk bottles also had a little Chrstmas makeover - I got these last Christmas from my sister and I usually have a purple gingham ribbon on them and the little glass hearts so I changed the ribbon for a Christmas theme.

Heart berry wreath (bought not made :) 

And some gold stems added to my big vase and a little hearts wreath decoration hanging from it.

So that's it.  I made a wire hanger today too but that is for a food craft I have coming soon :)  How are all your homes looking now?  All ready for Christmas?  My sister said she is going to come round one day and not be able to find me through all my decorations:) Thankfully I am working tomorrow so can't make any more decorations!  

Follow me on pinterest to see some of the ideas I plan to borrow next :)