Golden Christmas

The last couple of years I have been changing my Christmas style from tacky and cheap to gold and beautiful!  I just took a look through my previous Christmas posts and I am much happier with my decor this year :) I think I was trying to fit in too many pinterest projects into my unsuitable space. This year I put out all my Christmas junk as usual but after a day I had to have a re-do.  I hated all the red.  My tree is gold again like 2012 but I have no second tree for all the red stuff so I tried to use it all in the livingroom and it looked ridiculous.

  I bought a wicker tree basket after that ridiculous tree box I made that year haha.  I love the basket it was from my favourite shop Cox and Cox and I added my hessian bow.  Much better :)

I was given the crate from one of my friends and I still have no idea what I am going to do with it I just know I love it - but saw it sitting in my lobby with nothing to do and had a brain wave to put all my wrapped parcels in it.  I <3 it!!  I had envy from my sister's sledge she has laid out in her new livingroom with presents on it but I don't have enough space to have it laid out flat so this will have to do until I get a bigger house :)  

 My fireplace is much less cluttered after my changes thankfully

 With my garland and some lights I allowed some red to stay

 I have been doing some crafting - I do love a finger puppet!  Some felt Christmas puppets I made for Eliza.  I also made a set for my three Canadian cousins.

 Here is a little sample of my obsession from this year - china sets!  This one is not like any of my others so it sits away by itself but I actually like the gold - it matches my decorations all year round.

I have shared my favourite tree ornaments before but I got this new glass reindeer one today - I love my tiny glass collection!  Eliza was delighted too she loves those ones.  

 Here is her tiny ballerina

 A very dainty star

And a beautiful gold christmas tree.  

 I was in a little Danish Christmas shop the other day and they had tons and tons of trays for sale but all far too expensive for me - I found this one in a charity shop for £2!!!  I just added some of my Christmas and every day decorations and I love this.  Who needs a £40 tray??  I love charity shop finds!

 I bought some more gold baubles this year so I would have plenty to display.  I am not quite finished getting ready but it is only the 4th December.  I still have time :)

Already tonight I have taken the lids off these and added more tiny baubles

Here is a little look at my china collection - this is so pretty on its own I have not Christmased it up at all.  I love every piece on here - most of it came from my sister earlier this year for my 30th birthday but every weekend I have been to a charity shop and bought a jug or a few cups to add to it.  I also got a great bundle from someone selling their collection they had used for their wedding so I have lots of teapots now too - I think I will probably use these for the wedding next year but I have not totally decided.  At least I will use the cups for the present showing - vintage tea party how exciting!  Next year is going to be so much fun!

Under The Sea Party

My little lady is now 4!!!

Her favourite film is The Little Mermaid.  Her request was for a mermaid on a cake - it's July the best weather in the history of Scotland I want to be outside!!!   I am not good at fondant modelling and my sister and me gave up on the cake business - too time consuming and not fun anymore!  So I went for the theme of under the sea with no mermaid...am I cruel??  I think I have set myself up for a lifetime of obscure cake requests now she thinks I can do anything she wants

She was pretty happy with this but I think because she was very ill she didn't notice the lack of mermaid

 Back drops really let me down I need a better place for the party table in the kitchen.

I made a tutu type decoration because of my obsession with tulle a couple of years ago when I thought I needed it in every colour - I do love a tutu!

 I had lots of fun for this party despite the weather being so good - a basket of flower shaped watermelon

 A fish full of prawn cocktail skips

 A starfish full of chocolate krispies

 Sea turtle and fish jellies

 Fish grapes

 Treasure lollypops

 Colour themed bonbons

 Pink shrimp sweets

 Clam biscuits (my sister made these I love these for this theme!)

 Sea snail marshmallows

 Meringue shells

 Trusty top hats - they appear at every event ;)

And a treasure chest full of diamond rings, gold coins and edible jewellery

Another of my drinks dispensers - acrylic this time for the kiddies party and blue juice is hard to find!  This is bubblegum flavoured Barrs.  It looks amazing this colour for an under-water themed party.  Again with the juice though Eliza is not allowed to drink.  This is for the adults and much older kiddies :)

I didn't buy any of the dishes specifically for the party - I found the fish dishes and star dishes in the Next sale at some point over the last years and I was given the treasure chest box for my birthday year's ago.  I don't like to buy specific props for a party I just like to shop my house and my stash of weird items I have collected over the years.  It is so good when it fits a theme...or did those fish dishes start off my theme?...

And I borrowed these tiny buckets from my mum got Grant to make me some flags and filled them with sand :)

 My finger puppet obsession came to light too - and at my birthday I got a new sewing machine!  Woohoo!!!!  (Right after the Nerf Party where I was sewing ammo bags into the little hours before the party - Grant didn't think to give me the machine a week early even though he had it in the house :o  haha)

 So I got to practice with my sewing machine - much faster than hand sewing but I need to get neater!

Everyone got to take home a party bag with their three finger puppets, a lolly, a bag of sweets, a bit of chalk, some treasure, a Wham, a rubber and a loom band - I learned the inverted fishtail so I practiced lots in the nights leading up to the party 
























Not sure what next year's theme will be especially as after my poor ill Eliza on her birthday went to bed Grant proposed!  We are getting married on the 1st August next year just two weeks after Eliza's birthday!  I will have a very busy July - it is also Grant's birthday the day after Eliza so lots of celebrating!!  I will still have a party for Eliza though - I should start sewing tutus and finger puppets now though but I won't I will wait until July and sit up all night stressing about how much stuff needs done - that's how I roll :D

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Halloween Party Table

I have really been useless at the blogging!  I am so busy all of the time I have about a million projects on the go not least is WEDDING planning!!  But more of that another day I am going to do better from now on!

For Halloween 2013 we had a child friendly desserts table.  Last minute decision as always for me!!

 Not very scary but very cute!  Jessie from Toy Story outfit.  I bought some cow print material and sewed it on to a pair of jeans.  Eliza NEVER wears jeans she hates trousers in fact so seeing her in these was so weird!!  I sewed on some red details like Jessie's cowgirl shirt onto a piece of yellow felt.  I attached one side of the felt by sewing it on and the other side with velcro so she could get in and out of her shirt.  I also sewed some cuffs with red details.  I found some brown boots in Asda and a red cowgirl hat in Argos - could only get an adult one so it is pretty large but I couldn't find a red children's one and Jessie needs a red hat!  My mum knitted some red hair on a hairband for her.

Haha this is the only photo I could find of just the hair :)

Holding little Jessie

 You know I love gingerbread houses!  How to incorporate a gingerbread house into a Halloween party.....haunted house! This suit me fine because I knew I didn't have to be neat - the house sides barely even attach to the roof and the piping work has a lot to answer for but I loved this house and the tiny skeletons :)

 The desserts table is pretty rough and ready not my favourite but very last minute and it did the job for the party.

 I made little jellies with chewy sweety worms sticking out - mostly my ideas were from my pinterest board as usual. How did we survive without pinterest?

I also have a mould for pumpkin shaped jellies I love to make these every year - it was from Tesco years ago and has pretty much lost all its shape now and has to be jammed shut or there is jelly everywhere hopefully I will find a new mould at some point.

 Some real food since it was over tea time - basic party food: hot dogs, cocktail sausages, pizza. finger cheese strings :)

Nothing fancy...

A few mini cupcakes and top hats - not a lot of home made for this party since I was last minute

Eliza  Jessie choosing what she is going to have next - she loves a party and this was one of the only ones she was not ill at!

Some of the usual party games - ducking for apples :) Such a fun and messy game.  The kids had a blast.

Halloween 2014

Skip forward  a year since I am a useless blogger and I decided to have another party

The beautiful year older Eliza as an owl this year - I hot glued felt feathers all over an old hoody - this took much longer and much more felt than I imagined! 

 A little owl mask with cute little eyelashes

 I just hot glued a sheet of felt under her arms to attach more feathers to for her to flap her wings and used leg warmers Eliza already has in her stash of very cute clothing and you can't really see from this photo but I attached little felt talons to the bottom of her leggings.  She was absolutely adorable even if I do say so myself :)

 Party table 2014!
Different position and different foods this year.

 I used my plate rack after removing all of my beautiful china cups I have been collecting this year - more on that another day!

 A few homemade edibles this year...

 Ghosty meringues

 A coffin full of top hats

 Skeleton biscuits

And my first attempt at toffee apples - not my finest moment I have to admit - hot sugar crisscrossing the kitchen across my laptop recipe....misreading I needed to put the pan in hot water not cold water resulting in a set toffee with no apple...but I got there second batch and I was very happy with them.  The recipe is on my Halloween board if you want to try for yourself - just read the recipe don't do anything I do :)

 I had to use my newest drinks dispenser - I have a real obsession with these - this takes 12 litres of liquid!!!  12!!  That is a lot of orange fanta - I don't even let Eliza have juice!

This is the cran-raspberry fizz I have made before for lots of occasions - recipe on this post - the sorbet makes it really scummy on top which is great for Halloween but pretty gross looking for any other event.  I will need to see what I can do to change this recipe but the kids love it.

 Eliza asked me for a haunted house pumpkin this year - again not my best attempt (I still love the superhero pumpkin from two years ago)

 It did look cute in the dark though

 Unlike this one :( Finlay's request was a bat - the combination of a foosty pumpkin with black bits all over it and my usual last minute right when the kids are supposed to be going to bed attempt resulted in this mess.  He took it well though.  I will try harder next year!  And hopefully I will not need a blog post of two Halloweens in a row because I will keep up to date with this :)  Yeah right by next year I am going to be weddinged out of my box - how exciting!!! I am definitely keeping photos of all my projects and I am getting better with the laptop and getting my photos back out of it so I will try!


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