Making table decorations for my pre-Christmas lunch

 
I enjoyed myself, this past week, doing a little craft project. I decided to make Christmas cracker boxes for my pre-Christmas lunch table. Ones that I could fill with little treats and Christmas jokes for each of our guests.

I had thought of buying Christmas crackers from the shops, but the contents are never much good. So, instead I searched through hundreds of ideas on Pinterest, my go-to website for ideas on things to make. 

This little template appealed to me. It didn't link to a webpage, there was only the template with no instructions. But I managed to follow instructions from other pins for Christmas crackers to assemble it.

I re-sized the image and printed it onto glossy photopaper, one cracker box per page. 

It was easy to cut out with scissors, but I used a craft knife to cut out the internal diamond shapes. Then I folded the paper along the dotted lines and glued the tabs to the opposite side to form a tube.

I bought some thin red ribbon and tied a bow around the diamond ended parts which made it look like a Christmas cracker.

I left the bottom ends open so that I could fill each Christmas cracker box with Christmas chocolates and also Christmas jokes, which I printed from the internet. 

Then I closed the ends with a tiny dab of glue, so that the cracker boxes could be easily opened up to get the treats out.

Now I still need to iron my newly washed white tablecloths and napkins. And sort out my placemats, cutlery and dishes that I will be using. There is no hurry to do this as I still have 11 days to get ready.

The menu and the shopping list have been sorted, presents all wrapped and Christmas cards written. 

I have assembled the large Christmas tree, which needs the lights and decorations to be put on. For some reason it feels like a bit of an effort to do this year. Maybe it's just because it is so hot at the moment.

But I have decorated my little Christmas tree on my bedside table with vintage ornaments and some of the little paper house decorations that I made for the dining table last year.

And I have tidied up my desk and made it look Christmassy 🎄

I hope that you are enjoying yourself during the run up to Christmas this year, 

and that things are not too hectic.

See you again soon,

Hugs, Rose xxx

Silver and red, vintage and antique, Christmas tree decorations

At last, here is my little tabletop Christmas tree, decorated with silver and red, vintage and antique, Christmas tree decorations. 

The shiny baubles are made of mercury glass and the little figures are made of chenille and spun cotton. I found them on eBay many years ago when I became addicted to buying Christmas decorations online. I get so much joy from them. They remind me of my childhood Christmases when we had a real tree with real candles on.

I have had a very busy 2 weeks looking after my mum, taking her to her doctor, audiologist and optometrist. Her blood pressure was extremely high, but now has lowered below the danger level, with new medicine doses, which is a big relief.  

Also, mum's hearing has deteriorated by 50% in a year and she was struggling with her old hearing aids, one of which she lost. So she now has new ones in time for Christmas. It is a bit of an ordeal for her getting the hearing aids to work as needed though, so yesterday I went to the audiology clinic to learn how to program them using an app on my cellphone. Then yesterday afternoon I managed to adjust the settings so that she can now hear me and dad with no difficulty 😊 I will need to do another program setting for the hearing aids at Christmas, when the family is all gathered together, as hearing will be a challenge for mum in a group setting.

It is hard to believe that it is only 1 week to go until Christmas! The time has flown by quickly since my last post. Everything is ready now apart from a delivery of groceries next week for Christmas. I have my fingers crossed that they will be able to deliver everything I need, otherwise it will be a last minute visit to the supermarket, which I imagine will be a crazy time.

In the meantime, I have been watching the Chateau Diaries Christmas Advent vlogs every day on YouTube. It is a lovely channel to watch and is making it feel like Christmas 🎄

Have a wonderful weekend. 

Hugs, Rose x

Getting into the Christmas spirit

I have been slow with putting up my Christmas decorations and getting into the Christmas spirit, which I am finding a little bit difficult, this year. So yesterday I decided to do something about it. 

I put on some Christmas music from YouTube with pretty Christmas scenes and gathered up all the gifts that I had bought throughout the year. Then I got out my Christmas wrapping papers, sellotape and scissors, and I was all set to get wrapping.

It didn't take long for me to realise that I was thoroughly absorbed and having fun with this activity 😊

I had one dilemma though, my brother's Christmas present, which I ordered in October, hadn't arrived in the mail yet. I phoned the company that I purchased it from and was told that, unfortunately the parcel was delayed in transit from overseas and it would be another 12 days before they got it to send on to me...😕 This will be too late to give to my brother as he is going away for Christmas to his in-laws shortly and he is coming to visit and pick up the presents tomorrow.

So I had an idea.

I found a picture of the gift that he is going to get eventually, then printed it out on glossy photo paper and turned it into a little card. Inside I explained that this is a picture of his gift which he will receive next year, as unfortunately Santa was a bit delayed this year. All will be fine.

 

The next thing on my to-do list was to start rearranging my desk to make it look Christmassy. I added a red gloxinia house-plant which came into flower last week. It isn't quite a poinsettia, but it is the right colour and very pretty.

I then placed my new tabletop Christmas tree on my desk. I bought it recently to replace the little white tree that I had. The white tree had turned light brown and looked awful. I had wanted another white tree but couldn't find one that was suitable. Then I found this little green tree with white flocking which made me very happy.

Tomorrow my father will get my vintage Christmas decorations out of storage and I will be able to decorate my trees...Yay! I won't be putting up my large tree this year, as there isn't room for it anymore, which is a shame.

I also received my first Christmas card yesterday, so added it to my desk too. I plan to make garlands again with my favourite cards which I have saved over the years.

The menu for our Christmas Eve meal is now planned and I have bought all the non-perishables for it. (It is very hard for me not to tuck into the pfeffernusse biscuits and mince pies!) I also made a list of things that need to be bought a few days beforehand. The food will be hit-and-miss this year with not knowing what groceries will be available or not. But the main thing will be that we will have a good time together.

How are you getting on with your holiday plans this year?

Have you managed to get into the spirit of things?

See you again soon. 

Hugs, Rose x

My teal and silver vintage Christmas tree

Teal and silver vintage baubles are my favourites. I would love to have enough to fill a large white Christmas tree, but I don't have any more room for one. I am more than happy with my little table-top tree though.

This year I found a little silver vintage angel for the top of my tree and that makes my tree complete. I decided to put this one in the sitting room instead of my bedroom and have surrounded it with blue, white and silver Christmas cards to carry on the theme. It looks lovely and wintery inside now while the weather is hot and humid outside.

I have bought all of my Christmas presents now and listened to Christmas music while I wrapped them. It really is starting to feel like Christmas. All I have to do now is some grocery shopping and bake one more cake. It is great to feel so relaxed at this time of year.

I hope you are having fun preparing for your Christmas celebrations like I am.

Hugs

Rose x

My red and gold Christmas tree with candles

Usually I decorate my tree with white lights, but this year I decided to have real candles. I bought the candles on Ebay from Germany and the little candle holders from Latvia on Ebay. I was so excited to find them.

We used to have real candles on our Christmas tree when I was little and living in England. They were so magical to look at, it is such a lovely memory. I won't be lighting these candles as it isn't safe to do so, but I just wanted the effect.

I added to my vintage collection of spun cotton characters this year (also bringing back childhood memories). I am slowly building up my vintage/antique Christmas ornament collection year by year. Some of the decorations I have collected date back to the 1920's or earlier. I have mixed these with modern favourites too.

Happy Christmas preparations.

See you again soon.

Rose x

Suspense over, here is my Christmas tree

 

Yaaaaaaaay, finally! You won't believe how long it took me to get these photos the right size and where I wanted them to be in this post. I had a fight with the compose toolbar and won lol. 

 

My tree is just how I pictured it to be, so magical with its shiny and bright, antique and vintage decorations. The aqua blues, silver and white look so good together. It is like looking and a snowy, frosty, winter scene, a bit like Narnia. And very reminiscent of the large blue and white Christmas tree we had when I was little. It is quite a contrast to the 26 C heat, plus high humidity, we are experiencing in New Zealand at the moment.

 

When I was searching on Ebay for my decorations, I used my snipping tool and snipped pictures of the baubles that I liked. Then put scaled up pictures of them into OneNotes to help me to work out the right combination and number of baubles to buy. OneNotes is so useful, I use it to organise things all the time as you can see from the coloured headings below.

 

 

 

 When the decorations arrived, most of them were extremely dirty. They had decades of dust and grime on them. Some of them date back to the 1930's. I spent a whole day cleaning them very carefully. I used nothing but my breath and Q-tips. I breathed on small areas at a time, a bit like a kid misting up a window to make finger patterns, then with Q-tips I gently worked on the glass, avoiding the glass glittered areas. I didn't want to damage any of the fragile finishes. A couple of the decorations had candle wax on them which I left. I think it adds to their charm. I was amazed at how shiny and bright they came up. You can see the difference between the snipped pictures above of my decorations before I bought them and how they look on the tree after cleaning them up.  

 

 

 It is lovely sitting working at my desk now with this view. My cats are behaving themselves and haven't jumped on the desk to investigate yet. But it won't be long before they do. Guido, my Siamese cat, is very careful though. He always treads delicately around things. 

 

 

Tomorrow morning I am going to be baking my Christmas cake, which reminds me that I forgot that I need to soak the fruit in brandy overnight.....oooops........will be right back.......

 

Okay, all done!

 

Then in the afternoon I will finish decorating my big green Christmas tree with red and gold baubles, plus vintage spun cotton snowman cotton decorations that I have started collecting. I also need to wrap all the Christmas presents which I always do sitting by the Christmas tree listening to old Christmas music from YouTube. I love this time of year so much. 

 

 



Back soon xxx

 

My silver and turquoise Christmas tree in progress



Being surrounded with antique and vintage Christmas tree decorations was total bliss yesterday. Choosing where to place each one on my little white tree took quite a bit of thought. But I had just the right number of ornaments and colours for the effect I wanted (big grin). Just imagine the ecstasy if I had a 6 foot tree to decorate!

I also had loads of fun today after discovering the free PicMonkey photo editor, as you can see with my collage here. I experimented with all the different photo editing options. It was really easy to learn how to use and there were funny hints when I didn't quite get things right, like the error message below:

You can see a glimpse of my finished tree in the picture behind the error message! I will post photos of it next. Ooooooooh, and I got another little parcel in the post today! Thanks for stopping by xxx

Addicted to vintage glass Christmas tree ornaments



Have you ever been so totally absorbed in something that weeks flew by without you even noticing? This happened to me while I was hunting for vintage glass Christmas tree ornaments over the past month on the internet. It was so much fun that I was quite addicted. Only the threat of my quickly depleting bank balance broke the spell! These are photos of some of the things that I bought.

Some of the decorations that I saw were identical to those that we hung on our Christmas tree when I was little. And a lot of the silver baubles in the top picture are similar to those that dad had in Poland before the war. It brought back many vivid memories. It is amazing how little balls of coloured glass can make you so sentimental.

I became quite nostalgic wanting to copy a white Christmas tree, that we used to have, which was covered with turquoise baubles. I also wanted to add some silver sparkle. So many pretty things to choose from!

Then followed days of holding my breath waiting for my decorations to arrive from Germany. They arrived in one piece, all packaged very carefully. My 2 foot high table top Christmas tree from America arrived shortly after.

Tonight after dinner I will be decorating my tree........very happy :)

See you again soon. xxx