It's all Christmassy!

I put up our christmas decorations yesterday.  We decided last year not to have a christmas tree because of the inquisitive nature of a small boy, now we have two small boys we will probably be tree-less for a couple more years! Instead we put wires up on our ceiling, threaded branches through the wires and hung our lights and decorations off the branches. 

Unfortunately I can't claim credit for the idea, JH has seen it in a pub somewhere years ago (I suppose it stopped anyone crashing into the tree at closing time!)  I took a bit of convincing that it would look ok, but I have to say it looks totally amazing and grotto like, in a good way!

What a week!

Last Thursdays windy day was one to remember, 102mph winds were recorded by the Met Office at Glen Ogle which is about 10 miles up the road from us.  Our electricity went off at 11am and didn't come back on until Saturday at 10pm.  We've got a woodburning stove and an open fire so we didn't freeze.  I could cope with out the computer, tv and radio (just!) but having no hot water was really hard work, we constantly had a pan of water boiling!  Back to normality now, thank goodness!

Two friends have moved house this week so I've been making some housewarming gifts.

Firstly this set of Christmas tree decorations from air dryed clay, cut out with shape cutters, stamped with letters and then painted.  I had quite a few attempts with the letter stamps before I was happy, but the good thing is all you need to do is roll them back into a ball and start again!

Second on the list was a paper star wreath, it's really easy to make but they look so elegant and complicated!

Christmas presents will be the name of the game from now until Christmas, lots to make but I think sweeties will be the biggest portion!  I'm off to make a shopping list, can't wait to see the checkout assistants face as I arrive with bags of sugar, butter, chocolate and not much else!

Christmas Craft Fair

My first craft fair is done and dusted.  It was a bit of a rush to bring it all together in time but it was good fun and I had some really nice feedback from people, someone even told me I had the nicest things at the fair! 

The stall, all set up!

I thought I'd be doing well to make £30, but in the end I made £75, less 10% for the stall fee (which I rounded up to £8 as the organisers had bought some decorations from me) so I came home with £67 in my sky rocket, absolutely delighted with myself and feeling like I could conquer the world! 
I also got a comission to make another paper star werath and a possible commission to make place names with paper roses for a wedding!!

Paper rose gift tags

I could have sold a lot more star wreaths, I'd only made 3 and I was surprised that I sold all the gift tags, I only really made them as extras.  I didn't sell as many of the tree decorations as I thought, all the ones that sold were either heart shaped and/or the pinky purple colours.

Tree decorations

What next on the business side of things?  I'm not sure, I got really positive feedback from people and I've got lots of ideas for various other items but finding somewhere to sell them might be the biggest challenge, ho hum!

On a different note, it's snowing really hard outside! We had about 2 inches on Sunday night and there's about the same again now...we'll see what the morning holds!

Christmas decs

Well I've committed to a stall at a local craft fair on the 1st December so I've got a goal to aim for now! I thought I'd get the jumper out of the way first so it's all done and it's been worn already!

The jumper, sewed together again! 

Next on the list was some Christmas decorations, I made a batch of salt dough and some clay and got the cutters out!

Some of the salt dough decorations drying.

Think I'll need to do a bit of experimenting with the paints to get a finish I'm happy with, but that's the part I really enjoy!

I'm off to bed now, with my notebook in tow, too many ideas in my head!