Tag Archives: Christmas

Advent Calendar – Day Ten

Yesterday I wrote about the simple things, so that has prompted today’s simple make for the Advent Calendar. A pompom garland. If you’ve been visiting Planet Penny for a while you’ll know I have had a bit of a love affair with pompoms! The Pompom and Heart Garland which is in this tutorial now hangs in the studio, if I look up in the office I see this…

…and in my 2010 Using Up Leftovers post I had fun with the remains of my big granny square blanket to make my first pompom bunting. So it’s snow balls!

(if you are having Higgins withdrawal symptoms these links will also take you to a couple of little ‘aaah’ moments from his younger days!)

It gave me a chance to get out my little pompom makers, which I find very addictive because it’s so quick. You don’t have to go out and spend money to do this because there is always the traditional way to make pompoms, but I would recommend these over other gadgets I’ve tried.

There’s no point wasting good quality yarn on these, it’s such a shame to cut it up and cotton in this case is useless because it doesn’t have enough ‘give’ and you end up with something like a little corn sheaf! I used a ball of snowy white acrylic which looked perfectly fluffy and snowballish…

These are just strung on a length of the acrylic, but you could also use some sparkly thread, or even some fishing line so they appear suspended in mid air!

And if you’ve got completly carried away and filled the house with pompoms, you can always give them away on your Christmas gifts!

By the way, thank you for all the comments yesterday, sharing your fantasy Christmas dreams. It’s been lovely reading them. If you haven’t added yours yet, please do!

I’ll be back tomorrow, happy pompom making!

Advent Calendar – Day Nine

It might be Day Nine on the Advent Calendar, but it’s also Sunday so I think we’re allowed a bit of a break. Feet up with the Sunday papers, and a magazine or two. I have a new favourite magazine which I have to say saved me from a bit of a downer a couple of weeks ago. I was having one of those anti commercialised Christmas moments. You know, when you go into the supermarket at the beginning of November and they have the ‘Seasonal’ isle all stacked up with tins of chocolates, bumper bags of nuts and crisps and Christmas puddings as far as the eye can see. And Father Christmas hats, and Elf suits, and illuminated antlers. Oh, and mince pies with a sell by date a good month before Christmas. And it all seems too much, there’s just too much STUFF!

But then my Christmas Issue of ‘The Simple Things‘ landed on my doormat…

and it made me stop and think of what Christmas really means, and what it means to me as a celebration.

My fantasy Christmas would involve a log cabin in the woods and lots of snow, a reindeer drawn sleigh to take me visit Santa (I expect my grandsons would like to come too!) and a Carol Service (with a choir) A log fire, a big Christmas tree filled with my eclectic collection of ornaments gathered over the years. A traditional Christmas dinner with all my dearest family and friends and Higgins and Henry of course (and lots of help in the kitchen!) Dr Who, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’and ‘White Christmas on the TV’, and someone who can sing and play ( guitar, piano? I don’t mind) for the musical entertainment.

Well, it’s not going to happen quite like that for me or anyone else for that matter, but it does make you think that actually, whatever the TV ads tell you, Christmas isn’t about cut price tins of Quality Street and Roses chocolates or the latest electronic gadget.

We can find our own magic if we look in the right places…

Do you have a fantasy Christmas? Do share it if you do…

The other magazine in the reading pile is a new Crochet magazine which was sent to me to review. Have you seen it yet? I spotted it for the first time on the High Street yesterday and you can also find it here.

Ideal for beginners as it has a comprehensive ‘How-to’ section at the back, and lots of different project for different skill levels. Some pretty baby blankets, this neck warmer which is on my to do list..

(and the dog’s cute too!)

And these pretty mats which would be a great project for honing newly learnt crochet skills.

I love these subtle natural shades, but these patterns would work well in the Planet Penny Cotton yarn, especially using either the warm part of the spectrum…

or the cool one…

Hope you’ve had (or are having) a peaceful Sunday, I’ll be back tomorrow!

Don’t forget to call over to Handmade Monday to find lots of other Christmas makes, and if you haven’t entered the Prize Draw you can find out all about it, and the fab prizes on this post…

Advent Calendar – Day Eight

I’m hitting the Advent Calendar at a bit of a gallop today as I’ve just come back from my shopping trip, ugh, on a Saturday afternoon too! Still I can be consoled by my Day Eight make which I undertook last night, with our Knit and Stitch Christmas meeting in mind.

Frangipane Mince Pies! I’ve snuck a couple away for testing with a cuppa this afternoon, the rest are safely in the freezer where I can’t be tempted.

I’ve made these for several years now, and if you haven’t come across them before in the recipe section of Planet Penny they are thoroughly recommended. Instead of the traditional pastry top, which I find can often be dry and claggy, these have light almondy sponge and are very delicious and moreish. Even die hard Mince Pie Refuseniks have succumbed to these!

These are just as they are from the oven for freezing, but they look very pretty with a snowy dusting of icing sugar.

You’ll find the recipe here. Go on, you’re allowed, it’s nearly Christmas!

See you tomorrow…x

Advent Calendar – Day Seven

Hello, I’m back, having found a tiny little gap where the unrelenting gloom lifted enough to take the photos for today’s Advent Calendar. I’m not flying completely by the seat of my pants each day, I do have things up my sleeve, but there’s always something I need to do at the last minute. T’was ever thus!

I’m going to digress a little first however, because I went into Norwich yesterday and apart from the much needed haircut, I did a little shopping. I really, really hate going shopping at this time of year. It’s not just the crowds, and the too hot shops etc. It’s the unrelenting forced fake Christmassiness (is that a word?)in the big stores which devalues the whole event and is calculated to panic us all into buying things we don’t need. If it’s not sprinkled with glitter, it’s covered with sugar, or possibly chocolate and we’d be letting the family down if we don’t stock up with lots of it, whatever it is…

I’m trying as much as possible to buy from independant shops and small craft businesses, and because of living out of the city this tends to be online. So I made a point of going to a little shop I’ve been meaning to visit for ages and had intended to write a blog post about. Imaging my dismay when I arrived there and found it’s to close before Christmas! It’s a gorgeous shop, and I’m sure if I was still in the city on a daily basis I would have practically kept it viable singlehandedly(well I’d have had a jolly good try!) But I’m going to tell you about it anyway, because if you near enough to visit I urge you to go there for your present shopping before the doors close for ever.

These two posters give you a really good idea of the feel of the place…

It really is just one lovely thing after another, beautiful handmade things, and vintage bits and pieces. I can’t show you most of what I bought alas, as it might spoil some surprises but I did treat myself to a little something which seemed appropriate…

…and I bought these which have come in handy for todays Advent Calendar make…

You’ll find Follies in Bridewell Alley in Norwich, and on Facebook too where you can keep up to date with the online plans. It’s very sad that vibrant and original shops like this can’t get the support they need to survive.

So because I’m not going to support Mr Tesco by buying my wrapping paper and labels from him I’ve been making some tags of my own, and have also sourced some online ones to print which I thought I’d share with you.

I already had some brown parcel tags which I customised in this post, but yesterday I found some dinky little ones in the stationers which I couldn’t resist.

If you’ve got time and some hefty sharp scissors and a hole punch it would be more economical still to cut your own. It’s time I never seem to have! Anyway having spent a happy half an hour with the box of ribbons and cord, buttons and bells, stamps and ink and of course the trusty glue gun I came up with these..

The other tags are available to download and print if you have access to a printer…

(apologies for quality of the photos)

The links are on the Botanical Paperworks Blog the SassandPeril website and there are a vast variety of tags on Examiner.com

Have fun, I hope this is useful! I’ll be back tomorrow although the blog post will be a challenge as Tim’s coming home and is making threatening noises about going back to Norwich for my Christmas present! You never know, we might bump into each other in Follies!

Advent Calendar – Day Six

It’s Day Six on the Advent Calendar all ready, time is rushing by scarily fast. So far I’m finding the most challenging part of posting every day is not the ideas, or writing the post, it’s finding a slot in the day with the right light for photography.

Today’s make is quick and simple and useful at any time of the year. Do you have a pin board? This is a great way of personalising it, and if you are making one as a present a little pot of these will complete the gift.

It’s map pins, or thumb tacks, like the ones I used in this post when I made a pin board of my own.

All you need are drawing pins, plain metal ones not the plastic covered type, some metal self-cover buttons…

…scraps of pretty fabric a tube of Super Glue and some small pliers. When you take the buttons off the cards you’ll see they are in two pieces, with the front piece having a metal loop so they can be sewn on to a garment.

This is superfluous to requirements so before going any further use the pliers to remove the loop, taking care not to damage the main part of the button.

Follow the instructions on the card for covering the buttons with the fabric and clipping the back on firmly. Once you have made up the buttons, use the Super Glue to stick the drawing pins to the button tops (again, read the instructions on the glue, Health Safety and all that!) It takes about an hour for the glue to cure and then they are ready to use.

I’ve been using my original ones for two or three years and they are still going strong even though I used the plastic covered type which tend to show more than the metal ones. These work well for pinning up Christmas cards on boards if you’ve used a Christmassy fabric. I’ve had this pretty little piece I bought on Ebay from somewhere in Central Europe for ages, it’s about time it had an airing!

These could also be made as fridge magnets when you could use the larger buttons and scraps of fabric left over from any kitchen accessories you made yourself. The ultimate in co-ordination!

Have fun with this, and I’ll be back tomorrow!

Advent Calendar – Day Three

For the Planet Penny Advent Calendar today I’ve gone to a Christmas favourite of mine, Origami Stars. I first tried Origami when I was about 11. My mother found a book in the library, and thought it was a great idea as it didn’t require any cutting up of bits of paper. (She says I spent my entire childhood creating scraps of paper which were too small to pick up, and too big to be vacuumed. Nothing’s changed there then!)

The stars didn’t make an appearance then, but my lovely daughter-in-law, Celia, discovered them a few Christmases ago, and decorated the mantelpiece in their old house in Rouen, and they now remind me of the last Christmas we spent there together before she, my son and grandsons move back to the UK. Happy memories, and I’ve been making them every Christmas since…

What I love about them is that they are so simple to make, and yet can be made to fit in any colour scheme, from the wild and colourful to sophisticated and plain. You will be very surprised by my particular choice, given my love of colour but I really like them plain and white and simple…

The possibilities are endless when it comes to decorating ideas. They look good just in a glass jar, dish or vase…

…so pretty scattered over a red Christmas tablecloth…

In the past I’ve strung them together to make garlands, added individual strings to each little star to hang them in the Christmas tree branches and attached them to mirrors and windows with double sided tape. Made in gold and silver and glued on to a simple wreath they would look stunning and in bright colours stuck to the ceiling to a child’s bedroom they would look pretty any time of the year…

Tempted? Well, there’s a great tutorial here which will get you started, and before too long you’ll be churning them out in every spare moment!

And if you’d like a little colour fix, I found these on Pinterest. Aren’t they gorgeous? (no source I’m afraid)

If you missed yesterdays’s post don’t forget to join in with the Prize Draw, see this post for all the details of the prize. Just follow Planet Penny in some way, whether it’s by email sign up, or on Facebook, Pinterest or Twitter. Don’t think I expect you to do everything, and if you are already following, well thank you very much! All I need is for you to tell me somewhere in a comment during the Advent Calendar posts because that where I will be compiling my list of entrants from. Hope that make sense…

In the meantime, Have fun, and I’ll be back tomorrow!