Styling the Seasons: December

The simple results of a lovely few hours spent in Liberty back in November are now adorning our mantlepiece on a selection of larch branches; acquired at New Covent Garden flower market rather than from a foraging session in the woods - although I did get up before 6am to go to the flower market, so that kind of counts doesn't it?



Who doesn't love a floral liberty fabric? And what is that magic ingredient that makes them just so... lovely?



As much as I would have happily used any fabric from their collection I made these really simple decorations by sticking to three designs; Capel F, Emma and Georgina, (the bigger print with the flowers on I can't find on their website).
And it was really a glue project rather than a sewing one... (I was one of the no-sew gang at the crafting afternoon - along with Lou, Sarah-Lou, & Heather)



The rest of the house features a mish-mash of decorations that have been collected over the years, which is just the way I like it - but it's also very pleasing to have this little arrangement on my bedroom mantlepiece. It means I get to gaze at it for a few, um seconds, in the morning before the day kicks in.



I'm really enjoying doing these styling the seasons posts - if you haven't joined in yet then surely January is the perfect time to start!? Go on - you know you want to!
Katy has done a round-up of the posts from some of the other bloggers who also went to the Liberty crafting afternoon and have their posts up already (I'm late, as usual!) - so many wonderful posts and ideas - take a look here. 
#stylingtheseasons
Thank you to Katy & Charlotte.

The Wrap Party

At some point in the middle of the night a couple of weeks ago I had a brainwave. It was the marriage of two ideas that I'd been pondering. I decided to have a Christmas wrap party. I would invite people to my house for a charity coffee morning with the added bonus of providing lots of paper and tape so that they could bring their Christmas gifts to wrap up too - all for a donation to charity of course.

Most of my middle-of-the-night ideas never come to anything, but the next morning I was still thinking over my idea (although of course there was much wrangling over the fact that I was about to host a coffee morning shoot me now!). So I picked up the phone and called my friend Lynne; the owner of Papermash - a superior online purveyor of very tasteful stationery. Lynne not only didn't think my idea was mad but also offered to bring over all her samples for people to use.
So that was that we were on!



It was a pretty relaxed affair, we kept things simple (mainly as we pulled it together in a week) - I had my normal party paranoia that no-one would come - especially as on the morning of the event my phone was pretty much constantly pinging with messages from people who couldn't come (you know just as I was trying to lay out enough food to feed an army) but in the end we had just about the right number of people.



A friend donated 100 mince pies (the result of a communication error by her company to a baker in Yorkshire was our gain), I made some ginger biscuits and my mum made a pound cake which went down very well.



Lynne's suitcase of delights brought forth - beautiful string, gift tags, glitter tape and the best collection of washi tape ever (there's still time to get some for Christmas people...)!
Her rubber stamps collection is amazing. And they look great on brown paper - I think pretty much everyone was convinced of that....
The only thing we were a bit short on was wrapping room...





As always with these things I wish I'd taken a load more photos, but the two hours past in a blur of door answering, tea making, mince pie warming, chatting and wrapping. It was both chaotic and really fun - plus we raised £160 for my friend Emily's charity The George Oliver Foundation - a grant making charity set up in the name of her first born George, one of Coco's first little friends who sadly died suddenly when he was just 14 months old (I've written about her charity here before).

Some instagrams of the day by @lynneatpapermash @westlondonmum & @nisia75

As Lynne and I agreed at the end there was a huge satisfaction in just having done it, so many ideas come and go so to execute something at pretty short notice and have it be successful was great.  I'm definitely going to do it again next year - but this one was a very good practice run.

Simple Christmas Cards

Henry and I had a little crafting morning making cards for him to give to his friends at nursery.

We kept things simple and, even if I say it myself, I think the results are pretty nice.



We used:
1. A Dormy DIY rubber stamp - I love this rubber stamp, I got it years ago and have used it loads, it comes with lots of letters so you can create different messages - just totting up the years... it's definitely at least 14 years old and the ink still works perfectly.

2. Glue.
3. A Christmas tree craft punch
4. Last years Christmas cards (I'm a hoarder -  I keep our cards from year to year stashed away in the decorations box.
5. Plain card.



Henry enjoyed telling me which bits of the cards to punch out - it was a bit too stiff for him to be able to do them himself although he gave it a good go. He was very keen on all the sparkly, glittery bits...
Then he stamped the Christmas message and glued the trees on to the front of his cards.



Most of the cards got three trees... only one got an upside-down tree which Henry insisted he wanted...



....and then he very patiently wrote his cards. Well patiently wrote them for about seven minutes. This one was an easy one as it was to another Henry. He's got his name writing down now and as you can just spot at the top of this photos is starting to go for a bit of embellishment too. Never too young to have a signature I suppose.

Last Week: 7 things from 7 days

Seven things from seven days is an occasional series, where I can log the things we've been up to.

Illness struck this week! Henry has been home from nursery all week and so we've been holed up keeping things low-key and all my computer time has been spent beavering away on this years Christmas card... to be revealed, um, when it's finished!

But before that these things happened...

1. Me and Coco testing out the set up for our silhouette shots for this years Christmas card...
2. Since our weekend breakfast campaign (basically trying to wean the children off cereal everyday) pancakes have become a weekend staple. Coco was particularly pleased with this one she made and topped with nutella and strawberries. (I feel the need here to explain that we NEVER buy strawberries out of season, much as my kids would love me to, but we got these in a full bag of groceries mistakenly delivered to us... we also got to try some fancy butter, loads of grapes and some haddock and I still have a load of funny little yogurt pots in the fridge. I feel bad for the person who missed all these items in their order... but the shop wouldn't take it back and we felt it was our duty not to waste it all!)
3. Coco and Henry helping make the first mince pies of the season.
4. We went ice skating at Sommerset House... unfortunately it was just as Henry was getting ill so he didn't really enjoy it... I had a ball on the other hand and Coco was cautiously persistent and did pretty well. I think I would be correct in saying she has mixed feelings on the subject of whether she wants to go again or not.
5. We got an AMAZING new light for the sitting room - I'm in love; and Hugh is happy as it has LED bulbs. It took ages to find and a long time to save for. Full post possibly to come one day if I get around to it...
6. Before ice skating we had lunch in the pop up Fortnum's Lodge cafe at Sommerset House and Coco told me to take a photo of her food. She has noticed that I like to take photos of most things. What I failed to do was take a photo of the cheese fondue that I (partly) shared with Hugh. It was a bit of a indulgent-splash-out lunch, but, you know, it's Christmas. Almost. I'd recommend it if you are in the area...
7. And before the lunch that we had before the ice skating me and Coco popped into the Natural History Museum to say hello to the dinosaurs, because she asked to and we can.

Looking at the week like that it seems like we are getting in the festive mood...