Another Christmas make . . . this time I tried my hand at knitting Jason's Dad a gold club sock. He is a keen golfer and an avid supporter of Portsmouth FC so I thought I would combine the two, by knitting the sock in the Portsmouth town colours.
I had intended to knit two socks, with one being stripey the whole way up, but unfortunately ran out of time (maybe a Father's Day or Birthday present of the future). But I'm so pleased with the finished outcome, and so was Jason's Dad more importantly.
I found it quite tricky finding a pattern for two needles (I've not quite worked up the courage yet to using double ended or circular needles!), after a bit of searching I found this pattern by Lion Brand. To make up the sock I used a cream yarn from the WI premium acrylic range and then a Hayfield Bonus yarn in Denim.
To make the pom pom I used the green Clover pom maker, my most used maker of the lot! I used both of the yarns in the pom by wrapping both strands around the maker at the same time.
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Every Christmas we like to make something for everyone and this year we decided to make up hampers for everyone. We picked up some lovely linen lined hampers from Hobbycraft which we then filled with raffia and an abundance of homemade sweet treats.
I raided my craft room for twine and hessian to wrap everything up in. Each hamper was made up of a mixture of the following -
* Mini Christmas pudding
* Chocolate slabs (various scrummy flavours)
* Cranberry and orange shortbread
* Plain shortbread,
* Flap jack
* Chocolate brownie
* White chocolate fudge
* Gingerbread
In total we made five full-size hampers and then three smaller ones. It all came together a lot better than expected considering it was mostly done in the final week running up to Christmas. Everyone who received the hampers (whether they be the big or small versions), loved them! I was so thrilled with how they looked all packaged up.
This is Jason's parents hamper before I wrapped it up in cellophane (clockwise from top left batch of cranberry shortbread, underneath is white chocolate fudge, flap jack, mini Christmas pudding and three chocolate slabs).
The hamper wrapped in the spotted cellophane. I used raffia which came on a spool to tie around the hamper, and then made pom poms from some yarn that I had leftover from a knitting project, and finished it all off with a snowflake laser cut tag.
I used hessian to wrap the Christmas puddings up, and wrapped red twine around to make sure it was nice and secure. I then stuck a holy felt topper to make it look like a real Christmas pudding (Minus the berries!).
This hamper was for Jason's sister and brother-in-law, we swapped out the Christmas pudding for some chocolate brownie and also made some heart chocolates.
I had loads of wooden stars left over from when I made our Christmas wreath, so I decided to cover these in gold glitter and use them on the packaging for the chocolate brownie.
I love poms poms and couldn't not use them on all of the hampers! I think I've finally cracked how to make the perfect pom pom . . . use lots of yarn!
This hamper was for Jason's grandparents we swapped out the fudge for a batch of gingerbread as this is one of their favourite sweet treats.
To wrap the edible items in the hamper I used cellophane bags by Wilton, they were such a great find, I used them for all of the hampers. I just used tape on the back to seal everything in and then used twine to decorate.
We also made up
some mini versions of the hampers for our friends, I used similar things on these that I had in the larger hampers. This reindeer is one of my favourites!
In each hamper there were a selectio of chocolate 'slabs' I made slightly smaller versions to fit in the smaller hampers for our friends, but they were still tasty nonetheless! (from top to bottom: white chocolate and strawberry, milk chocolate fruit and nut, dark chocolate with macadamia nuts and cranberry).
I think we'll most definitely be doing some form of hampers again . . . maybe for Easter this time, as I've just found some brown kraft bags that are screaming out for a pom or two!
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Here's how to make your own glitter star wreath . . .
To make this wreath you'll need . . .
* PVA glue
* Pearl head pins
* Wooden stars
* Hairspray
* Gold glitter
* Twine
* Paintbrush
* Scissors
* Glue gun
* Polystyrene wreath base
Step one - cover the polystyrene wreath bath using twine, wrapping it around and using pearl head pins to secure the ends of lengths on the back of the wreath.
Step two - start by covering the wooden stars with PVA glue and then sprinkling with a layer of the glitter. Leave for a few moments and then tap off the excess. Leave to dry completely.
Step three - once the wooden glitter stars have dried cover with a fine layer of hairspray (this will help to keep the glitter in place!), then use a hot glue gun to secure them to the twine covered wreath.
Step four - cut a length of twine and secure to the back of the wreath and then attach to your chosen door. I secured mine by positioning the wreath on the front of the door and then tying the twine to the handle on the back of the door.
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The Christmas tree is finally up and decorated, this year we went for rustic/natural looking decorations with a hint of red.
This year we decided to include some paper chains on the tree after seeing some nice kraft brown ones in Hobbycraft, they have a lovely chevron and snowflake print on them.
I picked up this lovely gold bauble from Asda
I love needle felting . . . I picked up this reindeer from the Christmas Country Living Fair last year, along with a snowman.
Love this natural tree star topper . . . picked this up a few years ago from Wilkinson's
I completely forgot we had these decorations, but they look great on the tree.
I made this bauble decoration last year from air drying clay, and then use ribbon and twine to add extra decoration.
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I couldn't resist giving Project Life (by Becky Higgins for American Crafts) a go, inspired by all of the lovely creations I'd seen on Pinterest,, and after some research for work.
I made an 'Adventure book' for Jason after watching the Pixar film 'Up!'. However, over the past few years it has been somewhat neglected so I decided to update it and give it some love and attention and transform it into something we can add to and look back on in years to come.
After picking up the photos from our recent holiday to Cornwall, I decided it was as good a place as any to start . . .
I LOVE(!!!!) glitter card at the moment, not quite sure why . . . but it went well with my chosen colour scheme.
I am obsessed with rub on's at the moment (I've been using some by American crafts called Mini Marks) they look great on tracing paper and then overlaid on top of the image.
I've also been experimenting with the tracing paper to create 'pockets' that then hold sequins or confetti. I have made these by stitching along three sides of the card and then adding my message using the rubs on's, add the sequins and then sew the pocket up.
More tracing paper experimentation's . . . this time I used the paper to overlay onto an image and stitched it in place using my sewing machine. I just really liked how the image looked behind it.
I then moved onto transferring all of the pages from the old 'Adventure Book' into the new one . . .
I used wrapping paper for the background of this page from one of Jason's Birthdays.
I've got some many wooden alphabet stamps I decided to put them to good use to annotate some of the pages.
Love these stick on letters!!! (from Hobbycraft)
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