The Worst Christmas Message Ever, aka “Why we are not on TV”.

Makeup?? MAKEUP!!!

 

It’s so hard to get good help these days.

See you after the big day peeps – have a great one. xx

Handmade, just not by me.

I knew I wouldn’t get around to making anybody any gifts this Christmas but instead of feeling bad about it I just bought a few things instead; I found all this except for the dino-teddy on Etsy & have re-discovered my love for it. Yeah I like Regretsy, but it has been clouding my perception of what really is a showcase of great artistic & creative talent. Please excuse the clipped pictures, I only thought to take photos when I was upstairs wrapping & there isn’t a whole lot of room up there at the moment!

I have to start with the dino-teddy. I found him at the oppy last week when it was just Spence & I & Spence loved him at first sight. He’s brand new; there were a lot of knitted toys altogether, I think perhaps one of the volunteers made them especially for Christmas. He’s so cute & weird, I am happy for him to be Spency’s Christmas present from Mama.

This brooch is for my Gran, also known here as the brooch addict. She gave me two old hairclips yesterday that have little coloured stones inlaid, when she handed them over I said, “It’s a wonder you’re not turning these into a brooch” & she admitted she had considered it.

An apron, oven mitt & chef’s hat for Punk – something I did briefly consider making but then I saw this set & it was perfect.

And finally Punk’s Christmas dress. Inadvertently Punk’s Christmas outfits for the last 3 years have been handmade… I think that makes it a tradition.

Now I better get out of here… we’re off to see Santa!

It’s a wrap.

I can’t say I’ve bothered too much with wrapping my Christmas presents in the past;

• Tacky Christmas paper? CHECK.
• Sticky tape? CHECK.
• $2 silver ribbon & some scissors to curl it with? CHECK.

Wrapping is my least favourite part of Christmas, it’s too much like a chore usually, since I tend to leave it to the last minute & have a whole evening of of mashing things into crumpled paper & lathering on tape ahead of me on Christmas eve, but I’ve been making the tiniest of efforts this year, both on the gift presentation front & trying to get the bulk of the wrapping out of the way before it’s too late & I just want to go to bed.

My “effort” consists of wrapping in either tacky Christmas paper with a contrasting band of kraft paper, or wrapping in kraft paper with a contrasting band of tacky Christmas paper.

Revolutionary stuff.

I was going to make some Christmas tags but I found a pack of paper doilies & thought they’d look cute instead… then I just started adding random things here & there, ala Pip’s instruction in this super sweet video.

Do you like gift wrapping? Do you go all out or are you like my dear sweet Mr, who’s usual attempt at gift wrapping is folding over the bag that he bought it in?

The Kitschmas tree.

I know I said we weren’t going to have a “proper” Christmas tree this year, but since Spence has been pulling the fabric one off the wall anyway, & Punk has been enthralled with every Christmas tree we pass, when I saw this old plastic tree complete with vintage baubles (the type of which I honestly haven’t seen for years & years) at the oppy for $5… well.

It’s smaller than the tree we have so I was able to put it up on the cupboard away from my grabby babe & I can’t tell you how happy it has made me!

If you’re going to have a plastic tree, you might as well have one that screams it from the rooftops first of all. This tree doesn’t pretend to be a real tree, it says “I’m plastic. I have hard spikey plastic branches & a trunk moulded to look like no wood you’ve ever seen. Deal with it.”

Then there is the Santa. I don’t know if he’s supposed to be a tree topper, but he’s bloody perfect as one.

And the baubles. Oh, the baubles! Look at the colours! I had to re-thread about half of them, they either had no cord to hang them or had already been restrung on elastic bands that were so old & brittle they broke into pieces when I picked them up.

A couple of little old ornaments make it, I think. My thrifted deer has taken his rightful place on a Christmas tree, he didn’t like the mantle where he couldn’t even stand up properly.

And that is our Christmas tree. It makes me smile every time I look at it. It is going to see years of happy Christmases now, I hope it’s already had many.

Pink is for girls.

Punk is big on the colour “rules”, which is a shame because she looks really cute in blue but would choose any shade of pink over it every day of the week.

It’s also a shame because I made a pink, red & white wreath for her door & wanted to make one for Suspence in Red, yellow & grey, but I was told in no uncertain terms that “Blue is for boys, it has to have blue on it”.

Lucky I like it.

I was trying to make My Poppet’s pom pom wreath two nights ago but I got sick to death of making pom poms (You need A LOT!), so I took a break to make the cardboard circle to attach the pom poms to. Once it was cut out I decided I might wrap it in yarn so that I could sew the pom poms on, but once I started with that I decided to make something different altogether.

If you’d like to make one (or two, or more) it’s super easy:

• Trace around a large plate on some cardboard for the outside of your wreath & trace around a smaller one in the middle for the hole – cut out.
• Tie your first colour of yarn tightly around the wreath & start wrapping clockwise, covering the knot you made & the tail of the yarn as you go. Keep the yarn tight by pulling it firmly & scooting it back tightly together with your thumb.
• When changing colours, just tie a knot & wrap over it, try to pull the knot to the back of the wreath.
• Finish the wrapping by hooking the yarn through a couple of strands of yarn at the back where you started from & tying a knot.
• Crochet three small circles from your three different yarns & chain up three different lengths to attach them to the wreath, sew buttons in the centre of the circles. Attach by sewing the tail of the crochet chain through the yarn at the back, attach a length of yarn horizontally at the top of the wreath at the back for hanging & voila!

This is Christmas.

Well, it’s a bit of what Christmas is looking like here this year, so far. Bright, mismatched, thrifted & crafted…

Punky’s mantle is decorated with some of the decorations we don’t have a tree for this year…

…& some awesome Japanese fruit decorations from My Poppet that will be staying up all year.

The advent calendar is doing double-duty as a Christmas card holder.

These two Johnsons of Australia Christmas plates, ‘76 & ‘77, found in chronological order on consecutive weeks, hold pride of place in the lounge room, along with an adorable vintage white deer ornament.

(The candy canes are steadily disappearing.)

And, a fabric Christmas tree update….

No comment.

Almost late to my own party, here.

A Quick Ornament.

This is the little ornament I made for our Brown Owls Kris Kringle on Wednesday, it’s just a teeny embroidery using the smallest embroidery loop with some thread tied around the screw to hang it; quick, easy & effective. You know that’s how I like it.

Back tomorrow to share some more Christmas goodness around here for the last day of the My Place & Yours Christmas Party! You’ve still time to join in if you’d like!

Have a very rockin’ Christmas.

Because I really am a Christmas tragic, I had the tag “Christmas” playing on Last FM the other day, I came across some favourite songs (Bing!) & some new ones, but here are some xmas tunes that the you can crank up loud & wrap that mountain of presents to like a speed demon. You might want to dress in the festive Christmas garb of ripped jeans & a flannelette shirt, to complete the tradition…

My Place and Yours; The Christmas Party!

That’s right, just like all your favourite television programs when you were a child, this meme is having a Christmas special!

Time to share some or all of the festive cheer that is surely starting to invade your home, be it the first time you’ve trimmed a real tree, an advent calendar you’ve had since you were wee, your Christmas pudding hanging up somewhere nice and cool or all of the above.

Let’s break out the eggnog, don a paper hat & have fun visiting each other as we prepare for the silliest of silly seasons. This will be the last MPaY for the year & everybody is welcome!

Post your Christmas goodness to your blog & then link that post below, we’ll be playing all week & I may have a little Christmas present to send to one lucky player.

Deck the halls!

Just in time.

A pinch & a Punk for the first of the month!

An easy Advent Calendar made out of the same fabric as my wall decals; filled with surprise lollies – well, half filled. You may be able to tell that stockings on the end there are considerably flatter than those at the start… I ran out of chocolates (legitimately, I swear I didn’t eat any, I just didn’t buy enough!), but I’ve got plenty of time before we get that far into the month.

This is our third Advent Calendar, since Punk also wheedled her way into getting a Barbie one that was half off, & I found a gorgeous vintage one with pictures under the doors a few weeks ago at a fete (There were two, actually, but I sent one away in a swap, when my swapee gets it I hope she posts a photo so you can see it, it’s really cute & was hard to give up.), but I still wanted to make one.

It’s a sickness, like opshopping, I think. I was in a craft store yesterday & there were mountains upon mountains of Christmas Decorations & I didn’t buy one, thinking instead “I could make that”, even if there is no way on earth I will or could find the time.

Thrifted cheer is entirely different however & I picked up some cute things yesterday for a little festive mantle display, stay tuned for that & some other awesome finds.

Joining in here, perhaps with some more holiday crafters.

It’s getting festive up in here!

All thanks to a tin *cough*two tins*cough* of spray starch.

We now have a giant wreath above the mantle piece & a trunk on the Christmas tree; Mr came running to me last night saying “Vic! There is no stem on the Christmas tree!”. Before then, I hadn’t realised it was a festive necessity but what the hey; two snips & a spray later a trunk appeared & it looks fine.

What is ace about using stash fabric for this stuff is that I am going to be able to make any number of other decorations with what I have left & it will all co-ordinate perfectly.

I don’t want to offend anyone but I was just thinking that this is one of my favourite things about being an atheist. Crafting in my pyjamas on a Sunday morning because I don’t have to be dressed or go anywhere. (I know it seems ironic to be putting up Chrissie decos & declaring my atheism, but Christmas has never been about anything religious for me, always about love, sharing & fun. It is my favourite time of the year.)

Plus, I think I’m just too lazy to be religious; there are commitments that come with that stuff don’t you know…

Oh Christmas tree…

When I started thinking about putting up the Christmas tree I realised pretty quickly that I’d have to re-think the whole thing due to Suspence being a climbing monkey octopus & the fact that, in our teeny house, the only place I could put the tree was a prime “pull off the ornaments & tip the tree over in an instant” position.

I was searching last night for an inflatable Christmas tree. We actually had one years ago, with inflatable ornaments & star & I loved it’s kitchy goodness until the cat attacked it, so I thought it would be the perfect kid-proof option, but the online options were dismal so I nixed that & started looking for christmas tree wall decal instead. I found quite a few, some very lovely ones too, but, well, I’m cheap. You know it, I know it, there is no point in pretending that I would be shelling out $90 for a sticker, no matter how lovely, so it was back to the drawing board again.

Maybe I could make something? I remembered a project in a book I have about using starch to stick a piece of fabric to the wall like wallpaper so I thought I’d give that a whirl.

I could only find spray starch at the supermarket so that’s what I got. I tested a piece of fabric & it seemed to stick pretty well so I got down to cutting a whole heap of circles from my fabric stash.

I sprayed the wall, placed on my fabric, sprayed it again & flattened/removed the excess moisture with a sponge.

Not only does it look tops, it smells nice too! Oh, and it’s totally Suspence-proof. He tried to peel off a bauble & couldn’t… woot!

Linking up here!

I Really Like Christmas.

I really, really do!

Hello! I’ve missed you! I’ve also missed sewing & leaving the house!

Yesterday I got to sew for a couple of hours while The Boy bounced a sleeping Suspense & it was WONDERFUL. Of course, finishing a couple of sewing projects put me in mind of blogging, so here I am. Ironically I don’t have a good photo to share of the Christmas stockings I whipped up yesterday because I am QUICKLY typing this in a stolen moment, but I just wanted to pop in & wish each & every one of you a fabulous & very merry Christmas!

It’s been an eventful year here in the Punky household & I have been lucky enough to share everything with you guys! I got my licence! I moved into our little cottage! I had a baby boy! Most importantly though I found some cool stuff at opshops…! ;)

Thank you everyone, fellow bloggers, sweetest readers & quiet lurkers, for being here for me to ‘talk’ to. For listening to my whinges, rejoicing in my happiness & over-inflating my ego when my various crafty pursuits turn out okay. You rock kids. You do.

Hopefully I’ll be getting back into the swing of normal life in the new year & will be back here, writing & whinging & laughing with you all, but until then, have a wonderful holiday with your family, relax & soak up the magic that is Christmas & this most beautiful time of the year!

Merry Christmas everyone, with much love from Vic, The Boy, Le Punk & Suspense.

xo