Finger puppet friends

I made J some little finger puppets to go in her Christmas pillow case.  I was inspired by this idea, but it seemed a bit silly to make winter finger puppets in the middle of summer.  I eyeballed the pattern and came up with these four little ladies.

 

Aren't they just lovely?  I had an idea in my head that hand sewing was laborious and time consuming, which I think is a hangover from when I was a teenager, and anything that took more than five minutes was far too difficult.  But when I sat down to make these finger puppets I was pleasantly surprised by how easy and it was, and how quickly they came together.  It just goes to show that my idea of time consuming has changed significantly since I was younger.  They were actually much faster to make than knitting something up. 

Now also seems like a good time to mention the blog that the Winter finger puppets came from, Adirondack Mama.  This is one of several blogs that I've started following since discovering Rhythm of the home, and I'm really enjoying it, definitely worth checking out.

Te Harinui

Glad Tidings of Great Joy

Have a wonderfully merry Christmas and I'll be back in the New Year.

Lemon Star biscuits

P and I also made lemon star biscuits.  They are only a little burnt on the edges.  People who know me in real life will know that my food often ends up 'only a little burnt', and I feel I must defend myself by pointing out that my oven has some kind of issue.  I never have to bake things for as long as recipes call for, and I often need to cover cakes or slices with tinfoil to stop the tops burning while the underneath cooks.  So when I bake something for the first time, I often don't quite get the timings right.  Although I also have to confess that I sometimes get distracted by the girls and don't check my baking quite as often as I should.

Anyway, P had a great time using the biscuit cutters and peeling back the dough to reveal our shapes.  She was quite keen on the man and duck shapes, and I'm just glad she couldn't find the pig shape when we were making these, since I'm not sure I could call them Christmas Pig biscuits with a straight face.

The recipe was just a basic biscuit dough:

125g butter

3/4C sugar

1      egg

2t     lemon zest

2C   flour

Cream the butter and sugar, add the egg and mix well.  Sift in the flour and lemon zest and mix until it forms a soft dough.  Chill the dough in the fridge for at least 30min before rolling out and cutting.  Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for about 12 mins until golden (not dark brown on the edges).

Feed the world

Do they know its Christmas Time

Well I did plenty of baking this week

 I made blueberry muffins using this recipe for my work Christmas do.  DH was very worried that I might take all of them to work with me, but I left him a few for his lunches.

I also made some lemon star biscuits (post to come soon) and then some Christmas cake slice.  This is an Alison Holst recipe, but when I pulled out my recipe book I found that I had lost the page that has this receipe on it.  This was a fairly major disaster, so I tried my best to recreate this from scratch.  It was alright, but not quite right.  DH said that the base was too dry and the topping not gooey enough.  It didn't stop him from eating several pieces however, so I can't have made too bad a job of it.

Our biscuit tins haven't looked this well stocked since I started work.

And the winner is...

Jenny! Congratulations on winning the fabric.  I will contact you shortly (I'm having some email issues, but I will get in touch).

Giveaway - Santa Claus is coming to town

He's making a list, he's checking it twice

I have decided to enter Sewmamasew's Giveaway Day.  But since it is a bit last minute, I've only got some fabric to give away.  Its approx 1 metre of a beautiful blue striped cotton.

Close up detail

The fabric in its entirety.

Its really simple, just leave a comment in this post and I will draw a winner from them.  I'll be using my trusty scrolling up and down the list of comments with my eyes closed method of drawing a winner.  Unfortunately, given the prize and the time of year, I'm not in a position to ship internationally this time.  The giveaway ends on the 17th of December.  Good Luck

We wish you a Merry Christmas

And a happy New Year

My project this week is to do some Christmas baking.  I have a couple of Christmas parties coming up this week, and I thought some home made goodies would make a nice present for our Nanny as well.  Plus I haven't been doing much baking lately, and I feel in the mood to get creative in the kitchen.

Check back here tomorrow for a giveaway post as well.  I have decided to enter Sew Mama Sew's giveaway day.

Silver Bells

Silver Bells

I was supposed to be making Christmas decorations this week, but things took a bit of a difficult turn when I sprained my ankle at work.  For those who are interested, I was walking across a perfectly flat piece of carpet in my flattest shoes, and I rolled my ankle.  I am just incredibly grateful that I didn't break it.  For the last few days I have been sitting on the couch with my leg up, so my plans of making salt dough decorations with the girls did not come to pass.  However, I did find that sitting around was good for doing some hand sewing so I created these little felt decorations.

Its the first time I've attempted blanket stitch, and I'm quite pleased with the result, even if it is a little rough.

This was supposed to be a dove, but P declared it looked like a duck, and I have to agree with her, so it is our Christmas Duck.

J was also very taken with the duck, and spent quite alot of time cuddling it.

Deck the Halls

With boughs of Holly

My project this week is to make some Christmas decorations with P and J.  They have been threading some ribbon through old Christmas cards at play group for the last couple of weeks, so those have gone on the tree already.  I’m going to try making salt dough to make decorations out of, and I have heaps of felt scraps that we will sew into some shapes.

Joy to the World

The Lord is come

P and I left early this morning and went out to get our Christmas Tree.  We went and chose the tree, and then I chopped it down by myself.  We had to check out a few different trees before we decided on this one.  But when I got it home, it was too big for our house (its always better to go bigger though, you can always trim it down).  DH had to go to work so he said he would chop it down this evening.  I pointed out that I could do that, and he expressed scepticism that I would be able to carry the tree outside, saw through the trunk and carry the tree back inside again.  Little did he know my determination.  So after some very sweaty, hot minutes, I had the tree in just the right size for our living room.

 And because I had cut the tree a bit shorter, there were some smaller branches for P to use as a tree for herself.  I thought she might want to put it in her room, but she decided that it should go right beside the big tree.

 And here they are all decorated.  J's contribution was to put all the baubles in her mouth and then drop them into their container.  There is no angel on the big tree.  My family have a very old angel that takes pride of place at the top of their tree, and I haven't yet found the right one for my family.  I think that will be our project over the next couple of weeks.

After getting the tree and decorating it, I felt a great sense of not only accomplishment, but also of joy.  Christmas is a really important time of the year for me and my family, both because it is a great time for family and holidays, and also because Christmas is so significant for my faith.  I feel a sense of rightness with my life.

P's creative space

My creative space this week is actually P's creative space.

Her playdough eggs are going for a ride in their car egg cups.  You can check out more creative spaces here