Christmas Countdown!

I was really quite shocked to find that the last time I posted on here was back at Halloween! It has been a very eventful few weeks - a house move and the busiest half term ever at Hope & Gloria Sewing Clubs have meant that the blog has been on the backburner.

This is not to say that the crafting hasn't continued (although at a much slower pace than usual), and now that the boys have finished school and our school clubs are taking a break until the new year/term, I can finally attempt to finish off a few of those sewing and knitting projects that have been on my to do list for many months. Hopefully, they will be finished in time for the big day - but watch this space....

I am really happy to have finished my vintage inspired robin heart decoration. I keep a special notebook full of sewing project ideas and whenever a new idea springs to mind I add it to the growing list.

This hanging heart decoration has been on my stitching to do list since November 2015 - I began making him in November 2016 and yesterday I completed it when I stitched on the ribbon and button.

If you have read my blog before, you will know that I am a huge fan of robins and I am happy to report that we have a couple of them in the garden in our new home - the perfect inspiration to prompt me to get around to making this decoration. I hope it evokes vintage Christmas Cards of days gone by featuring a fat cheerful robin. It is now hanging on a door handle adding festive cheer to our family room.

Christmas festivities have already begun with the Richardsons' - we had my family visiting for lunch last weekend and after watching Kirsty Allsop's Handmade Christmas programme I decided it would be fun to have a go at making our own crackers. As we were pushed for time I invested in cracker-making kits from Hobbycraft - I have to say they were a great introduction to making your own, and Theo and I had a lot of fun assembling them.

We used raffia instead of the silver ties supplied with the kit and we added name tags so that the crackers handily doubled up as place cards. There's no reason why this idea could not be put to use with shop bought crackers if you don't have time to make them.

Here they are in situ on our festive table on Saturday......

It really is lovely to add handmade touches to family gatherings - they are always appreciated and everyone seems to love a personal touch. Next year I'll try to begin sourcing materials for crackers a bit earlier so that they can be truly unique. Let's see if I manage it...!

Looking forward to sharing further Christmassy crafts with you over the next few days.