Final Countdown

Wow – I’m done and ended up just two pressies short of a Christmas – I did start them last night but it was after 23:00 – and I didn’t think I had the relevant concentration to do them justice.  I had a few things to finish today but knew they wouldn’t take that long…

Some more paper baubles (I should probably have taken a pic of the card before I cut it up – that might have been an idea – it was very nice)

A buddy from my ready made ones

A crochet cube lined and stuffed

A fleece (yes all I had to do was hem it)

For the mother in law, who tends to never use/wear presents I thought food!  So I made double my Christmas baking…

Chocolate fruit Christmas cake made into individual cakes after seeking advice from Lorna.

Coconut bread – B’s favourite

And some Apricot Crumbles which I’d never made before and mine are blackcurrant.

The best bit – all are edible – which is always a plus with my baking – it’s either really good or really, really, really bad.

And my next to last present – a Christmas table runner…

So other than one more present, which shouldn’t take long, I only have a date with our little furry family member and a set of reindeer antlers – don’t worry I’m not going to use the staple gun.  I couldn’t find the staple extractor and since Buddy sleeps on the bed I didn’t fancy waking up with an antler up my nose! 

Made – 25/29 with 5 hours 15 mins to go – so that means two get bought (e vouchers) and the other missed the Christmas post date so with the snow as well there was no urgency there)

Panic level – 0/10

Paper Christmas Baubles

For the past, quite a few, years we have had popcorn strings on the Chrismtas tree.  And even those these generally take two nights to make, which has nothing to do with the amount of popcorn that I eat instead of thread, I like the look on the tree.  In fact when the bathroom was refitted (now finished and lovely – pics to follow at some point) the plumber said ‘I bet this gets a lot of use’ as he moved the popcorn maker to get to the stop tap.  ‘Yes it does’ I replied ‘regularly once a year.’

This year however I had to give a thought to our new furry addition and I didn’t think that stringing the tree with something edible would be a super wonderful idea.

So I needed something to take the place of the popcorn.  Since we, well I say ‘we’ I mean ‘I’, decorate the tree with shells and wooden sea creatures – just one more reason why I refrain from using the n word ((((normal)))).

So I decided to make paper baubles – for want of a better word similar to the heart ornaments I made earlier in the year and decided to share the easiness of them with you…

Ingredients

Paper or thin card (I tried thicker card but it tends to crease rather than bend)

Stapler

Sticky tape (or masking tape! – I can’t leave the stuff alone)

Scissors or guillotine

Thread, ribbon or fishing line

Method

Take the paper or card and cut it into 1″ wide strips.  I printed Merry Christmas onto my paper, in varying sizes via a table in Word so I could also print the cutting lines.

 

Cut the strips to length

2 x 4″

2 x 4 1/2″

2 x 5″

Attach a loop of fishing line to one of the 4″ pieces with masking tape (ohhh)

Stack the strips together with the longest at the bottom (and with the pattern facing out if you are using patterned paper)

Place one lot of strips on top of the other with the shorter lengths in the middle

and staple at the loop end.

Line up the unfastened ends of the strips and stple them and you should end up with something like this…

Here’s some examples of varying sizes…

Obviously you can add as many strips as you want.

And since I can’t find the big seashell for the top of the tree (I know how do you loose a seashell – maybe Buddy ate it) I made a large heart to replace it…

And here’s our tree with them on…

And here’s another Christmas present off my list – I made these with two strips of paper to make them that bit more robust and used eyelets instead of staples at the ends.

Considering the eyelets required the use of a hammer and my wrist is still sore I thought it wasn’t going to work out too well however using a hammer is fine but slicing toast is a major no-no – apparently it’s the bending and twisting whilst under pressure it objects to!

Made – 12/29 with 3 days to go (3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) It’s okay I have a bunch half done and four I’ve not yet posted about so it’s okay, it is okay, IT IS!

Panic level – 4/10 (Although to keep it low I did something that I am about to confess and that you may need to look away now if you are a sewer, sewerist, er… if you sew – I used my dressmaking scissors to cut paper – this is something I have threatened to divorce B over in the past but I couldn’t find my craft scissors and then when I did they had sticky on them, possbily from cutting too much masking tape, and I couldn’t be bother to go get the nail varnish remover to get it of – I am so ashamed)