Hello my lovely festive friends. It's a matter of days before Christmas, are you excited?? I cannot wait. When it comes to Christmas I'm a 5 year old in a 35 year olds body ...  and I still put a mince pie and glass of milk out for santa (and he still eats and drinks it!) This month I've been crafting away and transforming our little cottage with handmade decorations. Here are some of my crafty goings on in the last couple of weeks ...

When it came to decorating the house, I wanted to add more lights to our little mole cave. Do you recognise this branch? this was sitting in the garden in the summer. So I had an idea. I gave it a shower (be gone bugs!) then once dry I gave it spray with some fake snow ... I then wrapped some battery-operated LED fairy lights around it - they came on a copper wire which blended perfectly (£3.99 from Wilkos)

I then adorned it with my favourite baubles and put it in one of the darkest corners - which is now aglow! I bought this pretty green bauble from a local shop this year. Baubles like this are too pretty to get out once a year I think, so I'll probably hang this on a wall light in January ...

 ... and this lovely one was a lovely gift from Laura Ashley - isn't it beautiful?

I then made a crochet snowflake garland to hang across the fireplace. This was my first attempt. If you can crochet you'll find these a breeze. When finished I laid a tea towel on a cushion, stretched each corner of the snowflake as far as I could and pinned it to the cushion, then I gave it a good spray of starch. The next morning I pegged them onto a ribbon and TADA!  You can find the pattern for these on the Attic24 website.

At our craft club Christmas gathering this year we make felt decorations. These are so much fun and so easy! I made this heart (in between mouthfuls of mince pies and mulled wine). The others made some gorgeous christmas ones, but I wanted to hang this all year round so I kept it neutral. 

So now the cottage is ready for Christmas! Though I've still a pile of washing to do, pressies to wrap and goodies to make, so I better get on with it!

JM

xxx