Cat and Eilir Day 7

Snow globes

We had this idea a few weeks ago when we first got our Christmas box out of the attic. One of our Christmas decorations (a very tacky ancient plastic snow globe that was probably picked up in a charity shop but nonetheless Eilir loved) had cracked, so I had promised we'd make a new one.

It took a couple of weeks to use (and finish with) some appropriately sized jam jars to be washed out and labels scrubbed off. We then rummaged for bits and pieces of broken Christmas decorations that wouldn't mind being immersed in water, glitter, and some polystyrene balls that had escaped a beanbag.

We did the Father Christmas first, and realised the polystyrene floated on top permanently. Eilir had to keep adding more water for it to be effective. Second came the yellow star which filled the pot, (but that was how Eilir wanted it).  He chose gold and silver glitter for the snow. Last of all he decided that he wanted a non-Christmassy one so that he could keep it all year round, which he filled with lots of multicoloured glitter and some coloured beads to make a kaleidoscopic effect when shaken. He was very pleased and has been turning them regularly ever since.

Johana and boys Day 7

Sloe gin is one of my favourite drinks, I can drink loads of the stuff and I'm not even a big drinker.  Every year we try to make enough to bottle up as seasonal presents, in addition of course to my stash.  In October the family went for a walk and D and T helped me to pick sloe berries, about 3 tubs full, with the aim of making sloe gin in December.  Three months in demi jons with some sugar and gin and a few shakes later the sweet, purple mixture was ready to decant.  

My mother kindly helps out by drinking small bottles of red wine throughout the year, mostly on the train coming to see us and then saves the bottles for us, for this purpose. To bling them up this year we used the glue gun to stick shiny bobbles onto the caps and tied gold ribbon around their necks.  The previous year I had cut a 'sloe berry' motif into some lino and we used this again.  T helped ink and print the some sticky labels and wrote some of the dates. Now the distribution, we made 18, but there are never enough, these will go to family, close friends, sloe gin lovers and some thank yous.

Silver and girls Day 7

Reindeer Pompom Decoration

Yet another kit...  As Nim hasn't made pompoms before I thought this would be another fun one for her to do.  Learning new skills is something we are big on at our house!  You can make a pompom template out of two pieces of card, if you haven't got a compass to mark 2 circles, you can use a glass or even a roll of sellotape to draw around.

I started Nim off by wrapping the wool around the template, don't knot the wool, just over wrap the end to secure it.  Once Nim used up all the wool we added the foam headpiece and cut the pompom to remove the card template.

Next Nim added the facial features, feet and threaded a bit of ribbon through to enable the decoration to be hung on the tree.

Adeola and boys Day 7

Play dough and twigs from the park, taa daaa meet (another) Rudolph. What’s up with us and the reindeer theme? I’ll blame it on my boys and their wildlife obsession – they want to ‘save’ (sponsor really) another endangered animal for Christmas this year.

Mostly me and Roti for this one – Lo was at rugby and Babi was dozing off on my lap. He’s not wellL irritable and crying a lot…

Roti took it into his room along with my mobile phone to get a photo for the BLOG. I heard it plonk onto the floor; it’s okay, still in one piece. I wasn’t at all worried.

Steph and G Day 7

Put up our decos, but they seemed a bit scant, age old favourites must have finally gone to the recycling last year.  G made some paperchains from wrapping paper which look great up, and we decided to decorate the fabric flags bought just because they were cheap after the jubilee was done, with no set purpose in mind.  Those fabric pens are years old but to my surprise still giving good, always put the tops back on! It pays.  Great fun with friend over, in between showing each other dance moves and cartwheels,( that will bring your tinsel down!)  I am particularly fond of the gingerbread man who morphed into a gingerbread angel, and the jolly snowmen.