This Christmas I set myself a challenge, less commercial more home made. This wasn’t about money but about the experience of christmas, the joy of doing things as a family and the happiness of receiving something home made. I wanted to teach the girls that not everything has to be bought from a shop and so it was that I started planning their Christmas presents. I made their snowman soup the other evening and just need to print a label to put on it but I think they are looking really good.
I have also nearly finished their Reindeer food, make your own snowman kit and a den building box which contains tarpaulin, string, tent pegs and some camouflage face paints. All of these gifts have had more thought than money put into them and the den building box has been collected together from bits around the house and less than £10 on Amazon.
My next step on the make your own Christmas came with a bit of help from Cartridge Save who sent me a craft pack to take part in their Craft Christmas Cracker competition. They have six great guides on their website that you should check out http://www.cartridgesave.co.uk/christmas
My next step on the make your own Christmas came with a bit of help from Cartridge Save who sent me a craft pack to take part in their Craft Christmas Cracker competition. They have six great guides on their website that you should check out http://www.cartridgesave.co.uk/christmas
With the help of the guides, the craft pack and a bit of imagination we got started. Our first issue was that the girls were arguing over which star to place on the Christmas tree so we decided to make an angel together instead. This went well surprisingly and with Alison making the wings and Elizabeth making the dress we managed to cobbled together a fairly decent (if not very ginger) angel.
Unfortunately we were unprepared for making the crackers and we didn’t have any toilet roll holders left. This meant that we had to innovate. We used strips of card of varying lengths to strengthen the ends and the middle and with a kitchen roll holder to wrap around we rolled our crackers tight. Then slide out the Kitchen roll holder before twisting one end (and trying not to rip the paper). We slipped our little gift inside with a few penny sweets and twisted the other end. Tied with some beautiful ribbon and with a lovely name tag on they were fit for any princess. The girls couldn’t wait to pull them and did so before I could get a decent picture which was a shame but they had lots of fun doing it. I did manage to catch the second attempt on video.
We then seemed to get the crafting bug and soon we had paper streamers around the room and hearts, stars and snowflakes making everywhere look christmassy. None of the crafts were very elaborate or long winded and I think that helped to keep me and the girls focused on our task. That and a cheesy christmas film on in the background.
