Jikana Damaru: 12/22/09

~ Getting the table ready ~

We are having Christmas Day at our house with Mr A's family this year - 21 people for lunch.

I have been busy working out how to make the table look lovely and have gone with a black, white and silver theme this year. Here is a peak at the placecards - still working on it all coming together.

Birthday Bunting

Is it me, or has the craft world gone totally bunting craaazy? Not sure what I'm on about? Here are a few of my favourite (because of COURSE I've jumped onto the bandwagon!) recent finds on Etsy:

Bunting from Giggleberry

Bunting sugar bowl and milk pitcher from Ninainvorm

Bunting magnets from Vickeh

Bunting by Paperfish

Bunting card from Winifred Studios

See? So, inspired by the bunting-mania of late, I decided to make a bunting of my very own for Fern's birthday. There will be two strings of bunting, actually, one that says "Happy Birthday" and the other, simply "Fern". I like the idea of bringing out the bunting every year until my daughter deems it way too uncool, and by keeping her name separate I can also use it for any subsequent children I might have!

Fern's nanny and I set to work this afternoon, as Fern's birthday party is looming closer... but by the MILLIONTH little triangle cutout I wondered how anyone would choose to do this for a living?! I drew and cut out the letters super quickly as I have no patience for that type of thing, but I was sure to inject plenty of love into the colour design! Anyway, no pics of my work in progress as yet, but I'll post next week (which is my deadline!).

Have a great rest-of-the-week.

Handmade Christmas pastel chocolates

The chocolate skulls I made at Halloween seemed to go down well with my family, and with one of my sisters in particular. For Christmas I wanted to make her some suitably themed chocolates.

I was in Selfridges looking at the silicone chocolate moulds, which were rather expensive, when I saw they had silicone ice cube trays at a third of the price! I could see no real difference between them so went for the cheaper ice cube trays. I love how they turned out! Now to sort out some pretty packaging...

To make these chocolates, I tempered the chocolate, coloured it using natural pink and green food colouring, poured the mix into the trays, and left them to set in the fridge.

Have a sweet day!