Jikana Damaru: 12/20/11

Christmas Lunch No 1

As we race towards the 25th December here are a few pictures from the first of our two Christmas lunches with our family - last Sunday we had a gorgeous day with my side of the family celebrating both Christmas and my mum's birthday.

A last minute change of colour theme to red and white but hey last minute changes can be good!

My immediate family - my mum, my sister and her two kids and my nan (my dad's mum)

So now we head to Christmas Day and the decision of whether to go with red and white again or to mix it up - can see a last minute decision coming again!

Handmade Gift Idea for <$5

The night before I sent Fern off to preschool for the last time this year (she goes once a week) I had a mild panic attack. My best intentions to gift her wonderful, caring teachers with something thoughtful were looking a little bleak. What to do? I couldn't send her with nothing, just couldn't!

But never fear. My never-fail, so quick its almost criminal recipe for 'nanna cookies', pilfered from last year's "Afternoon Tea" recipe book by Frankie magazine saved the day... and with a little creativity, some bits from my craft-box and a $4 glass jar from Coles, I came up with this:

So easy!

Bake cookies.

Find a bit of leftover wrapping paper and cut to wrap around glass jar. Fix with sticky-tape.

Wrap a paper doily around top of jar and affix with ribbon, string or (in my case) piping cord. Slip a candy cane and gift-tag (a Dulux sample-card) to the top and give away with pride!

Fern's teachers seemed well-pleased. Perhaps they were being polite. No matter!

What did YOU gift the kid's teachers this year? Do you gift them anything at all - or am I being the world's sulkiest parent in doing so?!

wordless wednesday : oh Christmas tree

thank you for a fun filled year of wordless wednesday blog posts. I hope you all have a merry little christmas {wordless wednesday will start up again in feb}

to those of you who are new here please enter your wordless blog post to the list below, link back to here & enjoy visiting as many links as you have time for!

Wooden trees

A couple of years ago I bought some cheap craft wooden Christmas trees that I painted white and with the pots in bright colours to match that year's Christmas colours. This year I have up-cycled them by painting the pots in colours to match my Winter Wonderland theme and covering them in coordinating glitter.

Wooden trees
Tools and Materials

Wooden trees, How-to step by step

Start by painting the entire tree and pot in white undercoat paint and leave to dry. Carefully, with a small paint brush paint the pot in a colour and leave to dry. Coat painted pots in PVA glue and liberally sprinkle with coordinating glitter. Gently tap tree to remove excess glitter and leave to dry.

I loved how Citrus and Orange had styled her beautiful deer, the colours are so pretty! She inspired me to paint my wooden plaque in duck egg blue and sit my same beautiful deers atop it. With my glittered wooden trees in the background, and some needle felted acorns in the foreground.

Have a sweet day!