New Year, Bargains and Excesses!

We are back after our winter break and would like to wish all our readers a very Happy new year full of new adventures. Just thought we would give you an update of a few of our adventures over the last week or two. Our baby Christmas / Yule tree has been outside now for a couple of weeks and is looking much better.... hopefully it will continue to grow all year ready to be brought in again for next year.

The decorations have been very carefully packed away... If you follow our blogs you will know that we hand make a lot of decorations and each one contains so much love and so many memories of past seasons and the children growing up that we would absolutely hate to lose any of them.

As an extremely thrifty living family this careful packing also saves us much money each year... Talking about thrifty living, we have used the January sales to stock up on anything we may need for next Christmas at just a fraction of the price!

We have bought the crackers and all of the wrapping paper for next year for bargain prices many things were just a few pence, plus some rolls of paper which could also double up as other occasion wrapping paper, for example stars can be used as birthday or congratulation wrapping paper too. Extra thrifty bonus points! No need to worry or stress about these things throughout the year or in the run up to Christmas now.

Another good money saving tip is to look out for bargain foods after Christmas... most supermarkets are wanting to offload their seasonal excesses very cheaply. One of the things we bought were these parsnips for just 3p a bag, I have to admit we bought lots... more than 10 bags. Well, we do eat a lot of vegetables and most of them have been prepared for the freezer, ideal to grab a handful for a casserole or just for roast parsnips. We have also been enjoying parsnip crisps too.

My freezer is also now full of carrots too, apart from the ones used for carrot stick snacks and of course carrot cake. Not only has this saved us a lot of money, it has also stopped a lot of food being discarded and ending up in landfill. As a zero food waste family this means a lot to us!

For the whole festive season we have been enjoying the beautiful flowers on my rhipsalis pilocarpa cactus plant, it's like looking up a lots of tiny white stars. We are also looking forward to the new season of growing especially with the arrival of our new seeds.

So once again we wish you a very happy new year and good bargain hunting!

Twig wreath and star bases

Following on from our theme of thrifty or free homemade Christmas / yule decorations we have been making the bases for our wreaths and stars. As keen gardeners we tend to save any useful looking clippings and my husband had recently pruned our cherry tree which has beautiful reddish tinted bark, so we set to work creating the bases to woven wreaths seen above.

This is the pile of twigs I started with... when freshly cut, the twigs are still very pliable and can quite easily be bent and twisted into shape. To form the rings I first took one stick and bent it into a ring shape, then held it in place with one hand whilst intertwining the next stick around the ring. This is quite fiddly and it is possible to tie the first stick into a ring shape if you'd prefer but I always find that once you've woven in a couple of sticks it holds it's shape by itself.

Once it holds it's own shape you can then decide on how many sticks to weave in, you could go for a simple ring with just a few sticks or something much thicker and more substantial.

 We have gone for something in between as you can see in our first photograph... all ready to decorate for the season now. These bases have cost us nothing to make just using a few clippings from the garden and a little time, I usually decorate our wreaths with the natural look of fresh holly, ivy and pinecones from our gardens.

The stars are also easily made from twigs, cut five to the same size, lay them out in a star shape and tie off the corners. These can also be decorated to fit your decor.

I'll be back to post a couple of photos to show you the finished results when the wreaths have been decorated. After Christmas / Yule these wreath bases can be saved until they are needed again, I usually strip them back of all the fresh foliage and pack them away ready to be redecorated on their next outing.

Pine Cone Garland

I recently posted some photographs of our pine cone garlands on social media and was inundated with questions on how to make these and many people commented on how beautiful the finished garlands looked. So I have decided to post a little guide on our very thrifty and natural Autumn, Yule or Christmas garland decorations.

My husband and I decided over 12 years ago that we would embrace thrifty living... no more shop bought decorations for us!!... Everything we wanted we would make as thriftily as possible. Not only has this saved us so much money, unpacking our lovingly, handmade Christmas decorations every year holds so many memories.

I absolutely love the simplicity and natural beauty of these pine cone garlands, the one above was made for Autumn but I also have one that was made for Christmas a few years ago which has a few more sparkles.

First you will need to collect some pine cones, we usually grab a few throughout the year as we find them. The amount of pine cones you need will depend on the length of garland required, I'm using seven for my mantle piece. I usually leave them outside for a little while to ensure that any critters safely leave the pine cones.

To make the fixings we are using screw eyelets, they are really cheap only a few pence for a bag. I have managed to screw these directly into the end of the pine cone by hand but it is a little fiddly, so if you need help starting your hole, a very thin drill bit may give you a start.

 Next just thread your pine cones onto your chosen string or ribbon, we are using natural jute string here but ribbons work just as well and there is less movement of the pine cones. You may notice if using string that all the pine cones slip to the middle when you try to create a swag in your garland, you could tie them on to keep them still... but I have another remedy for this...

A little trick which allows you to easily fix them in place but still allows them to be movable if you need to change the position of a pine cone. Thread the string through your eyelet and then thread it through again, as seen in the above photo... so you create a loop.

This simple act gives your pine cone a little more resistance so that you can move it but it doesn't slip down the string.

These garlands can be kept natural or decorated for Christmas with a little glitter, paint or fake snow... the best part is it has literally taken a few minutes and cost a few pennies to make, and this beautiful garland can be reused every year.

Goodbye 2014... Hello 2015

Just a short post to wish you all a Happy new year and to say goodbye to 2014. We have put quite a few things off recently due to a death in the family, blogging has been one of those things but we have still been muddling through in a quiet way and we are now very much looking forward to 2015 and all the new challenges it may bring.

We still made some Christmas decorations for our home, but this year things seem to have taken a simple, more natural approach. Both my husband and I have made some Christmas baubles, complete with pyrography, from a section of an old branch.

I made this pine cone garland, another very simple, natural craft that looked so beautiful on the fireplace. I am definitely thinking of making some more of these next year.

Another one of my favourite additions this year was the snowflake mobile. My husband hung a twisted willow branch, that had been sprayed slightly with silver glitter to give it a frosty feel, in the window. We then hung snowflake decorations and crystals from it to give a feel of snow. It was very difficult to get good photos of this but it looked amazingly magical.

My husband helped the children to make these wooden snowmen using offcuts of wood, which they chose to paint. So most of the decorations we made this year had a wooden feel to them.

Well that's some of the things we have been doing at this very busy time, all that's left to do is wish you all a very Happy new year!

Wool Wrapped Wire Reindeer

Yesterday I wrote about the wool wrapped wire snowflakes we made... Today I'm bringing you something much cuter, Rudolf the red nosed reindeer, made in the same way as the snowflakes.

We started in a similar way to the snowflakes, my husband began by drilling small holes into some left over dowel and inserting the wire to make a reindeer shape as seen in the photo below. My daughter also made one with an old cork and some wooden skewers as you will see in the last photo.

After getting the basic shape I then wrapped the entire reindeer in brown wool until every last piece was covered. I managed to use one continuous piece of wool again as this is easier to fasten off the end with a spot of glue.

To finish I toyed with the idea of a small, shiny red button or bead for his nose but in the end we opted for a little red pom pom and a quick spray of glitter.

 

He makes a very cute addition to our festive decorations this year, my daughter absolutely loves him and has made one of her own. She decided to paint her reindeer instead of wrapping him in wool.

 And then there were two...

Garden Charms and Bird Treats

At this time of year, as the weather gets colder, our thoughts go to feeding the birds. This is our way of giving something back to nature to replace the berries we foraged in autumn. As well as making sure the bird table and feeders are full we have also been making some garden charms, which look very pretty hanging in the trees and provide an extra feast for our feathered friends.

For the charms we have used some garden wire bent into the shape of a heart or star and various dried berries and nuts. The heart shape has been threaded with rosehips and raisins.

When fully threaded the shape was secured safely with either tape, string or wire and a loop was added to hang it on the tree.

We also made a star shape which was threaded with chestnuts and Rowan berries. It is harder to see the shape of this one as the chestnuts are much larger. Anything that birds find tasty can be threaded onto your wire shape and they look gorgeous hanging in the garden.

The pine cone feeders have been a firm favourite with the children for quite a few years now. First attach string or wire for attaching the feeder to the tree as seen in the above photo. Then coat your pine cone with either peanut butter or lard and roll it in bird seed.

These little pine cone feeders usually attract the small birds that are a bit nervous about visiting the bird table when larger birds are around. They are very simple and a lot of fun to make even for very small children.

I will leave you with a couple of photographs of the garden charms and pine cone bird feeders hanging in the trees. They add some much needed colour to the garden this time of year.

The children love feeding the birds and this also provides them with extra opportunities for bird watching.

Mini corn husk broomsticks

As Halloween is approaching fast we thought we would make some mini decorations to hang on our spooky Halloween tree. After the crops were harvested on our allotment we had a lot of corn husks left over so we have decided to use them.

First take a small stick and wrap the dried corn husks around one end, any small twigs or raffia will do if you don't have any corn husks. Then trim the ends to an appropriate length for a broomstick, we have cut ours at about a couple of inches.

Tie the corn husks to your stick tightly, we have used copper wire as we have quite a lot of it but any string will do.

Snip up from the bottom to give the little decoration an authentic broomstick look. We gave ours a spray with the glitter spray to finish it off with a magic dust sparkle.

That's all there is too it, all that is left is to hang them on the spooky Halloween tree when it is put up.

Last year we made corn husk dolls and a corn husk sunflower wreath with our left over corn husks. My youngest daughter has also been crafting this week with these leaves and I will be back soon to show you her wonderful creation.

Happy New Year 2012

Not the sort of Happy New Year photograph you usually see... but this calendula photograph was taken in my herb bed this morning, nature's fireworks bursting through. Just a quick post to wish you all a Happy New year and to thank-you for reading.  We have been so busy here that I haven't had the time to write as much as I wanted to and many things went unfinished.  So will quickly update you on some of the things we have done.

As the children really enjoyed working with clay and making the Autumn leaf bowls we decided to buy a large bag from the art shop. Some of it was put to good use making tree decorations, the children used dough cutters to cut out their shapes and these were then painted and varnished.

I also made some and stamped words on them with our metal stamps before painting them with metallic purple paint. I stamped our names on some to use on the crackers and as gift labels but totally forgot to use them in all the excitement. As shown in previous posts we made some of the tree decorations, this is something we always do to create special memories for the children. We also made all of our Christmas cards, this year we kept most of them very simple due to time limitations.

 The children had a lot of fun making our chocolate Yule log and home made sweets, this year we made marshmallow snowmen, fruit and nut chocolate bark and marzipan snowballs. A lot of time was spent making things for the doll house that my husband made for our daughter, I was in charge of interior design, will try to remember to post pictures here soon. I am a little relieved to have a calmness return to the house now that the celebrations are over and the decorations have come down.

I have made a start on my 'sort of' new year's resolutions already, by making my own toothpaste. I never make huge resolutions that are so overwhelming you fail after a couple of weeks and end up feeling bad about yourself. I only make small achievable aims and when these have been completed will then make another goal and another, right throughout the year, this way there are lots of small successes. The feel good factor from this is better and when you look back on everything you have done it is quite like a big resolution anyway just taken in small steps and without any stress.

Hope you all have a wonderful 2012.

Happy New Year!

Just a short post to wish all my family, friends and readers a Happy New Year, not long of 2010 left  to say good bye to old father time and prepare for the arrival of the fresh baby new year 2011. I hope you have all had an eventful year, and will join me in raising a glass in toast to all the challenges and adventures that may lay ahead for us next year, whether they be big or small, hopefully some steps will bring us closer to the life we dream. Thank-you also to all the wonderful people who have inspired us all year.

We had such fun in December making our own decorations, some of the natural pine cone ones are above, some of the others I have already posted about. It was a shame to pack all the decorations away, but this was done with great care so that we could hopefully enjoy them all next year again, and start the new year afresh.

The whole family got involved making our Christmas cards too, I hope everyone who received one liked them. The paper quilled one above was made using the snowflake pattern and some of the others are below. What matters most to me is the fun we all had making them. We even made our own crackers, complete with hats, jokes, toys and snaps. 

so good bye 2010 and I'll see you all on the other side 2011. Happy new year, blessings to you all.

Tree and Star

Finally got the tree up, well, mostly up! We still have some decorations to go on the tree which are in various stages of being made, painted, glittered or drying. Some of them I'm quite excited about and will be writing about them soon but at the moment this is how far we have got.  This photograph doesn't do the tree justice, it is so sparkly in real life. I have to admit to being a little obsessive with the tree and getting it just right, I don't know why because after a few days it always looks like it has been attacked by several bears.

 This is one of the stars my husband made to adorn our ceiling, it looks so beautiful reflected in light, it has also been sprayed with silver paint and glitter. I was originally going to make these with holographic paper to be more reflective but I think they look OK. So as you can see we are a little bit closer to being ready... if you would like to make the above star you can find a guide on this site.