Well it's been a whole month since last posting and what a busy one. The Johnson household has celebrated three birthdays and had a full on CHRISTmas celebration ( I know it was early but schedules where against us!). Illness has visited and hopefully has left us for the rest of this season at least and milestones have been reached.
Of course some crafting has been done!!
Above are the collection of fabrics that I had got together for my next lot of projects after the Moses basket from the previous post.
moses basket
Familiar fabric? With the left over fabric I decided to make a fabric nappy/diaper tidy,
and a towelling changing mat.
All fitted nicely into the fabric tidy and I was pleased with how it had turned out considering the pattern was just a free print our from the Internet. I did use super heavyweight interfacing so the tidy does stand on its own without anything inside so could be used for other things once baby Freddie, oh sorry forgot to mention baby arrived safely by C section only 13days late but Mummy,Daddy and Freddie are all doing well.
Next make was stockings for the children. OK I know they are maybe to old to be making new CHRISTmas stocking for but hey I'm a crafter and it is CHRISTmas!!
Another free Internet pattern.
I wanted a contrasting trim at the top so made my own pattern for this bit although I don't really think I needed a pattern.
Due to us celebrating our family CHRISTmas get together early this year (4th Dec!!) I saw no reason why I shouldn't get these straight up once I had finished them.
The girls both have gingham tops to theirs.
Whereas Aynsley has a more masculine stripped top.
Our town had it's annual CHRISTmas lights switching on parade which seemed to be the best parade of all the local small towns (maybe I'm biased) but the lights are so pretty. Not the best picture and unfortunately none of the handmade paper lantern parade as the camera we were using really did not like the the array of lights.OK I have no idea about the settings on the camera!!
Birthday number 1. My kids always get to choose what kind of cake they would like for their birthday,we don't always go old school sponge and have even had an apple and blackberry crumble with candles on it before. This year we've had black forest gateau (no i didn't make this one. Thanks costcoXX) and two cheesecakes!
This is what happens to your house when you leave a bunch of 14 year old girls alone to have a sleepover. We move the furniture back throw mattresses down on the floor and leave them to it!!
sleepover food stuff,anyone see anything other than sugar on that table??
Birthday number 2 , cheesecake! yes I did make this one and it's the old trusted recipe off the back of the box of Graham crackers. Obviously we can't buy Graham crackers in the UK so the base is digestive biscuit base. A topping of caramel fudge and grated chocolate was added to finish it off. For some reason I cannot find the picture of Birthday number 3 however it did look very similar to birthday number 2 except the candles were 17 and the base was an amaretto biscuit base which gave the whole cheesecake a completely different taste.Sooo Goood.
A milestone was reached with birthday number 3, Aynsley now has his provisional driving licence and has started with his driving lessons. Please God keep him safe!
Finished just in time for December 1st was the advent calendar. Bought this as a quilting panel in the summer and really hoped to make it during the summer so that there was no time constraint on embellishing it. Summer came and went and the panel lay untouched until about the 29th Nov!! Cut,stitched on the pockets,wadded and lined the panel and then set about hand quilting the designs on the front.
You can't really see the gold tread quilting stitches on this picture to well or the red/pink hand beading but i thought I'd add it anyway. On the eve of Dec 1st when I was still not happy that I'd done enough beading Mr J came up with the genius idea of each year adding some extra embellishment to it, so stop I did and the advent calender got filled with chocolates ready for The children on the 1st.
CHRISTmas decorating usually happens after all the children have had their birthdays so never before Dec 8th but this year due to when we are skiing and work commitments the only time that I could get to have CHRISTmas dinner with my parents was to have them over to celebrate both Jasmines birthday and Jesus' birthday on the 4th!! Decorating happened the weekend before that. Think we were the only people on our estate to have their CHRISTmas lights up before December had even started. Well apart from the ' it's all about the lights folk' You know what I mean!!!
Banners got changed over.
and boxes and boxes of decorations appeared from the loft.
From this too...
This.
That however was the only time the 3 little tea lights were lit as the left great scotch marks on the wall!!
This years tree decorations. Feeling the need for some more pops of colour so at the end of this season will buy a few more special red pieces. In the sales of course!! Off to write some more CHRISTmas cards now. Why do I always leave it till the last minute??
More CHRISTmas decor pics to follow soon.
God Bless you all. XX
