CHRISTmas is here!

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

CHRISTmas Ideas

Earlier on this week I took a trip to our local garden centre to take a look at their CHRISTmas display. Wow was I in for a visual feast, so much so that today I went back with Mr J , Ariane and my camera.

Whitehall is a family run garden centre with there being just 2 in the chain!! Today the head of the family business was in at work, nothing interesting I here you say apart from the fact that she is a  little 80 year old white haired lady. Quite easy to spot her amongst the green uniformed younger workers!!

At the entrance to the winter wonderland you are greeted by this display. The polar bears actually move. Very cute.

Then the rest of the displays are set up as room scenes or garden scenes for you to take inspiration from.Think I may have to paint my front door red for CHRISTmas.

Then the room scenes started !! Next to each scene they had shelves full of all the ornaments and more for you to achieve this in your own homes.

Each room or scene was named and every corner you turned there was a completely different look.

Shabby Chic

Traditional

Oh ,to have a fire place in the dining room.

This was my favourite room and actually reminded me of a friend of mines house. You can check out her blog at  chloescouture . I just love the chandelier.

They were using a glass beaded floral piece as their tree topper, looked amazing.

Then off to the garden displays.

Different shaped mirrors helped to make all of the displays look much fuller a great interiors tip.

Mirrors being used in the garden too.

Now for some bedroom decor. This was Arianes favorite.

A close up of the goodies that were on the dressing table which were for sale elsewhere in the store.

Now for the children's bedroom. There was also a pink bed in this scene but my camera was running out of batteries so we were limiting to one pic per scene from now on. Sorry for the quality on some of these pics I'm still not used to the way this camera works.

Another fab entrance way.

Another traditional scene to finish it off.

We will definitely making more trips to whitehall nearer to CHRISTmas to stock up on extra little bits of decor as you can never have to many CHRISTmas pieces, can you??

Hope you enjoyed the pictures and maybe got a little bit of inspiration.

God Bless You.xx

Annie Sloan Chalk Paint another addiction!

In between the sewing projects I decided that the vintage sewing box that was being used as a side table in Jasmines bedroom needed a make over. She will be pleased to see that I am still referring to it as her room as she has moved 'up north' for university and was convinced that I would either turn it into a full time guest room or auction it off to one of the other children!!

Good ole faithful   Annie Sloan to the rescue.

Loved the little draw pull so removed that before painting.

With  ASCP (Annie Sloan Chalk Paint) there is no need for sanding or priming so it was straight to the job, didn't even bother to remove it from her room! Hope Mr J doesn't read that bit!!

Decided to paint the draw front 'Louis blue' and then do a wash of 'Old white' over the top. So that when I did a little bit of distressing there would be hints of the blue showing through.

2 Hours later the job was complete.

Didn't need to use any of the dark wax on this one as for some reason there where bit of the old brown seeping through but I didn't mind this just gave it a more aged look. Much more in keeping with the rest of the room now.

God Bless You.x