Happy Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas Eve and a very Merry Christmas.

Christmas in Brisbane

Last night I went in to Brisbane to see all the Christmas decorations and shows. After the disappointment of the Christmas markets I was hoping for a much better display and I wasn't disappointed. If you live in Brisbane try to get in to King George Square to see the light show on the town hall. It was spectacular! My grandchildren were amazed!
These are just a few photos of the show.

This is the solar Christmas tree in the square.

One of the many large Christmas decorations throughout Queen St Mall.

The countdown is on.......

Six more sleeps.......

One week until Christmas Eve.

Its getting close, folks.

Last wreath

Well, this is my last wreath for this year. I have loved making everyone for family and friends. I am thinking next year I may try and sell them....hmm, maybe.

Disappointed

Well, today, I was hoping to be able to write a blog on how wonderful the new Christmas markets at Southbank were, but I'm sorry to say that is not going to happen. I was very disappointed. I went along with great expectations after hearing and reading all the information. It was advertised as being just like the European Christmas markets. I am afraid it was not.... Yes, they had decorated the stalls beautifully, yes, there were Christmas lights and yes, there were real Christmas trees, but that was as far as it went. All the stalls, bar a few, were the exact same stalls that are there week in week out. Where were all the stalls with the Christmas decorations? Where was all the Christmas food? Really, it was just the usual weekend market, decorated. Big let down Southbank!

A bit of fun.

I have found a website that is a bit of fun to use and children love the result. It is called PNP portable North Pole. You can go and make free videos of Santa, to have emailed to family or friends. My grandsons think it is amazing. Santa talking to them.
If you have some spare time, have a go and watch the children smile when they receive their email.

https://www.portablenorthpole.com/en/

Wet, wet, wet......what to do?

It's raining......not much to do inside. I have finished all the present wrapping, decorating all done. Hmmm......what to do today. I know, I will make another wreath. This one is for another of my daughter in laws. Hope she likes the colours I have chosen. I think blue and silver are an excellent colour combination. What do you think?

Two weeks until Christmas

So exciting , Christmas is only two weeks away!

More craft....

Today, I have made sleighs made out of candy canes and chocolate bars. You have probably seen these as they are in Pinterest and Facebook quite often. I have made one each for my adult children and then I made one each for my grandchildren. I made the ones for my grandchildren different to the adults. I added a Santa chocolate and made a Santa sack out of chocolate money and wrapped them in red tissue paper. I think they look really cute. What do you think?

Tree loaded and ready to go.....

Organised

All organised!
Yay, for me!
Presents are now wrapped and under the tree. Christmas cards are all written and posted and the only shopping that I have left to do is for food. I still have a couple of gifts to make, but they will get done next week or maybe even Christmas Eve as I don't want them lying around too long as they involve food.
I also made another wreath yesterday. It is a gift for my sister. I love how it looks.

Christmas cabinets done...

Finally, all the decorations are up at my workplace, and , if I do say so myself, I think they look pretty good.
As you will remember, I was making wreaths and Christmas trees out of old books and lettering out of vintage newspapers. Add to this some stars that I made out of cardboard boxes and vintage newspaper and then some shredded paper in the bottom of the cabinet and this is the result.

Looks great!
There are other cabinets that I decorate, and they are more traditional.

3 weeks until Christmas Eve

Finally, my Christmas lights

After 3 attempts, thanks to the heat and thunder storms we finally got all the lights up and running. Well, not all running.....seems a transformer on set has blown and of course the one broken switch on a set of solar lights, but other than that all good. Grandkids came for a visit and their look of wonderment made it all worth while.

What do you think?

Christmas lights

Well, it has taken 3 sessions to get the lights up this year. Mainly due to the heat and storms. Finally finished this morning, very early. Unfortunately, one set is not working. They are solar powered and I thought yesterday maybe they hadn't charged enough, but no, there is no light. Hubby pulled them apart and found the internal switch had broken, so it is off to the shops today to buy another set to fill the gap.
As it is the 1st December, they will all go on tonight. It is nice to see the other neighbours all putting up their lights as well. Can't wait to see the finished product tonight.
Thought I would share this photo with you from the Hunter Gardens Christmas lights. I took it a few years ago and if I had a big enough yard and the money, I would have this in my display. If you have never been to see these lights, it is well worth the trip!

More Christmas craft

Yesterday, was another busy day. I began by cutting up all the fruit for my Christmas pudding and added liberal amounts of rum and sherry and left it to soak for a few days. I will make my pudding early next week. Even though all my children are now adults, they always ask....will there be pudding this year? Last year I taught one of my daughter in laws how to make one, so she can now make them for her own family.
After this, I moved on to making the wreath that a friend of mine ordered. It is beautiful and I will deliver it to her personally next week.

I love the colour of this one. What do you think?
Then it was on to making some lolly jars for my grandsons for Christmas, very cute reindeers.

I think they will love them.

It was now time to sit down and write a Christmas letter to go in all the cards and begin the big job of writing all the cards. I love Christmas cards, and I must admit that it saddens me that each year there seems to be less cards and more online greetings. I love the personal touch and the fact that someone has put some thought into choosing a card.

Mission accomplished

Well, the inside of my house is now well and truly ready for Christmas. It took half a day in 34 degree heat ( thank goodness for air conditioning) , but I declare it finished. Now, I just need to get the outside Christmas light up. Hopefully, weather permitting, that will happen this weekend.
Thought I would share a few snaps of some of my Christmas decorations, maybe to inspire you a bit. Unfortunately, I am not the best photographer in the world!

This is a new addition to my Christmas collection this year, and so simple to make. I bought some lolly jars, from Aldi, during the year, and then I filled them with candy canes, baubles and bows. It looks so effective and you really could fill them with whatever you have lying around. Any colours that you like, of course, someone will have to eat all the candy canes after Christmas!

My tree, pink and green again this year. I have already planned next years tree, gold and silver.

Some more of my decorations. This is just a small selection of what is in my house. Every surface is covered in some sort of decoration and a lot of them light up at night. I spend a fortune on batteries every year!

Today's job is cutting up all the fruit to soak for my Christmas pudding and I have a wreath to make, a paid order! Yay! Then hopefully, enough time to write a letter to go in with all my Christmas cards and make a start on all those cards.

Busy, busy, busy. Sometime soon, I really should do some housework!

Four weeks until Christmas Eve

It's decorating time today! I will post photos of my tree tomorrow!

Busy, busy, busy.....

This has been a very busy week, work wise and personally. Not a minute to spare to sit and think about a post for this blog.
I have finished the last of the decorations that I have made for the Christmas display at my work and next week it will all be put into the cabinets and displayed. I am quite excited to see the end result when everything is put together. This is the last of my book art, a Christmas tree made out of old books.

What do you think? I think they look great.

So excited........

I am so excited, I have 2 orders for Christmas wreaths! I love making them and imagine my surprise when 2 friends, who had seen the wreaths asked me to make them one. I made one today and it was stunning, purple and silver. I delivered it to my friend who was over the moon with the result.
I will make the another one next week, it is going to be gold and silver. Who knows, maybe there will be more orders!

This one is so pretty, don't you think.

5 weeks until Christmas Eve

It is sneaking up very quickly folks!

Past displays

As I have mentioned previously, I am in charge of making the Christmas displays at my work. I am still hard at work making all the items for this years display. This is the lettering I will be using, made from vintage newspapers.

I am very pleased with how it has turned out and I will share with you some of the other things I have made and the final window display in the coming weeks.

I thought I would also share a couple of the other window displays that I made in past years. First up is a window display that I did in the junior area of the library. As you no doubt can tell, the theme is gingerbread men.

The second display was inspired  on a trip to San Francisco. I saw a window display that was for spring, it was full of butterflies. I thought, I could do this for Christmas, using doves instead of butterflies. It was a lot of work, but the display was stunning. The photos don't do it justice.

What do you think? Not bad for an amateur!

One more photo, my Chtistmas cake, baked a few days ago. Can't wait to cut it and have a piece on Christmas Eve. Yum!

Busy, busy, busy

I have been very busy the last few days, no time to stop and do a blog post.

I have finished my Christmas shopping! Yay! I always try and make sure that all presents are bought before the end of November, that way, the only reason I have to go to the shopping centres is to buy food. I must admit, that while I love Christmas, I hate shopping centres at this time of the year. This year, I am making a few gifts for my family. I think these show that you really have put some time and effort into each gift. A couple of years ago I made cookbooks for each of my sons. They contained the recipes of their childhood favourites along with family photos. I think, that over all the years that my sons have been adults, this has been the most popular present I have ever given them. It helps that they all love to cook. I will post photos of the items that I make this year once they are complete.
The other reason that I have been busy, is that I am still making another Christmas wreath for work, out of books. That is almost finished and I have also made another deco mesh wreath, which I think is really beautiful.

As I write this post my Christmas cake is in the oven baking, the house smells divine. Photos to follow once it is out of the oven.

6 weeks until Christmas Eve

Imagine my delight.....

A few weeks ago I was on holiday in Hawaii and imagine my delight and surprise when I realised Macys was putting out their Christmas decorations. I must admit I fully expected to see Halloween decorations, not Christmas.

Macy's, New York store is on my bucket place of places to visit during the lead up to Christmas. Once I realised that the Christmas display was going up at the Ala Moana store I became a daily visitor, in the hope it would be finished before it was time for me to fly home.

As luck would have it, it was about 90% finished before I had to leave and they had begun selling their Christmas decorations. Naturally, this meant my baggage was about to increase and fingers crossed that it would all arrive home in one piece. The gentleman who sold me the decorations did such a good job of putting all my precious baubles in boxes that everything arrived home in one piece.

Now, I really need to visit New York!

Christmas musings.......

For those of you who don't know, Christmas in Australia is in the middle of summer. This means that it is usually very hot, no snow for us! Funnily enough, when you look at Christmas decorations in Australia, we have Santa in his wooly red suit, snowmen, snowflakes, reindeers, all things cold! We just don't seem to be able to adapt to Christmas in summer. I must admit, that over the last couple of years I have noticed some decorations which are trying to reflect summer.

This is more like what Santa Claus should be like in Australia!

A lot of Aussies do spend Christmas Day at the beach, eating prawns and swimming, but a lot also still do the traditional Christmas dinner, of roast turkey and all the trimmings. I remember, years ago, when my mum announced, no more hot Christmas lunch, salads from this day forward! Shock, horror, this was so out there, back then. Nowadays I always serve cold Christmas lunch, though there is one hot item that will never disappear from my Christmas spread, plum pudding with all the trimmings. I think if I ever told my family, no pudding, there would be mutiny. It has to be made slightly differently to cold countries. I can't hang it in the cloth it is cooked in as it goes mouldy in the heat, so it has to be kept in the fridge, but other than that it is a traditional pudding.

Christmas lights decorate houses, same as in the northern hemisphere, but here we have to worry about summer storms, not snow! So, even though it is hot here, we still celebrate pretty much like the rest of the world.

Christmas crafting

All of my work colleagues also know of my love of Christmas, so every year I am given the task of decorating my workplace. This involves decorating 3 display cabinets as well as the main areas of the building. I always try and put a lot of thought into the displays and make them different every year. I also have a very small budget, read, no budget, try and make as much as you can yourself! Some years it works out really well, others have been a bit ordinary.
Anyway, this year I have decided to try and decorate using old books turned into book art and vintage newspapers. As I work in a library, this is a good use of old damaged books that can no longer be borrowed.
I have decided to make a couple of Christmas wreaths. I found some ideas on Pinterest and they didn't look too hard, so this week I have spent time rolling pages of a book into cones and today I have glued it all together. This is the result:

Step 1: Remove pages from an old book.

Step 2: Roll pages into cones and use 2 pages, folded into accordions. They will decorate the centre.

 

Step 3: Cut the centre out of a paper plate. This is what you will glue your cones onto to make the wreath.

 

Step 4: Start glueing.

Step 5: All glued into place, 2 rows in all.

                                                    

The finished wreath.

I am very pleased with the result, now I just have to work out how to hang it in the cabinet and make one more! Stay tuned for more Christmas book art.