day 180: pipe cleaner candy canes

they turned out great and the kids loved
hanging them on the tree :)

day 180 and today the peeps and i read how the grinch stole christmas as our christmas advent book today.  i absolutely love this book and my favourite part of it is

"maybe christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store."

"maybe christmas ... perhaps ... means a little bit more!"

it reminds me of all the wonderful things chirstmas offers over and above the opportunity to shop!  so going with that theme the peeps and i are making pipe cleaner candy canes to hang on the tree.  i, of course, found the idea on pinterest so its also my pinterest creation for today and is pinned to my 2011 advent crafts board.  the instructions and inspiration come from activity village, a uk website that does a fantastic job of providing free printables, crafts, and all sorts of learning tools for just about any theme or holiday you can think of!

i like the idea of these candy canes for lots of reasons:

• i think they will last much better than paper decorations we have made in the past
• they are home made, not store bought
• the kids will be able to take pride in their creations hanging on the tree
• they don't involve any hard to find resources (you could make them ANY colour :])
• the peeps and i spent an hour listening to christmas music, crafting without the need for technical instructions from me to them, creating our individual takes on the candy cane!

you need full length pipe cleaners cut in half

then twist and twist ...

... and twist some more.

hooked the end over and you are done!

here is our pile of completed canes!

and now they adorn our tree :)

outcome: it was bliss, we laughed, we sang, we sat in silence, we ate christmas tarts, and i drank coffee ... no better way to spend my birthday :)  and the candy canes look awesome adorning our tree too!

my thanks to activity village for a wonderful craft, it was ideal for me just as much as it was ideal for the kids ... next year i think i will make some more that colour co-ordinate with different rooms in the house!

day 179: home made christmas crackers and a peanut butter bird feeder

the finished crackers

day 178 and after a busy day yesterday it was nice to spend the day at home crafting with the peeps.  we made pinterest inspired crafts for yesterdays book (slinky malinki's christmas crackers) and today's book christmas in the little house.  for yesterday's book we are making christmas crackers and the craft for today's advent book is a home made bird feeder.  both crafts were found on pinterest and pinned to my 2011 advent crafts board and they will also be my creations for pinterest today :)

the cracker instructions are from kerry at squawk fox, "where frugal living is sexy, delicious, and fun" ... sounds too good to be true, but it's not!  the website is full of fantastic home made ideas and how to do things more inexpensively.  her instructions are very comprehensive, everything you need to know from a list of requirements, how to make party hats, where to find christmas jokes, and decorating the actual cracker. i downloaded these printable christmas cracker jokes from activity village.  once we had everything on the craft table, we started cracker making with gusto and got all seven completed this afternoon :)

ben adding the paper to the to rolls

pollyanna applying stickers :)

the goodies we stuck inside :)

a very proud boy with the first finished
cracker ... yay ben!

outcome:  this is a REALLY fun thing to do with your kids, surprisingly with the three of us working together it didn't take to long either ... and even if i do say so myself they are much nicer and far more personal than store bought ones!  it was easy for the kids to read and get involved with because the photos with words gave you all the information you needed to be sure of your steps.

my sincere thanks to kerry at squawk fox for providing such a fantastic step by step tutorial for making your own christmas crackers.  if you haven't purchased any crackers and given their is still plenty of time to give it a go and if you have kids, i urge you to include them in the process as it was great fun :)  also a big thank you to

the first finished peanut butter bird feeder

as for the peanut butter bird feeder, this wonderful and easy idea comes from the moffat girls.  all you need is an empty toilet tissue roll, some peanut butter, and some wild bird seed.  simply spread the peanut butter over the toilet tissue roll then roll in bird seed.  find some where to attach it and WAIT for the action to take place!

what you need :)

add cute girl to apply peanut butter to tp roll

add handsome boy to roll said tp roll in
bird seed :)

outcome:  bowled over!  these were so much fun to make and so easy for the kids to do on their own we made seven!  the birds showed so much interest and i am sure they will be a big hit ... the only problem was every time a bird went close to one the peeps excitement scared them away!

my sincere thanks to the moffat girls (big and small) for sharing this wonderful tutorial for wild bird feeders ... we will be doing this again and again!

today we also did some marshmellow roasting on the brazier and made home made xmas mince pies!  i love our home made ones as they are made without peel and have apricots and cranberries in them instead of raisins and currants ... yummy fresh flavour with the brandy!  SOOO GOOD :) 

lighting the brazier is a tricky job ... DO it SAFELY ;)

there is a fine line between burning and melting ben! 

my sweet mum cutting bases for the tarts

my husband laughing as he adds stars to
the top of the tarts before cooking

happy people eating fresh from the oven christmas tarts!

day 176: strawberry jam

that is one happy little peep with her jam
efforts for her friends :)

day 176 and today we are making and taking to others for our christmas spirit advent and also the kids book advent.  it is strawberry season here and as we live in strawberry central it seemed like a wise idea to make strawberry jam to make and give to our friends :)  so on to pinterest i went to find a strawberry jam recipe to try out.

in team A we have steve and my sweet mum (or granny as we refer to her) and they are making strawberry and balsamic jam, recipe courtesy of celebrate food and pinned to my 2011 advent crafts board.  and in team B we have myself and the two peeps and we are making easy strawberry jam using the recipe from chelsea's sugar jam :)  nothing like a bit of rivalry to make the best strawberry jam ;)

the peeps measuring out the strawberries

the peeps and i had two ingredients for our
jam: strawberries and chelsea jam setting
sugar ... the results were outstanding.

my sweet mum in team A working on the strawberry
balsamic jam ... this jam tastes so very good!

an incredibly cheesy picture of my husband stirring the jam

the renamed balberry (balsamic/strawberry) jam ...
honestly you guys in team A just couldn't go with
making jam you HAD to rename it to?

outcome:  mightly tasty!  both versions are superb, the B team chelsea recipe would be fantastic on english muffins and the very yummy strawberry/balsamic jam from celebrate food (or balberry jam as steve has renamed it ... does anyone want to borrow a husband for a week ;}) would be perfect for some good wholesome grainy bread like moleberg .... ooooh i am salivating just thinking about it!  luckily there are a couple of jam jars left over for us to have :)

my thanks to celebrate food for this recipe and to chelsea sugar for making jam so easy to do with their wonderful jam setting sugar :)

now for some gratuitous photos that i will be adding each day in december so you can get to know me and my family more and see how we celebrate christmas in new zealand ... and so my family that are miles away can see what we've been up to during the festive season :)  

this is the book the kids and i read for the
first ... such a cool book to start december
with.

of course the craft we did for the book also
combined with the christmas spirit advent
and we all wrote letters to santa.  then we
made the latest lego addition to our
winter village :)  LOVE LEGO in our HOUSE!

ben studious writing his letter to santa, since he was a
wee fellow he has always asked santa for a lego
hospital ... he is still waiting for one to turn up!

my sweet mum, contemplating what she
wants, she is hopeless ... she always writes
to santa asking for new gardening gloves!

once everyone has written their letters we each read them
aloud and see what everyone has written and asked for!
polly was laughing because she also asked santa
to bring granny some gardening gloves!~

day 154: christmas book advent

the books for the christmas book advent

day 154 and the christmas bug has well and truly taken hold of my pinterest creations.  today i am making the first of a couple of advent countdowns for the family.  this one is dedicated to the kids and their love of reading and art.

the magical idea came from oopsey daisy's alison. when i saw her idea i pinned it to my christmas is coming board knowing it would be perfect for my kids even though they are much older than her little man. the concept is that you wrap up 24 christmas books so each day during advent you open up the book and read it with the kids then do an activity that has a synergy with the book you have just read.  the nice thing is the kids have a little surprise to open each day and a new activity to reinforce the message in the book ... fun times :)

i actually think as long as you adapt the craft and books you chose for your children and situation, this is a really awesome idea for all aged kids.   my kids can read but they still love me reading books to them and they adore baking and crafting, thus making it a perfect thing for us to do all december.  if you are pushed for time or christmas books maybe do a twelve days of christmas one :)

below are the list of books i am using and the activity that will go with each one:

1. A Letter to Santa - Writing a Letter to Santa
2. A Kiwi Jingle Bells - Make Strawberry Jam
3. The Littlest Christmas Tree - Decorating our Christmas Tree
4. Slinki Malinki's Christmas Crackers - Making Crackers for Christmas Day
5. Christmas in the Little House - Bird Feeder
6. How the Grinich Stole Christmas - Make Candy Canes from Pipe Cleaners
7. On this Special Night - Make a Fabric Pillow to Gift to a Friend
8. Christmas Comes to Mrs Mouse - Make Fabric Little Houses for your Friends
9. Mr Men: A Christmas Carol - Make a Mr Christmas Pudding Bean Bag
10. Angelina's Christmas - Bake Christmas Tarts for the Neighbours
11. Grandma's Kiwi Christmas - Pohutukawa Picnic
12. Santa's Kiwi Holiday - Go to Mission Bay to Make Sandcastles
13. Berenstain Bears Save Christmas - Gingerbread Cupcakes
14. The Christmas Caravan - Make a Christmas Star out of Tinfoil
15. Mog's Christmas - Make Christmas Stockings for the Kittens
16. Polar Express - Polar Express Hot Chocolate Party
17. Mrs Wishy Washy's Christmas - Home Made Bubble Blowing Solution
18. Snow Bears - Making a Teddy Bear
19. Mr Men: 12 Day's of Christmas - Make a Card for Raya and Deliver her Present
20. The Christmas Story - Ice Block Stick Manger with Hay and Baby Jesus
21. Jolly Old Santa Claus - Brownie Reindeer
22. Santa and the Reindeer - Reindeer Gingerbread Biscuits
23. The Night Before the Night Before Christmas - Make Christmas Tree Ice Cream Cones
24. A Kiwi Night Before Christmas - Make a Cricket Pitch Ready for an Afternoon Match

the books to be wrapped :)

a lot of the crafts have (of course!) come from searches on pinterest and so i have HAD to make a new board called 2011 Advent Crafts.  the links on the activities above will take you to my board that has the activities listed and linked their.  

as always on the day the kids and i make the creations we will blog about them right here with rightful thank you's to all the glorious owners of these wonderful ideas.  but for tonight all my thanks goes to oopsey daisy's alison, she is truly talented and has imagination to envy.  thank you alison so much for blogging about your christmas book advent, i can't wait for december to start so we can get into it :)  ok that's it for today, i'm off to wrap 24 books now the kids are asleep!