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 178: christmas mug rugs!

the finished santa mug rug!

day 178 and i spent the day crafting at my treausured friend dee's again today while the rest of the family went to the jet sprints in the waikato (more on that later!).  dee is such a talented crafter she saw these santa coasters i had pinned to my christmas is coming board on pinterest and designed a paper piecing pattern for us to make a mug rug using the same design!  aren't kelly ink's coasters absolutely gorgeous and the fabrics she used are beautiful.

dee's pattern worked wonderfully and i completed it with dee's idea of quilt batting on the hat and the very peep friendly googly eyes!  if fact, this one for pollyanna was such a success, i am going to make another one using exactly the same pattern but with different fabrics for ben :)

outcome: in ben's words ... "THAT'S AWESOME MUM"  ... i felt so proud, i'll leave the outcome at that, except to say THANK YOU DEE for the pattern :)

thanks also goes to kelly ink for putting her wonderful creations on flickr for the rest of us to be inspired by!

 ... it poured with rain ALL day so while i had the BEST time, everyone else was hampered by the rain and a bit miserable after their day.

yes, that is my usually cherry daughter unamused at the
cold and rain :(

apparently they were so good though and didn't complain!

this was where the water was supposed to be and not
coming out of the sky!

so while i was excited about making home-made crackers with the peeps as their book advent craft for today they were too tired, so we will make them tomorrow and do a monday double up with our crafting :)

day 177: eggnog pound cake and my craftaholics swap goodies

the eggnog pound cake :)

day 177 and it's being to feel a lot like christmas, everywhere i go .... and i am totally giddy with excitement about that! spent the day shopping with a very sweet friend, then it was home to make something yummy to go with decorating the tree.  for some reason steve and i have always decorated our christmas tree on the first saturday of december.  while i was out taking care of christmas shopping, the peeps and steve went out in search of the best christmas tree.  here in new zealand "real" christmas trees are pine trees and they smell absolutely delicious.  i am no longer allowed to go christmas tree hunting as i always think the biggest one is the best and am prone to spending far too much money on the "perfect" one!

the pinterest inspired creation for today is eggnog pound cake, when i saw it on pinterest the lovely pinner said it was the "BEST" christmas recipe ever ... good enough for me to give it a go then, so it was duly repinned to my christmas is coming board.  the recipe comes from my recipes and the lovely people who have rated it have given it an outstanding 5 stars!  this is a REALLY easy recipe as it uses a box cake mix as the base and if you can find it (which i couldn't) ready made eggnog.  i had to make my own but even that was easy using this recipe from all recipes australia :)

this was a really good, non-alcoholic version of eggnog.

add cake mix to your eggnog and a couple
of eggs with some nutmeg and you are done :)

good looking pound cake, ideal for winter :)

outcome:  probably not the best christmas recipe i know and not sure i will bake it often as it was really heavy for the summer.  i would definitely bake it again and again during the winter so i can highly recommend for those places lucky enough to have a winter christmas :)  this recipe for eggnog was brilliant though as it's a cold drink and it was actually really refreshing while we were busy decorating the tree.

my thanks to both my recipes and all recipes australia, both awesome sites where you can find just about any recipe for anything :)


update: craftaholics anonymous gift swap
as many of you know i entered into this gift exchange in november and was given michell as my partner.  michell is a nurse who lives in gisborne, new zealand and she clearly a very talented crafter, especially with her sewing machine.  she sent me some lovely quilted coasters that came in their own little carry bag, some candy canes, a christmas fat of quilting fabric, and a gorgeous tea caddy she also made.  it was an amazing gift and i felt very spoilt, as do my peeps who have tucked into the candy canes!

the coasters and their gorgeous carry all

the tea caddy ... love the fabric

inside the tea caddy, which as full of goodies!

thanks so much michell, you have made my first ever hand-made gift exchange an absolute pleasure.  warmest christmas wishes to you and your family :)

some pic's of the tree hunt and the finished result :)

running to the perfect tree to cut down :)

the peeps getting a ride back to the car with the tree :)

have tree will travel!

the finished tree, the kids were so proud :)

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 175: christmas stockings and no spend november update :)

the completed stockings, ready for embellishing :)

day 175 and i don't know what happens in your house, but christmas stockings are BIG in mine ... i have only had three stockings for my entire life to date.  their was my first stocking that was actually a band sock of dad's mum turned REALLY pinky red in the wash by accident.  that sock lasted about 8 years before my nana made all the grandchildren one :)  this one lasted until i was about 20 and then steve (my sweet) and i purchased matching ones i embellished and that is the one i still use each year.

as for the kids they all had the "my first christmas" stocking their first christmas and then we purchased my mum and ben matching ones for ben's second christmas.  my UN-CRAFTY sister and mum sewed stockings for pollyanna and sam (my nephew) the year they both celebrated their second christmas as we couldn't find any nice ones in the shops.  last year i wanted to make my mum and ben home-made ones, which i did but they were TERRIBLE :( we used them but santa found them horrendous to fill.  so today's pinterest creation is to fix this problem with mum and ben's and make them new ones so we can get back on santa's good side ;)

on pinterest i found some wonderful tutorials for making your own christmas stockings.  the one i am using today is from fabricworm.  i am using the tutorial as is except for adding the batting.  ben's i am making out of two of steve's business shirts he no longer wears, i figured this would be an exceptional recycle idea ... teehee!  for my mums i am using some fabric i had at home so i didn't need to buy anything for today's stocking creations ... bonus.  and in the interest of fairness, i used a tracing of polly's stocking as my pattern ;)

i used one of steve's old business shirts for the outside and
 the other one was the lining of ben's stocking :)

the stocking base ...

then cut out your tops :)

sew the top on and turn out ...

a completed stocking ready to personalise!

outcome:  the tutorial was so easy to follow and if you don't have a stocking pattern they have one to print off and stick together ... very handy!  thankfully these stockings will impress santa as they are lined, the lining is sewn into the outer fabric and they will not hold him up unduly trying to fill these babies :)  what do they say ... i got your back santa (or something like that :])  and tomorrow after my first trip to the craft store in over a month, i will embellish them both to give them a personal touch!


many thanks to fabricworm for the wonderful, easy to follow tutorial, if you need stockings in your house and can't find anything to suit at your local shops, give this a go.

update: no spend november
we did super well until 5 days ago when i purchased ben's birthday present (it was on sale so i couldn't leave it there) and then the black toner in the printer ran out so i also purchased that and the magenta i need from weeks ago because i can't live without my printer on a daily basis for schooling or crafts!  my adorable mum was hopeless at not spending, but at least she gave it a go.  for steve and i we really saw the benefits and while we didn't quite make it to the end of november, we will definitely do it again, hopefully twice yearly.  we managed to save ~$2000 ... yay us :)

day 174: sparkly reindeer food :)

perfect reindeer food ;)

day 174 and its time to get ready to feed the reindeer ... oh come on, there are only 24 days until christmas, of course it's not too early to get it ready.  actually the reindeer food i am making today are for surprise packages for two deserving families in our nearest town we are going to deliver on the 23rd :)  i digress, onto the creation from pinterest today which is on our best bites, what a cool website full of great ideas and crafts loved spending a LONG while there!  i pinned their reindeer food goody bags to my christmas is coming board :)

the free printable tags for this reindeer food are available to download and print from the tomkat studio, so this creation only takes five minutes to do unless you decide to discuss it with your eager children. when i told my two little peeps what i was up to they decided it needed nutritional merit to it ... WHAT?  when they heard me talking about glitter and sparkle they glossed over THAT part and instead were concentrating on the fact some form of sugars should be added to the mix for sustenance .... REALLY?  i wanted pretty and sparkly, they are tramping kids and were thinking more along trail mix (scroggin) to help the reindeer on their journey ... i had nothing to rebuke this, they won and we ended up settling it by adding sultanas to the mix.

what you need

love how the glitter attached itself to the sultanas!

mixed reindeer food

labelled and ready to go in the gift baskets!

outcome:  we have a sustaining, wholesome reindeer mix that sparkles ... does it get any better than this for reindeer?  i didn't mention the fact next year we would have to get some edible glitter as it is likely that once all little peeps are sleeping i will need to clean up the oats and replace them with carrots so the reindeer don't eat the glitter ;)  told you i had a soft spot for reindeer!!

my thanks to our best bites and the tomkat studio for making today's pinterest creation so very easy to do, the process was a delight, even with the input of my peeps!