Advent Bags

About 5 years ago we started a tradition for our family of advent bags.

We have 24 Advent bags in a basket.

Each morning Master O has to find the right numbered advent bag in the basket.

Inside the advent bags are 24 handmade Christmas decorations.

One to hang on the tree the 24 days leading up to Christmas.

We don't usually get the tree till around 10 December so the decorations circle the basket till then.

The first year I made all the Christmas decorations which was quiet a mission.

The second year I decided any decorations handmade would do by me or others.

Its that time again..................I have been stock piling decorations.

The big kick off is Saturday.

Each day on the blog from the 1st to the 24th I will feature a decoration.

Some new, some from previous advent bags, some by me, some by others.

Here are some pictures from previous years.

 

Would you like to join us?

Just whip up 24 draw string bags big enough to hold a Christmas decoration and

number them from 1 to 24.

This tradition brings an enormous amount of joy to our family.

Absolutely Alice

Recently I was telling a  crafty friend of mine Alice that

I really needed to find some grey and teal blankets.

A few weeks later Alice turns up

unexpectedly with two beautiful grey blankets and an eye popping teal.

Alice made my day!

(Alice is also a crafty lady you can see her creations here)

Here are a couple of foxes on the teal and grey blankets they just pop!

Yesterday my interview for the Auckland Art and Craft Fair which is on,
on the 8th of December came up on there blog.
You can see it here.
There are also lots of other amazing crafters and artists interviewed on there blog.
It is well worth a peak.


I am having this weekend off................no markets for me.
I shall do a bit of Christmas shopping and I am going to go and watch 
Master O in his very first Triathlon. 
He is in it with 900 hundred other budding athletes.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Right Now

 I am sorry I have been missing for 11 days.

Life is so busy at the moment.

I get up at 6am each morning and I fall into bed each night about 11pm.

In between a part time job, family, life I sew, sew, sew.

Every year the 6 six weeks leading up to Christmas are madness.

 

I am not really creating any new designs because at this time of year my focus

 is all on producing more of my most popular designs from this year.

Christmas is coming and people are stocking up

big time on there Pixies.

I just had an order for a green Pixie with red leaves.

I found these wonderful leaves on line .

Here they are.

I love it when people come up with ideas I had not thought of doing.

I should be packing.....instead I am blogging!

Tomorrow we fly to Wellington for four days.

We are going on this adventure to celebrate Master O turning 10.

He loves planes and has never been to Wellington

so off we go.

 I am also managing to squeeze in a Steiner school fair 

at Raphael House on Sunday

yippee!

Master O is such a light in our life.

I cannot imagine my life with out the blessing

of his special soul.

These beautiful lights are for him.

Friends

Here I am with two of my favourite people.

Sometimes I just could not do these big markets without the

help of my lovely friends.

 That's me in the middle.

Traffic Light Pixie

I am so madly sewing away for all the markets I have coming up 

that I really have not had time to blog so please excuse me.

A little while ago I meet a lovely lady who lives in Tauranga who has a little boy who 

loves traffic lights and there colours of red, green and orange.

His favourite colour is dark orange.

I was asked if I would make him a Pixie in traffic light colours

for Christmas.

Here is the Traffic Light Pixie!

 

This weekend on Saturday I will be at the Micheal Park School Fair.

It is a beautiful fair one of my favourites.

Do bring your kids and come along and have a great day.

High Tea

 Yesterday I had a wonderful time at my 

friend Renee's house.

She owns the business called

The Little White Box .

Renee hosted a 

"Keep Calm & Kraft Xmas Tea Party"

We sat around crafting wonderful Christmas Decorations ,

drinking a fine Pims Punch and eating yummy morsels.

Here are some of the things we made.

 I tried out a new recipe that I had recently been given for a sugar and gluten free Brownie.

I thought I would share it with you as it is really yummy.

Chocolate Brownie 

What you will need:

• 1 cup of almond butter or peanut butter
• 1 1/2 cup of grated or chopped zucchini. I used a shredder and then chopped it up into really small pieces.
• 1/3 cup of  honey
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp of vanilla
• 1 tsp of baking soda
• 1 tsp of cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp of nutmeg
• 1 cup of dark chocolate chips.

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 180c or 350 degrees.
2. Combine all the ingredients into a large bowl and mix everything together.
3. Pour into a greased 9x9 baking pan.
4. Bake for 35-45 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

 You can see the Brownie on the left hand side of the table.

As you can see there were lots of other yummy treats too!

Thank you Renee for a great day.