bloowabbit: tree decoration

Wednesday, 19 December 2018

12 days to Christmas - sending Happy Mail

sending Happy Mail to my penpal...
(if you're saving it til Christmas Marleen, stop reading now!)

I've had a penpal since the beginning of this year - we take it in turn to send a newsy letter in a small parcel of goodies. Usually chocolate or sweets are included, sometimes tea and always something interesting like a Lego Harry Potter blind bag, a small craft kit, or a decorative object. I seize the opportunity to practise my Happy Mail skills (seriously, it's a thing). This month we both decided to send each other something. I made...

a Night Before Christmas zigzag book

(with lots of reindeer)

Presentation counts so I also made 2 little card bags to hold some goodies and embellished them too. Baker's twine comes in really handy to stop things meandering.

mmm...chocolate...

goodies to open...

and some bunting (link below)

A nice newsy letter rolled up like a scroll to place on top, and a little tree decoration. It's all decked out with festive tissue paper and the box it's in has lashings of Happy Christmas tape on the outside...'tis the season.

12 days to Christmas - decorating my planner

12 days to Christmas - Trollbeads Share-a-Christmas-Card

12 days to Christmas - making bunting

12 days to Christmas - Jacquie Lawson advent calendar

12 days to Christmas - Christmas/Winter quote book

12 days to Christmas - decorating

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Tuesday, 18 December 2018

12 days to Christmas - decorating

decorating...bah humbug

This year, for some reason, I found decorating to be difficult. Normally I can't contain my excitement, have already planned what colours I'm going to use (I have a lot of decorations) and have the house decorated by the beginning of the month. But it was already past the third weekend in December and I hadn't even taken the tree out of the trunk. When I was little we probably didn't put up the tree until the week before Christmas, it wasn't the done thing to have it up for very long. Times change. Perhaps this year I've reverted to times past.

This year it's all teal, pinks, white and silver - I decide the colours I'm going to use whenever I'm packing the decorations away after the previous Christmas. The colours I choose are put away separately in easy reach. I had loads of white and silver, a few pink and teal and thought I'd pick up some more in the January sales. One pack of tiny silver and teal baubles, that was it. But this November I did find two lovely pale pink glass baubles, quite large, in Poundland. I bought them and then smashed one on my stone floor when I unwrapped it. Finding other pink baubles was difficult but I settled for a fish and a jellyfish from Tiger...now floating aimlessly on the the tree between the polar bears and the reindeer.

Baubles on and I stood back to admire my handiwork. Something missing - the picks and the ribbon. There was no way those baubles were coming off before January. I stuffed some ribbon and a few picks between the branches where the tree looked a bit bare. This was not the fabulous tree I'd envisaged after watching Rebecca Robeson on YouTube.

It's up, it's lit, it's decorated (bar the angel). The bannisters which usually have decorated swags might be done later this week. Ho ho ho hum...