A Home Made Christmas

Pennies have been tight this year at TheMadHouse, so we have put our heads together and made as much as we can.

Rice and Lavender hot pad with removable cover

 

Felt pocket tissue cover

 

Home made tea cup candles

 

Basic wrapping with brown paper, wool, string and ribbon  - I am of the opinion that good packaging detracts from the homemade feel

 

I tied home made gingham and mother of pearl hearts to the wrapping.

We  had printed postcards of some photo's we had taken over the year at Moo.

I made pouches to hold them

The minimads decorated 90p shoppings bags from Hobbycraft

 

I made unique appliqué book bags for my neices.

Filled with home made crayon rolls

Paint brush and water colour rolls

and pen rolls

We included a good pad of artists paper in their bags too.

We made pear butter from gifted pears over the summer

The boys made calenders

We supplemented the gifts with some fantastic charity shop finds (Father Christmas Cushions 50p brand new)

All in all, I am really proud of what we managed to achieve over a short space of time, with little on the resource front.  The thing is that it has all been made with love and the person receving the gifts.

 

Christmas Eve Elves

We have a tradition here in the mad house which has evolved from when I was small.  I always got a new pair of pajamas on Christmas Eve to go to bed in.

I dont know when I stopped thinking they were from the elves and know they were from my parents, but we have carried out this tradition throughout our grown up life too.

We have also been keen to do this for the MiniMads and this year decided to expand it a little and leave a bag of goodies from the eveles on their door.  We have been lucky enough to receive a couple of DVD's as gifts for the boys, so included them, in addition to a book each, a colouring book, some reindeer food and a little chocolate Father Christmas.

We hung the bags I made on their doors last night after putting them tobed and also popped our new PJ's on the floor too for them to find.

It has made for a very excited morning and will make for a very family, snuggley day as the snow is falling again here in North Yorkshire.

I am not sure how much or little I will be posting over the festive period.  I do find that escaping into the kitchen, where the laptop currently is really wonderful so may not stop at all!