Twas The Week Before Christmas …

🙂 and much is going on in the house! 

Yip, Christmas is just around the corner and I’m pretty sure that most of you are busying yourselves finishing up those last few things that need to be done. It is no different in my home right now. We are finishing up our lessons for 2014 and are looking forward to packing away the books for a lovely two week break. Our afternoons are filled with lovely things that we are doing together, right now the girls are busy decorating the gingerbread house. In our home it is a two day process this year. Yesterday we made the dough, cut out the shapes and baked them. Today is decorating and assembly day (please do excuse the rather messy counter-tops in my kitchen today – real life and all that lol.

The tree went up on Saturday…

We have a few new decorations on our tree this year. My clever 16 year old made a set of 8 – each one unique- paper baubles for the tree. I just love them! It makes me think of Victorian times when most decorations were home crafted.

I found these cute little red bell baubles at The Range this year and fell in love with them. I had no option but to pop them into my basket and take them home and I have to say they are VERY happy living on my tree 😉

The mantle was decorated yesterday afternoon, everyone adding a little touch.

Outside my window at the moment the weather is horrible – windy, rainy, cold. The days of hanging my washing outdoors are gone until next year so my house looks a bit like a Chinese Laundry with washing drying over every available radiator.

 I’m loath to use the tumble dryer too much so was thrilled when a friend gave me a whole lot of these nifty radiator drying racks – thanks Ruth!!

With the colder weather setting in, I thought that I would make a whole lot of hand-warmers to slip into our mittens when out and about. Have you seen these before? They are fab. 

Mine are filled with lavender and rice so that they smell good too. I have made mine with a removable outer cover so that I can wash them when need be – it extends the hand-warmers life a bit.

When heating you just pop the inner (must be made from 100% cotton) into the microwave for around 16 seconds and then pop them into their covers. You are sure to have warm hands on your cold winter walks 🙂 The little ribbons slip over the middle finger to prevent the warmer slipping down into your mitten/glove.

If you are keen on making your own you can follow this great little tutorial I found through Pinterest. Of course you could also make bigger ones to warm you up in the evenings or snuggle down into bed with. If you don’t have rice in the cupboard you could use barley, beans, wheat or even oatmeal instead.

That’s about it from me today. I will be back tomorrow to show you the gingerbread house 🙂

Have a lovely Thursday all.