Home made Shortbreads and gift bag

It's hard to buy gifts for people that you don't see very often. Knowing their likes, dislikes etc. And just wanting to give them a token gift with good wishes of the season, without over doing it. Home made is always good in these instances I believe, and shortbreads are always a winner for Christmas gifts.

I also love to put lots of thought in to how I wrap my presents, so I made a cute little bag, complete with clear cello window so that the shortbreads could be seen. I finished it off with a border punch, ribbon and a little gift tag.

I used my thermomix to make the shortbread, it's very quick and easy. It's not as nice as a true shortbread I don't think, but everyone I have given these to seems to rave about how nice they are, and seems to really appreciate them. I put pistachios and cranberries through these as well for some festive flair.

I used this Christmas Shortbread recipe from the Thermomix forum.

A handmade gift

Toni turned 21 on Monday. We have this fabulous photo of her standing on the ledge of a mountain, which I thought would be inspirational for her to have as a print with a meaningful quote on it. So, Damian cut and sanded down a piece of Oregon we had here, and then I set about transferring the image to it. It has turned out really well, and Toni really loved it.

While at the time I was really cranky at her when she showed me this photo, as I was terrified that she had stood out on this ledge so high up, it has created an awesome photo for her to take through her life with her.
Happy 21st beautiful lady xx

Christmas planning coming together....

Diesel is back home from the vet. He is fine apparently, his leg seems much better, so we just have to go through the long recovery process now. The Christmas tree was put up on the weekend, as well as the other decorations.

 I have been trying to find Kasey a nice Christmas t-shirt for weeks now, and haven't been able to find anything in her size, or the messages on them have not been appropriate for a 7 year old girl. So I bought just a plain t-shirt, and embroidered it myself. The only request from Kasey was that she wanted a reindeer, so I am happy with the end result.

Managed to get a little more Xmas shopping done yesterday, so I am getting pretty well organised now. I have quite a large project underway for Kasey for Christmas though, so hopefully I can get that finished...might be a few late nights spent on that one. I have to go now and make a phonecall, I ordered Mum a subscription of Handmade magazine for Christmas, with the first issue to start in January so I could include the voucher in her Xmas present...they sent her the first one yesterday!! Not Happy Jan!! Luckily it is only part of her present, but I really expressed to them that it HAD to start in January, and they said, yes, yes, no problems, definitely won't start until January.... ok...off to get started on my very busy day....

Home made Christmas Gifts from the heart

I have finished all the wrapping and prepping, and now just waiting for Santa to come...

I have made up a few little gifts for a few people that I just wanted to give something small to..

Jams and Christmas cake in a gift box

Jam and soap gift box

A Secret Santa gift including a gift voucher, soaps, jams etc

Another secret santa gift including a cd, giftcard, wine, soaps and chilli jam

Boxed chiili jams

Boxed chilli jam and Onion Jam

A soap and chilli jam gift box

So, some nice gifts given from the heart, which won't cause clutter, and all handmade, other than the couple of gift cards and wine and cd in the secret santa gifts. The chilli jam was made from home grown chillies I have been growing and freezing throughout the year in preparation for making up a large batch for Christmas gifts. The christmas cakes I made in tuna cans to make up single serve cakes, and they are beautiful and moist this year, as I taste tested one today...yummy!!

So...Merry Christmas everyone...hope the day is a beautiful one....

A simple home made gift for a friend....

I'm having a cuppa with Tammy this morning....we don't do a big gift exchange at Xmas...just something small..I have made her a gift basket of my home made soaps as she is always asking me for more...and I have included a jar of chilli jam, strawberry jam and a mini christmas cake, and a few chocolates. I had the basket here in my stash as well as the cellophane etc, so not a big $ cost to put this together, just my time to make the goodies. I also included a home made card, I made this at the last card class earlier this month.

We had a family pre-Christmas get together here on Sunday, as we don't all get a chance to be at the same place on Xmas day. It was nice to have most of the family together.  The weather wasn't the best, but as we have a large undercover entertainment area, it didn't make any difference to our plans. Not too stressful this week, everything is pretty well organised for Christmas, just a few little things to finish off, and my diary is fairly sparse, so I have lots of time to just potter around at home and fnish things off at my leisure. A little bit of running around this morning, but nothing too much. Anyway, I'm off to put on a load of washing and do the floors before I head off for my Tuesday cuppa...

Christmas Stockings

I picked up my new sewing machine today......yay...very excitng.  My first project was at embroidery club today, where we made up embroidered Christmas Stockings.  These are made in the embroidery hoop, and the only straight sewing involved is joining the lining to the outer stocking, other than that it is all sewn in the hoop.  I have decided to put names on them of the nieces and nephews, and in them I will put their Christmas gifts...currently on the agenda are movie tickets, chocolates and popcorn...like a Movie Pack in a stocking!  So this is stocking number 1

I have now made another, and am on to the 3rd....
Tomorrow I am going to be sewing for the day, trying to catch up on quite a few unfinished projects, such as the Xmas tree skirt, the some more stockings, a shirt, a bun warmer etc....phew....the list is quite long, plus I have a few other unfinished Xmas gifts to work on as well...I had better spend some serious time with the sewing machine over the next couple of weeks.  I was planning on being so organised this year with Xmas....hmmmm...don't quite know what happened there.... 8>\