Merry Christmas everyone

Before I get to the Christmas wishes, I just wanted to show a few things which have been keeping me cbusy over the last few days/weeks. Firstly, I made 2 stockings for lil ones. Both made with felt and embellished with more felt, beads and yarn and furry fabric. The best thing about them, the kids love them. I haven't even filled them up with anything yet!Next up, are some Chrsitmas softies. I know a lot of people have been making the Yuletide gnomes but I couldn't resist them either. So I made a Santa looking one, all red and white and very Christmassy. Here he is underneath our Christmas twigs ( we are going away for Christmas, so we didn't buy a tree). All the presents are for the kids!Sitting beside Mr Gnome/Santa, is my attempt at aChristmas Angel, which I am submitting to this month's Month of Softies. I haven't had much time to focus on this for the last few months but will definitely make more of an effort in the new year. Here is a close up of the Angel. I have to say, given more time, I would change the eyes and learn how to sew on hair. It just looks "dragged thru a hedge". Anyhow....
Finally, I also managed to start and finish the knitting for my MIL's purse (Christmas pressie). The pattern is from Emma King's book, 25 bags to knit. Some really fun patterns in there. The purse was knitted in Rowan kid Classic (really nice yarn) and I will embellish it with some knitted/crochet flowers in the silver yarn (Lily yarn purchased in KL, Malaysia but i think is quite similar to Rowan Lurex Shimmer).

I just wanted to take this opportunity to wish everyone Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I have made some really lovely new friends this year and I hope long may it continue. See you all back in the new Year. Have a good one.

Busy, busy, busy me

I have been so busy this last week. That's all because of the kids. I should change my status from mummy to chaffeur, cook, cleaner and general dogsbody. We have been to 1 birthday party, 2 christmas parties (with another 2 parties, tomorrow and Friday), making Christmas stockings (partially finished), clearing out one room to make it into their playroom, buying and wrapping Christmas presents and making a knitted Santa. The santa is for Aidan and I now have to make a knitted angel for Keira. Less than 12 days to go. Oh dear...... (I'll have to photo Santa tomorrow as it's past midnight now and I'm about to go to bed!)

I also just wanted to share a few photos from our Christmas Advent Calendar activity. This is our "Let's be a cat for the day". I also made felt cat's ears and braided tails but must have forgotten to take the picture.
And this is our "Let's have crazy hair today". The kids put on every single hair accessory on their heads. We had curlers in our hair, pigtails, clips, you name it! It's been so fun!

Harry Potter the movie

My in-laws are in town and when they are around, we get to go out!! Hurray!! Hubby and I decided to have a date and go out to the movies. We decided to go along with the Harry Potter fever and watch Goblet of Fire. Really fabulous movie, much darker than the previous
movies. Obviously, not as good as the book as whole chunks of the book is missing, but enjoyable nonetheless.

This brings me neatly on to what's on my needles... The Gryffindor Prisoner of Azkaban scarf.. at the request of hubby. I made the mistake of showing him the Weasley knitalongs on Alison's blog and he wanted one. He loves maroon so here I am knitting this massive scarf. It's knitted in Jaeger Matchmaker Merino DK in shade 655 (maroon/burgundy) and Cygnet Superwash Pure New Wool DK in shade 2155(gold). It's a pretty good match of the colours I have to say.(anyone in the UK looking to knit this!) I'm about halfway through at the moment and I might save it for the holiday period as it is pretty mindless knitting and I won't need to consult the pattern.
It's also been very busy here with my Christmas card production. I've had fun making these cards. Now I just need to write them out and send them out, especially the ones which need to go overseas.

Just wondering......

Would anyone be interested in purchasing these tote bags which I have? It's manufactured and sourced through Hong Kong. They would make great Christmas gifts! It's a tote bag with pocket picture frames, which could be dressed up to suit the occasion, your mood, or give to someone special as a personalised gift .

It's made of durable PVC and is available in two sizes (6 pockets or 9 pockets on each side). The transparent pockets are sized to fit standard 3R (5"x3.5") photos. You could fill the pockets with photos, fabrics, flowers, sketches or anything that grabs your imagination to make a bag that really is unique to who you are. These bags cost GBP 12 (delivery to UK) or GBP 15 (US$ 25 to anywhere else in the world). If you are interested, please email me!. (Sorry, I still don't know how to just link to paypal for payment.)

ISBN 4529040445

A few months ago, I wrote about my Japanese craft book on Barbie doll's clothes. Well I actually have a few more kicking around and thought I'd share them over the next few days/weeks. The ISBN of this one is 4527040445 and it's for making doll's clothes. The dolls featured are Jenny dolls (big in Japan) but they fit 11.5 inches fashion dolls like Barbie. I like this book because the clothes have a trendy modern feel - leather trousers, bustiers, rock star apparel,jeans - no ruffles or ball gowns. Really nice!

Advent Calendar

No knitting was done the last 2 days. Instead, I have been making an advent calendar for the children. I didn't really want to just buy a chocolate/sweets filled one (they have a lot of sugar in their diet already). So I made a fun activity filled one, having seen a great post on loobylu. I made small paper envelopes and stuck them on christmas tree cardboard cut out. Stuck a star on top. Wrote out 24 fun-filled activities and Hey presto!!! How it took 2 days to complete, I never know!!???

Here's Aidan looking totally unimpressed with it! His only comment was that the numbers were not in order and that I should have started with the number 1 and put them all in ascending order. Thanks cheeky monkey! Well, I like it and I thought I did a great job. Our fun activities included:

• have a dress up day
• make Christmas decorations
• put up Christmas decorations
• have a swimming adventure
• go on a magical mystery adventure (we'll take a drive to see the Christmas lights on Oxford Street)
• bake cookies
• make homemade pizza
• have a crazy hair day
• and I can't seem to remember what else I wrote. It'll be a surprise to me to find out what funfilled activity I had planned.