If you want a cheap but thoughtful Christmas present then I’ve an idea for you. We made homemade biscuits from one of the millions of recipes easily found online and displayed them in a cute way. Firstly we make biscuit dough and roll it out to about half a centimeter thick and cut it into various sizes of stars using cutters. When these have cooked and cooled slightly arrange them biggest at the bottom, sticking the stars together with icing as you go.
This evening I’ve been making heart decorations similar to the ones I learnt how to make at the Shloer blogger “crafternoon tea” event with The Makery. Clearly I’ve been inspired! I wanted cheap fabric so I chose two 3 packs of tea towels, one set in green one in red. Festive of course. These were from a pound shop, so was the 5 pack of glittery silver ribbon, and the packet of bells. The coloured ribbons and buttons came from my local market at a marvelous £1.50. The stuffing is free, it’s a lumpy unusable pillow (washed and dried in advance) chopped open.
What do you get the person who has everything? That tricky to buy for friend or relative? Another box of chocolates or socks? No! How about something personalised? Something made just for them? Like this poster from paper themes.
As a Parragon Book Buddy my sons receive books to review, however this time it wasn’t suitable for my sons so I am giving it away on this post. I checked Parragon don’t mind. It’s lovely, but it’s just not boyish! If I got this as a gift 25 years ago I would have loved it. The giveaway is via Rafflecopter, and only runs a few days as I hope it will be with the winner before Christmas. http://www.parragon.com/uk/books/detail/scrapbook-made-by-me a Rafflecopter giveaway Shared on Loquax.
As a child I used to love Nerf but was told I wasn’t allowed it, as I am a girl. How mean!? My eldest son D loves Nerf’s and has a bit of a collection upstairs. So he was Delighted when I told him Argos wanted to send him and Jen a Nerf each. You probably heard recently about the top Christmas Toys being announced, Nerf was on it. Dream toys here at Argos. Jen had a Stryfe and D had the Alpha Trooper CS12 Nerf. Sadly the weather has been against us, so not many photos, but my boys have been running about outside and inside shooting each other, me, and Blokey. Everything has been a target! These were brilliant fun. Jen struggled with his jamming, but my in-house-Nerf-expert D insists it was user error not an actual fault. D knows what he’s on about, he has 8 Nerfs, […]
I like to help charities, particularly ones I have experience of, and more so at Christmas! As a teen the NSPCC were my legal guardians, so rather than writing a letter from “Santa” for my boys I get a lovely one from the NSPCC website in return for a donation. The suggested donation is £5 and you can choose more or less if you wish. Every year online I see people selling “letters from Santa” where people are just printing out their own scripted letters and changing the names and ages – not very personalised really and that money goes straight to that seller. With the NSPCC letters to Santa the actual letters are awesome AND it’s not money to someone’s pocket, this helps real kids. (Trust me!) The Letters from Santa section on the NSPCC site lets you make your letter. You tell them some basics, first name, surname, favourite things, and a […]
Hello readers, This competition has ended, and the winner is announced below. Today I’m offering you a chance to win. I know it’s not December yet, but I’m trying to get some presents sorted early. I was offered the chance to have a set of these cufflinks from RING to review but instead I am offering them to you, my readers. They are worth around £30 and would be a lovely gift for a male relative. Perhaps add a photo of the family, or of their pet, maybe their initials? You can have them made in gold or silver coloured metal, I prefer the silver colour myself. Classic, yet contemporary and goes with almost any colour, whereas the gold tones can clash with some fabrics. They are proud of the celeb feedback they’ve received, a couple are footballers, not that I “do” football. It’s still all about the Rugby and […]
Jen and D received a lovely retro gift in the post thanks to Oxfam. It is a boxed set of glass “days-gone-by” marbles, although marbles aren’t modern, and unlikely to appeal to the 3DS generation my lads like them. On our recent holiday to Devon Jen wanted to buy marbles from every little gift shop we went near. As we were camping we refused to buy any, as we knew if they were lost camping in the woods there would be many tears and sniffling. When these marbles came Jen was very pleased, “Ooooooh these are them things I wanted to buy in Devon Mum!” Although we’ve had these in the house for over a week life gets in the way sometimes, parents evenings, dog adoptions, play dates with little friends, and we’ve just got around to playing with them – sorry Oxfam. Like me you might have been unaware […]
After years being a bit anti the charity shoe box schemes I’ve decided I will give a box to a girl overseas. This change of heart is entirely MichelleTwinMum’s doing. Last year she went with Operation Christmas Child, (or OCC for short) to Belarus to see how they operate and who gets the shoebox parcels. You can read all about it on Michelle’s blog by clicking on the link here.
I’ve made an early start on Christmas presents and have a few people’s gifts sorted already. The gift I’m proudest of, and a blindingly good price are these photos for family. The photo collage prints cost 99p each for 10 x 8 inch on snapfish, and the frames are from poundland, and it’s a real glass window on it, not perspex as I would have expected of a cheap item.
