Advent wreath - modern

Advent wreaths are a big thing here in Germany. Everyone has one. You can pick ones with fresh leaves up at every supermarket and florist. Wreaths without fresh leaves can be found at any store that sells knick knacks. Or you can be creative and make your own. I love making my own, especially with fresh evergreens, but never seem to get round to it these days. I have all the stuff you need to make one :(

From 2015! When I had more time :)

By the time I think of buying one I can't find a decent one. That's because I think to buy one a couple of days before the first advent. So today being Thursday and the first advent being on Sunday there is no hope of getting a good one.

Here is my solution. And I hope it is useful to all you busy mums out there.

What you need:

4 candles
A tray to hold all 4 candles
Shiny STUFF!

So the biggest problem here is getting the candles. But I have become wise with that and buy a whole stack after Christmas at IKEA. I think the ones I put out today were bought two years ago!

What is there to say. Arrange your candles and decorate! The shiny stuff I use is mainly decorations that were bought for the tree. And the tree ain't going up for another 2.5 weeks!!

Happy Advent!

Lavender sachets

Last year I made jars of our homegrown rosemary to give as Christmas gifts. They turned out rather cute. This year I didn't harvest any rosemary but we had heaps of lavender. It's kind of weird that I got such a large amount of lavender because I only have a small patch of plants. It smells really good and everyone is always amazed at how fragrant it is. If there is a slight breeze our whole garden fills up with the sent. When the lavender is in full bloom I add it to butter together with some bees honey to make a most delicious spread. But there is only so much lavender butter that we can eat!

I was going to make these little gifts using an old saree that I thought I had. But it seems like I must have gotten rid of it a long time ago!

However, while rummaging around in my crafts cupboard I found some silk that I had bought on our honeymoon in India. It was originally bought to make a photo album for our wedding photos. Unfortunately this was in the days of film cameras and due to an unfortunate mistake the settings on the camera got messed up leaving us with practically no wedding photos. Thus I lost interest in the silk and stuffed it into my bottomless cupboard. You can actually use any material to make a lavender sachet. The main thing is that the material is thin so that it allows the fragrance to come through. If you don't have any old silk sarees lying around you can use the next best thing, which is quite popular for lavender, and that is cotton.

Here is what you will need for one sachet:

• 13 cm by 15.5 cm piece of plain silk
• 13 cm by 4 cm piece of patterned silk
• 43 cm matching or contrasting ribbon
• Matching thread
• Sewing machine
• Needle
• Pins
• 80 g dried lavender

To make things easier on myself I made sure that one of the long sides of the plain silk and the short sides of the patterned silk was the selvedge edge (i.e. the one that does not unravel). If you can manage this it also looks better.

The first thing you MUST do is to blanket stitch (or zigzag) all around the material to make sure it does not fray. Usually thin materials fray much faster than thick ones and you don't want all your hard work to go to waste because you forgot this simple step and the stitches came away and the lavender spilled out.

Once you've got everything secured you can start putting the sachet together.
Pin the two pieces along the 13 cm side making sure to keep the selvedges on the same side. Make sure that the pieces line up exactly on the selvedge. The other side is not so important since it will be on the inside of the sachet. Note that the good sides should be facing each other on the inside.

 Sew this up using a sewing machine or back stitch. Then you need to sew up the other side to form a "tube". Again make sure that the selvedges are lined up so that you have a nice straight edge at the top. Sew this up.

 Now you have a little tube and you just need to sew up the bottom to form a bag. If all has gone according to plan the selvedges will all be nicely lined up. Now you want to have the pattern down the middle of the sachet. Pin it down in the correct position. You might have to do some fiddling or measuring to get it exactly in the middle. Flatten the seams with your fingers and make sure that everything is nice and flat and that there are no wrinkles. Then pin down the bottom and sew it up.

Now turn it around so that all the sewing is inside.

Fill the pouch with the lavender. Now you don't want the lavender falling out if someone takes off your pretty ribbon. Or if it just happens to come off by itself. So it's a good idea to sew up the top. I did this after putting the lavender in. About 1 cm above the top of the lavender I sewed around with a simple running stitch and then pulled it tight, securing it with a double knot. Finally add your ribbon. And voila, you have a cute little present to give for Christmas!

Coffee aroma reindeer tealight holder

This project started out with someone wanting to make a garland for their bedroom for Christmas (it was not me!). I got roped into it because I am gullible when it comes to children wanting to do crafts! It turned into a pretty tea light holder that yesterday turned into one with a coffee aroma. Perfect for gloomy winter days.

You will need:

1 A4 sheet of coloured paper (or letter size if you are in the USA. Your garland will be a bit shorter.)
1 metal lid from a jam jar
Strong glue (we used Uhu)
Transparent, non-flammable paper (about 1/2 an A4 sheet)
A thin tipped black felt tipped pen
5 - 6 white jewels and one red one
2 handfuls of coffee beans
A tealight

Method:

We started with the reindeer and found him (and a few other friends) at this website https://www.woojr.com/christmas-paper-chains/christmas-paper-chains/ . We printed out this template and followed the instructions to make the garland (the instructions are on the template) using brown paper. Cutting it was rather fiddly so we took turns to cut it out. If you want something quicker you should consider the snow man or the Christmas tree.

After the garland was cut out I was deserted! The reason being that the garland was too short to go across the door and there was no way that my child was going to cut out a second one (very low attention span!). I did not want to trash the reindeer because they looked so cute.

Using a thin black felt tip pen I gave the reindeer some eyes and then stuck on the jewels for the noses. I was constantly visited by my daughter so that she could give me advice, which is why one of the reindeer has a red nose (Rudolf of course!).

I then rummaged around in our box of jam jars to find a lid that was the right size to wrap the reindeer around. I also found a piece of transparent paper left over from making tiny origami lampshades for a string of fairy lights.

I measured the circumference of the lid and cut out a rectangle from the transparent paper that was a centimeter longer than the circumference and as wide as the reindeer were tall. Then I stuck the reindeer to the transparent paper and the transparent paper to the rim of the lid (the inside of the lid upwards). If you want a sturdy construction you might use a glue gun to secure the paper to the lid.

Finally, we put a handful of coffee beans in the lid and settled a tea light on top of them. Now we have a wonderful coffee smelling tea light holder!!

You can use any of the templates above and any coloured paper, be creative! We'd love to see your products.

Twig door wreath

The kindergarten my children attended always has an Advent Bazzar in November. All the produce sold is made by the parents under the guidance of a very crafty teacher. One of the years they made these awesome wreaths made of twigs. They basically had a whole heap of someones garden trimmings and they molded them into shape and tied them together with brown wire.

Unfortunately I was not in the group that made the wreaths (I was busy managing the truffle making) so I don't know exactly how they made them. I did however manage to find a tutorial on YouTube that is pretty good.

Once you have the wreath the only thing that limits you is your imagination and wallet. I found some left over ribbon to make a huge bow for the bottom, bought a few cheap Christmas balls and used a string of plastic fall decorations to get a bit of colour.

I was very careful to use light weight things because we cannot nail anything into, or hook anything onto our door. It has to be held up with sticky tape!!

While decorating I found it best to hang the wreath up on a door so that I could see how everything fell (literally sometimes!). If using glass ornaments I would seriously advise you to put a thick blanket on the floor!

The whole thing is hung up by a matching ribbon (I ran out of left overs and picked up a new roll from IKEA, if I hadn't found it I would have just used wool) which is passed over the top of the door and stuck down with tape on the inside. Very, very heavy duty tape!

If your door can bear it the lights suggested in the tutorial are wonderful addition.