Santa Buddies premieres on ABC Family Tonight!

December 20, 2010:

The Disney Christmas Movie - Santa Buddies Premieres on ABC FAMILY tonight!


You can catch it twice... at 8 PM or 10 PM est.

Here's the Plot details from Amazon:

Christmas spirit is waning around the globe, and people are losing sight of the real meaning of Christmas. Up at the North Pole, Santa and his trusty dog Santa Paws are alarmed because the Christmas icicle, which

Cracking fun

Last night I sat down and made all of my crackers. I was surprised how easy it was and it only took me about 2 hours to make all 12 (in fact I made 13 but the first one went quite dramatically wrong).
It's a simple process and I basically followed this guide from Kirsty's Homemade Christmas.
I didn't bother to measure anything (I like my crackers to be organic, and I'm lazy) but I regret not using luxury paper as recommended - mine was thin and ripped a bit while I was scrunching it and tying ribbons on.

I bought the 12 snaps and hats on ebay for about £5. Other than that, I only needed the toilet roll innards (the one time of year I encourage wanton use of toilet roll around the house!), wrapping paper, double sided tape and ribbon.
I got my husband to pick 12 jokes form the internet (we'll see how funny these are soon) and added these, with the gifts. I find places like Hawkins Bazaar (a sort of toy and joke shop), craft shops and markets useful for finding lots of small gifts. I try to keep the price low, but if you look for nice things to put in them you will end up spending £3-5 per cracker in my experience so making several can work out expensive. Plus you end up walking around shops putting things in toilet roll tubes...

There are more details and some gift suggestions on my blog

Christmas decorations

I just wanted to share with you my 'new' Christmas decorations, which I used to decorate my Christmas non-tree.
This one is a Danish style star made from old maps. I love the vintage feel of it. You can see the non-tree and the other ornaments on Grey Duckling.

Cushions

Hello! I've finished my step mum's gifts, a set of 3 cushions covered with upholstery cotton, the print is black palms on a camel background -it's a bit darker in reality :) I've added a simple self covered button at the back of each cushion as a finishing touch.

I can't believe we only have 5 days left to finish making all our gifts, I don't know for you but I still have a few things to do -that's obviously a euphemism to say that I'm overwhelmed!

The gift of lemons

Hello everyone. I have been mad sewing allsorts (mainly pyjamas, a couple of men's shirts & boxer shorts) but haven't time to post photos yet ... however, here's a pressie that is really easy & ever so tasty - homemade lemon curd.

You need to be prepared by having a couple of empty jars, but everything else is really straight forward, generally from your store cupboard plus the key ingredient of big fresh lemons.

I used this microwave recipe here, & whilst it probably still took 10 mins or so cooking time, there was no sticking - it was super easy. There's more on my blog here.

I still need to decorate the jars & make individual labels & there is a warning - it's so good you'll want to make two batches so that you can keep some yourself (I did - as shown above!)

Homemade Salt Dough Decorations (inc Tutorial)

I wanted to have a go at these last year but time ran away with me! It's such a traditional craft that puts me in mind of the autumn harvest festivals at church when I was little. But I think salt dough lends itself to all sorts of things. (Loads more info here) It's kind of like a store cupboard Fimo!

For the Salt Dough You'll Need: 2 cups of Plain Flour, 1 cup of Table Salt, 1 cup Water (cool but not cold). Mixing bowl, rolling pin, cookie cutters,  palette knife, baking tray, greaseproof paper, cooling rack.
You can mix up any amount of dough you like as long as you stick to this ratio. 2 parts flour to 1 part each of salt and water.

Method: Mix the flour and salt in a bowl. Make a well in the centre and pour in a little of the water and mix. Keep adding the water a little at a time, (You may not need all of the water) & mix until it starts to form a dough. Then squeeze, knead & roll in your hands until it's a smooth, pliable ball of dough.

Lightly flour your work surface and rolling pin and roll out the dough to about 50mm thickness. Cut out shapes using cookie cutters, or freehand if you're a bit more skilled than I am. I left the surface of my shapes plain as I'm going to paint them. But I guess at this stage you could carefully etch patterns or designs into the surface.

Carefully lift your shapes, using a palette knife, onto a baking sheet covered in greaseproof paper. (A couple of my stars got stuck because I didn't flour my work surface properly). Punch out holes for hanging ribbons. (I used a sturdy drinking straw for this)

Bake in the oven for an hour on a low heat (say 60C) turning them over half way through. Then turn them out onto a wire rack and leave until completely cool.  Leave for another 24 hrs before painting or varnishing, which hopefully we shall be doing this weekend....

Battle of the Bulbs Premieres on the Hallmark Channel this Weekend!

Premiering: December 18, 2010 - SATURDAY Night...
Also Airing: December 19, - SUNDAY Night...

The Hallmark Channel Premieres a new Christmas Movie : Battle of the Bulbs




NOTE: This is the very last NEW Christmas Movie Premiere. Don't fret, though... the Hallmark Channel will continue to show our favorite Christmas Movies up until the New Year!

This Hallmark Channel Movie is about dueling