A walk in the park

On the Sunday before Christmas we wandered down into Greenwich for a very important errand, and that was to buy some cheese for festive period. Yes, very important. It was one of those clear and sunny days we've had recently and it was warm too, quite a treat. I loved the look of the lacy trees against the sky in Greenwich Park.

The sunlight too was catching this gnarly old trunk, doesn't it look great?

Our route through the park was different to usual, as rather than heading down into Greenwich we headed across the park and exited on Crooms Hill and cut through the side streets to the cheese shop - we were on a mission. These trees though were worth stopping (briefly) for. 

As we ducked around the side of the Observatory, onto what is probably my favourite path in the park away from the crowds I just had to stop to admire the brickwork, and the less than usual view towards Docklands.

The lacy trees were almost forgotten with this fragile looking fern, such a beautiful colour.

And then as we headed down the path, we noticed the hellebores with the sun shining straight onto the new growth. They looked truly stunning, and it's no wonder they're perhaps more advanced than usual.

Isn't nature wonderful?

My Christmas wreath

During the week my ten wire rings (yes I know there's only supposed to be five gold rings, but Amazon were selling them in tens!) arrived through the post, so I had no excuse not to make myself a wreath now did I? I'd trimmed some of the lower branches from my little tree, just so it could get used to being part of my Christmas wreaths, but needed more greenery to make a full wreath. 

On Sunday we made a visit to the Cheeseboard in Greenwich to stock up our Christmas cheese supply and I saw next door had tree offcuts for a £1 a branch. That's a much better price and so MOH carried two stems around town for the rest of the afternoon. Back home I popped out into the garden and cut some rosemary, holly, ivy and fatsia flowers to add to my stock of materials.

Covering the table with newspaper I set off in search of some wire. I know I have some, but I couldn't remember the safe place I'd put it in but thankfully I found some raffia so made do with that instead. I set about tying greenery into bunches before tying it onto the wire ring. It took a little longer with raffia than wire, but I think it works equally well.

ROSEMARY

FATSIA FLOWERS

I added bunches of the evergreen offcut we'd bought, some of my little tree and rosemary bunches. I opted not to use the holly, as well wouldn't you know it's prickly and I had enough of the other plants.

When the bunches of greenery filled the wreath's circle I tied bunches of three fatsia flowers and added those around the wreath instead of the orange slices, cinnamon sticks and baubles I used last year. It's a more rustic wreath this year, but given that it cost me approximately £2.15 and an afternoon to make, I'm happy with that.

And I love the fatsia flowers on it. I'll be using those again and when I hung it on our pale green front door this morning, it looked great.

Phew, my Christmas prep is starting to come together!  How's yours going?

Christmas cards: another year, another tree

Last weekend I knew I needed to find time to make my Christmas cards if I was going to send handmade cards again. I had a design - and a craft - in mind but hadn't worked out quite how to do that. So given the lack of time I decided to try something else instead. It's always good to have a backup plan!

I tested it out and it worked better than I'd hoped. With a plan that works and the motivation to do it I once again found myself making Christmas cards with trees on. Last year there were trees too, and I'm pretty sure there'll be trees again next year, because I want to go back to my original idea.

Just as well I like trees really isn't it?

This year they all have the same design, although there's still so scope for individuality.  I used material scraps and started out by placing the material on the cards, before tacking them down with some glue so I didn't drop them as I moved over to the sewing machine.

At the sewing machine I added an outline to the tree. I liked them before this, but this gave them the finish I was looking for. I experimented with how to add the stitched outline and found it easiest to do this in a continuous stitching movement. The bonus is this leaves a cute tree shape on the inside of the card too.

Then it was time to add a star to the top of my trees, a little sticky star was just the thing. In fact I found this the trickiest and was quite often juggling the stars and chasing them around the card to get them in place.

Phew, just as well I'm going for the individual look...

I'm really pleased with how they turned out, and especially how time efficient they were to create.   

But that meant there was no excuse for not writing them. This year MOH and I shared writing our cards - we don't send a huge amount, and it seems we don't have an equal distribution of labour here. MOH wrote one and I did the rest, and boy you should have heard him moan about having to do that and why wasn't there a stamped "Merry Christmas" inside...  

Because dear, we want to write a personalised message didn't seem to be the desired response, but it's true. I know that I love to receive cards where people have added a short message so I like to do that myself. I'll apologise in advance to the people receiving MOH's card...

Ah well, until next year when once again I'll plan to start earlier than I actually do!

Do you send many - or any - Christmas cards? And do you write the same or a different message in yours? And do you write them or share the task between you?