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?

I've got big plans for this little tree...

This is the tree I picked up Tuesday evening after work. This is the tree we weren't having this year. Oops!

The revolution started last weekend when we saw some cute little trees in pots in the village. 

It wasn't long after that a plan started to form...

...We could have one in a pot, because that's more of a plant than a tree.

... And since we've removed the veg beds from the back of the garden we have a space to fill, so it would make sense.

And that's how I found myself in the garden centre, choosing a tree. It's a Norway Spruce and feels soft to the touch. But my plans for this little tree don't stop there. 

I like a Christmas wreath, and remember last year I made this one - well so far this year I haven't got a wreath, made or bought. I'd planned to make one again because it was much easier than I thought and I had a real sense of accomplishment when it was complete. Because the wire rings were so cheap I went against my instincts and chucked it all out. This year though it's been harder to get one of those rings and when I did find one it was almost three times as expensive as last year, so I declined. In fact the shrub branch cuttings are also a lot more expensive than I remember, and so much so that I'm not buying any. I think £10 for a bit of evergreen that's been chopped off a larger plant is a bit excessive and again a huge increase on last year.

Anyway, I digress. I have bought some rings - I bought ten online for the same price the florist was willing to sell me one - and I'm hoping to get out into the garden and see what greenery I have to add to it. But this is where my little tree comes in, not this year though. When it's planted out in the garden, growing its foot a year, filling the space where the veg beds used to be it'll also be growing greenery for my wreaths. 

A masterplan. I know. I thank you...

But it's got some growing to do, once it's finished being an indoors Christmas tree that is.

And remember my Christmas turkey? Well he's proudly sitting near the top of my tree, and makes me smile every time I see him.

CAN YOU SPOT THE PROUD TURKEY?

It's about four foot at the moment - the tree, not the turkey, so there's not a lot of room for decorations. This year for the first time ever, I think I've put more decorations away than I've put on the tree - but well, I didn't want to shock my little tree too much.

And you know what? Father Christmas has given it the thumbs up!

So that's fine by me...

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?