11th Day of Advent - Presents from my childhood

I wonder if my grandchildren will remember years from now when they are grown up the presents they got for Christmas when they were little.

Children have so many things now but they seem to loose interest quickly.  I'm one of four and my parents didn't have the money to buy us loads of toys, we always had our main present, the one we had asked Santa for, but only a few extra presents as surprises along with chocolates and always there was an orange at the bottom of our pillow cases, (we didn't have a sack or a stocking, we always hung a pillow case on our bedroom door :-)

I remember quite a lot of my main presents, the 'Julie' doll I had when I was around four, another doll called Rosemary and when I was a little older, the radio, which I loved and mine and my sister's joint present one year, a stereo.  Oh I loved that stereo! 

And of course everyone had a Top of The Pops album!

I remember we had this one

Does anyone else remember these albums?  They were not even the original artists, lol but I played it over and over, and I was always careful to hold the record by the edge and not put my fingers prints all over the surface :-)

 My brother bought me my first proper album that year too, it was Dreams are Nuthin' More than Wishes  by David Cassidy.  I do still have that album, and I still play it, and I still like it :-) 

Another year I asked for a typewriter, I think this was a very popular toy of the time, mine was a mustard coloured Petite Typewriter the same as the one below.

I remember the typewriter well but had forgotten what the case looked like until I started my search

I absolutely loved my typewriter and spent hours playing 'offices', sadly I don't have it anymore, I don't know what happened to it.  Funny too how I now work in an office and I still love to type to this day, I love it if any of the lads at work bring me letters and documents to type up, (sad, I know!)

I didn't always get what I asked for though.  I always wanted Spirograph but Santa never did leave it for me :-(

*All the above images were sourced from Google*

What Christmas presents do you remember from your childhood?  Was there something you asked for that Santa didn't leave?

🎅🏻🎅🏻🎅🏻🎅🏻

My lovely Advent minis from today, from left to right,

From Jo
From Craft House Magic
From Lay Family Yarn

And a sheet mask from my Body Shop Calendar, I do love a face mask  😃

-X- 

10th Day of Advent - Planning for next year, or too early?

It's that time of year again when I like to have a think about what I want to do in the way of crafting in the new year.  I've already had a sort out of my charts and besides the Calendar Girls I have another three all ready to go with the fabric and threads.  

I'm not going to have any crazy starts, (I don't know if there are any running for 2020? ) but I did want to stitch some of the charts I already have and not keep buying more next year, so I've been kitting them up over the last couple of months.

One for Easter

One for Autumn

One for Christmas

Easter Parade will be my New Years Day start as I've wanted to stitch this for ages.
 The plan is not to have lots of stitching on the go all at once, so along with my monthly calendar girl this will be my only stitching until it's finished.

I still have my Carriage House Samplings Suzannah to finish so I'm going to try and give her some attention too.  That should be enough to keep me going for a while.

I've said before that during the week when I have less time it's easier for me to pick up knitting than stitching, I have a couple of things I want to knit, for myself next year, I already have the yarn, I just need to be a bit more confident in measuring and the sizing before I make a start.  I also have some knitting planned for over Christmas, but that's another post :-)

Have you started making and crafting plans for 2020, or is it too early yet?

My gorgeous Advent mini's from today -
From left to right-

From Jo
From Craft House Magic
From Lay Family Yarn

I opened a shower scrunchie from my Body Shop calendar today

I hope your Tuesday has been good

-X-

9th Day of Advent - Stitching Update

I've had my eldest grandson, Oliver, after school this afternoon and I take him to his swimming lesson on a Monday evening too.  It's usually around 8pm by the time I get back in home, so only a quick post tonight to show you the progress on my January Calendar girl and my Advent gifts.

I've only stitched on this piece two Sundays so you can tell it's a quick stitch, not because I'm a quick stitcher, lol

I love the way she's looking :-)

I probably won't pick her up again until next Sunday but with any luck I should have her finished then :-)

I was asked in the comments last week what fabric I was using for the Calendar Girls, I always forget to mention my fabric but it's 27 count Linda, evenweave, Vintage mocha.

I've tried to get a photo but it's not very good in the artificial light.

The fabric is mottled on one side only so you can chose to work on either side.

This is the mottled side

And here you can just about see the difference in one side to the other.

For this project I'm using the none mottled side.

🎅🏻🎅🏻🎅🏻🎅🏻

I don't open my advents before I go to work in the week, I save them until I get back at lunch time and then I'm not rushing, here are my lovely gifts from today.

From the top-

From Lay Family yarn
From Craft House Magic
From Jo.  Jo included a little pin today :-)

And a handbag size hand cream in my Body Shop calendar, I haven't tried the vanilla before 😃

I hope your Monday has been good :-)

-X-

8th Day of Advent - Cards

Well that first week of the month went quickly didn't it?

Do you still send Christmas cards?  I do love to receive a card but I don't think it's a thing that a lot of people seem to do anymore.  This morning I made a start on writing mine,  I usually buy at least one pack of cards in the sales after Christmas along with wrapping paper,  I'd asked Mark to get up the loft a couple of weeks ago to look to see if there were any there. 

He said no, couldn't see any cards, lots of rolls of wrapping paper but no cards.

So when he got all the decorations down last week, what did he find?  Yep a bag with cards!
So now I've got enough Christmas cards to last at least the next two years because in the meantime I'd gone out and bought some, I should have know better than to ask a man to look shouldn't I, lol.

I've had a lovely quiet Sunday afternoon stitching on my January Calendar Girl,  which I will post an update on tomorrow.  I don't get much time to stitch in the week anymore but Sunday is my day off and I consider it 'my' time to do more of what I enjoy. 

I had planned this year to have a quieter, calmer December so that I have time to enjoy things rather than rushing around shops, my gifts are all bought, wrapped and sitting in their sacks ready for the main event. I have done some of the extra food shopping by buying little extras in with my normal weekly shop, I don't do a big food shop at Christmas anymore, any fresh food I will buy closer to the time.  My planning has paid off and freed up my time, now I am enjoying the lead up to Christmas and really enjoying opening my Advents each day.

From the top -

Lay Family Yarn
Craft House Magic, a little lavender filled pouch was included today too
from Jo, who included a chocolate too, which I ate before I took the photo :-)

I found a trifle bowl out to store my growing collection of Advent minis in. 
They make quite an attractive decoration of their own don't they😃

My Body Shop gift was a Rose body wash.
Now I need to find something to keep all my little products in too.

I hope you all had a lovely restful Sunday too

-X-

7th Day of Advent - Book Art

I didn't get to do any ornament finishing today, we decided to take a ride to Worcester and have a look around the shops, there were a couple of things I wanted to get that I didn't want to buy on line, but I couldn't find any I liked so came home empty handed.  Mark did benefit from the trip though and came back with two jumpers and a shirt.

To say that there are only two Saturdays(!!) left before Christmas the town was not heaving with people, as you would expect, so it was nice to walk round.  It does mean that I am now playing catch up with ornaments tomorrow though.

Gaynor, (Tales of Cuckoo Land) showed some book art on one of her vlogs recently which I thought looked brilliant, (I think it was on her 2nd December vlog),  I just had to have a go!

It was so easy but looks really effective and it's something a bit different.

🎅🏻🎅🏻🎅🏻

I have a bit of an obsession with Christmas mugs and always look in charity shops to see if I can pick any up, when I went out with Stevie last weekend we were lucky and found three  😃 

Tonight Joanne came round with this one for me, isn't he lovely!  

She got him for the princely sum of 50p   😃

Some more gorgeous Advent minis today

From the top

Lay Family Yarn

Craft House Magic

 from Jo, with a lovely calming tea :-)

My Body Shop gift today was body butter

6th day of Advent - Cake!

It's late.  I'm met up with some friends tonight for a curry, we haven't got together since March (!!) but it could have been last week, we have known each other since our youngest kids were in toddler group, so probably 24 years.  We always have a laugh and put the world to rights.  I love that we can go so long in between seeing each other and still pick up where we left off, no awkwardness between us.  That's how it should be with friends isn't it?

I still wanted to write a blog post even though it's way past my bedtime, but it's not a 'school night' so that's ok :-)

Cake does seem to feature quite a lot in my posts doesn't it so why should Advent be any different :-)

Do you make a Christmas cake? 
Every year I say "I'm going to make a Christmas cake"  and I never do, but this year, I did :-)

Marlene, aka Poppy Patchwork makes a cake every Christmas, this year she has made two, one for herself and one for her daughter and she kindly sent me a copy of the recipe she uses.
Thank you again Marlene :-)

I made mine three weeks ago and have been feeding it brandy once a week.  I don't think I will feed it any more after this week though, I don't want to too 'boozy'

(my cake looks a little burnt in the photo but it's not, it must have been the light)

 I haven't got a tin large enough so I'm keeping it tight;s wrapped until it's ready to decorate

I think i'm going to keep the decoration simple, which reminds me, I will have to make a trip to the cake decorating shop next week to buy something to put on top.

The funny thing about me making this cake is that most people in my family don't really like Christmas cake, oh well, more for me :-)

Here are my lovely Advent minis from today

Left to right
From Jo (with another little extra)
From Craft House Magic
From Lay Family Yarn

My Body Shop gift today was a glossing shampoo

Hope you had a good day, see you tomorrow

-X-

5th day of Advent - stitching

I've been trying to get all the bits of Christmas stitching I've done over this past year finished off so that come January I can start afresh.
I shared the little Blackbird stocking and Bonnie's ornament a few days ago but I still have three left waiting to be fully finished and I plan on tackling those over the weekend.

I really did fancy having a new stitching start in December though, that wasn't Christmas related.

I had bought all twelve of the Calendar Girls series by Little House Needleworks back in April when we met up at the Nimble Thimble and thought it was about time I made a start.

I sorted the threads for them last week, they use good old DMC, and amazingly I had all the threads required for the first three months, that doesn't happen very often!

I bought the fabric on Saturday, enough to stitch all twelve, and had a lovely afternoon stitching last Sunday :-)

I'm surprised with the size of these, the picture on the chart looks smaller, I like it though, and it will make the finishing easier, lol

The plan is to stitch each one a month ahead all year round so that I can get them made up ready to display them when that month starts, you can remind me of that if I start slacking, lol.

Did you have a new project to start at the beginning of the month?

My lovely Advent minis from today

From left to right. from Lay Family Yarn, Craft House Magic and  Jo

♥♥♥

And a make up remover from my Body Shop calendar

See you tomorrow 😃

-X-