Wednesday 2 December 2020

Top Tips For Christmas

I've been quite remiss - in previous Decembers I've rounded up helpful tips from all over the place and shared the ideas. I haven't actually seen that many tips out there in Blogland this year. I suppose nobody needs to know how to make their little turkey crown stretch to 4 extra guests, or have ideas for party games when there are fifteen of you...

But here are three Christmas activities which have been happening here at The Manse which might amuse inspire some people.

[1] Home made Christmas Cards - I've only used materials I already had to make my cards. So they are simple pictures cut from last years cards. I used my die cut machine to get rectangles with interesting corners - and stuck on a few 'gems'. And I made them all A5 sized. But I needed envelopes. So these were all made from calendars. Who needed their calendars in 2020 anyway? I had some with 12 bright, arty pictures- and plain white backs. I used my WRMK envelope punch, to make white envelopes with colourful linings.

[2] Homemade preserves to be given as gifts always look better with a 'mob-cap'. Useful tip - and 18cm circle of fabric is the right size for the majority of jamjars. Anything smaller and it is fiddly to fit the elastic band neatly- and it looks sort of desperate. Like a teenager in the 1960s frantically tugging at her miniskirt.

[3] Finally, make sure that you have got the fork 'andles [sorry, four candles] ready for the church advent ring well in advance. Do not leave it till the afternoon before you need to record the YouTube "lighting of the candles" clips


Bob was only able to get three red and three white ones on Friday afternoon. I experimented with my water based acrylic paints on a spare white candle, but couldn't get the colour right. He then took all four to the garage and sprayed them with car spray paint.

They look splendid. We did all our recordings - but very carefully- the paint was still tacky. Even now, days later the paint remains tacky!!

If you want to see some more useful Christmas tips from previous years, just type "Top Tips Christmas" in the Search Bar at the bottom.




11 comments:

  1. Can’t remember whose tip it was but coloured cake cases are just the right size to make mob caps for your preserves if you don’t have any fabric or can’t be bothered with the faff of cutting out circles

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  2. I Am In Awe! I've always made my cards but never the envelopes - and recycling old calendars is sheer genius! I've got an envelope maker but have always felt that 100 envelopes was an awful lot to make.

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    1. I did it in 3 sessions. Cutting, folding and sticking. And I did folding and sticking with a tray on my lap in front of the TV

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  3. Calendars are a good source of materials for cards- I've used them for numerous things too.
    We've got a door decorating competition running at school this year and I was bringing a class across to the music room yesterday when I saw some giant bubble wrap that had blown out of a bin. I grabbed it intending to put it back into the bin and then I thought that I could cut it into shards to maje icicles for the top of my door. I am then going to cut snowflakes out of old white paper and stick them to my door. It made me decide to name mine- "The eco-friendly door" and only use reused materials. My tip is to make use of old materials to make new decorations if you are bored of your current ones. I intend to make a new reused wreath like I did with my Easter floral wreath .

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    1. Oh well done Kezzie. Kirstie was making wreaths out of old plastic bags yesterday (just like I used to with my Girls Brigade group)

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  4. Mini skirts were such a problem with stockings before tights became the norm!

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    1. And then the only tights we could afford were "American Tan" colour. Perhaps this is why You Know Who in the White House has an orange face... Memories of the girlfriends of his youth...

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  5. I'm smiling about the candles - the ministers did admit on yesterday's Zoom meeting that they had had to do a bit of a search for the Advent candles before recording Sunday's service! We are so used to the Church officer taking care of things like that and because they were filming ahead - this hadn't gone onto the "to do" list as yet.

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    1. Everything is SO different this year. The usual "Christmas Church Calendar" went out of the window weeks ago.

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  6. Great tips! Thank you! Had to laugh over the one about the candles, though! You and Bob are both so creative!

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