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Well, Christmas is over for another 363 days. I hope it was wonderful for you - I had a great time with family and friends. It’s so great watching the kids get into the fun and games of the silly season.

We spent Christmas Day at my parents’ house, along with my sister and her family, my brother and some cousins so there were 12 of us all up I think. There were presents given and received, great food and lots of bottles of wine to drink, soduku and books to read, Boules in the garden (very funny with a dog chasing the balls, children running around and slightly drunk adults trying their best) and nanna naps for some.

Late in the afternoon the adults had a game of Monopoly and it was such fun. Jack came up during the game to sit on my lap and have a look and he was really interested. He wanted to play but we thought he was still a little too young (5) so he just watched keenly. Growing up, we were one of those families that always played games - Monopoly, Yahtzee, Scrabble, Boggle, Mastermind, Cluedo, Trivial Pursuit, Sale of the Century, Pictionary and more.

There were four kids in my family so it was fun and cheap entertainment for all! Paul and I regularly play Backgammon and Scrabble once the kids are in bed so the tradition continues.

We told Jack he wasn’t quite old enough but we would teach him soon. The very next day he was nagging and nagging to play so Paul and I had a game with him and he was really good at it! He had watched and learned and we hardly had to explain anything! We were so proud of him. Of course it’s great for teaching about maths and money, saving and becoming a real estate mogul.

He was such a good sport, only crying once right at the end when he lost almost all his money at once and his Dad got it all. He recovered fast though. I loved it when he got a “Get out of Jail Free” card - he thought it was the coolest thing! I ended up getting done by Jack and then a while later, Jack lost it to his Dad.

On the Christmas crafting front, all the presents that I made were very well received. You will have to check out the last four or so posts if you haven’t seen them yet.

I haven’t shown you the pics of the minibooks I made. These were a bit last minute, mostly because I didn’t realise how long they would take to put together!

I ended up making six all up, for various people and it was a lot of work in just two days. That’s two entire days, with hardly a break. It was too much - I will know to allocate more time next time!

Anyway they turned out really well. Here is a small sample of the mini books.

I used Maya Road binders - three ring binders and two tab binders. They both had their good and bad points in terms of putting them together but they turned out great.

I didn’t end up doing much embellishing once they were assembled as I was pretty spent by the end of it. Next time I would love to have more time to go crazy with embellishments - journalling, rubons, doodling at least.

I quite liked the pared down look though - it really let the photos speak for themselves and of course the papers weren’t that quiet either!

I used papers from Scenic Route Paper Co, American Crafts and EK Success. Rubons were gorgeous and were from My Mind’s Eye. I used loads of Mod Podge to glue the photos and papers to the books and my scalpel got a good workout, trimming paper and photo edges.

A couple more covers. The covers use red gaffa tape to bind them and give a bit of colour punch. I love red - maybe you’ve noticed that already?

And I also used a photo album to make a little book for my 10 year old neice who lives interstate so we only see her a few times a year.

It is filled with photos of her cousins.

This one was quick to put together but ended up looking great!

Here is an example of another minibook from Tia Bennett if you would like more inspiration and instructions:

This one inspired me a lot - now I know how to do these there may be some more minibooks in my future…

I probably won’t be blogging for a couple of weeks as I’m off to visit family and friends in Victoria. Paul and I will be leaving the kids with his parents (near Bendigo) for New Year’s while we catch a train in to Melbourne to see Carl Cox and others play at Sunshine People! Can’t wait.

Happy New Year to you all.

 Still at it.  The great Christmas present craftfest that is.  Nearly finished…

Yesterday I made a noticeboard for my almost 18 year old neice.  I love how it turned out:

 

I used a big corkboard (that has been up in the shed since Sam decided he no longer wanted it) and simply covered it with lime green gingham.  I then wrapped it with pink and green ribbon and tied buttons each time they crossed.  I added a silk flower in the top left and stuck a few things on it to get it started. Easy peasy!

 

I also got stuck into stencilling for the kids on my list:

 

The one above is for baby Freya and the one just below for my 5 year old neice Camryn:

 

This one is for Emma - I sewed some white ricrac onto it after it dried:

 

This one is for Mani - Freya’s big brother who is 3:

This one for my nephew (Cam’s brother) Kyle who is 6:

 

and a scary face for my Jack who is 5:

 

More tomorrow… 

Only a few more days until Christmas and I am still making stuff! I think I am on track to get it all done but I am getting to the slack period when I just want to relax and do nothing - everyone in the house is on holidays now and I’m still busy! I am enjoying myself though and I love the idea of giving handmade goodness to family and friends.

To reward myself I thought I would take a break from sewing for everyone else and make myself some 3/4 pants:

It’s not a great photo of me but still. Here is another closer shot of the contrast pockets (thrifted napkins) and ric rac edging:

And did you see the green thongs (flip flops) in there too? I bought these from Big W for about $8 the other day and I love them so much - the tops are fabric not plasticy rubber so that makes me love them more:

I have finished up all the Christmas orders for my shop site (www.redinstead.com.au) and I have put up the “gone on holidays” message. Phew!

Here is a Paris themed bag I made for a custom order recently:

And here is a water bottle carrier that I made for someone special for Christmas. I love this Denyse fabric:

I used the brilliant tutorial from Pink Chalk Studio and it was very easy - I think I will make a few more of these after Christmas fever has passed:

I have been madly trying to catch up on my bloglines reading over the last month or two but it’s a losing battle. I got really behind way back when I broke my arm and I have never caught up again. It’s kinda fun to (skim) read through six months of someone’s life/crafting, though.

I probably won’t get to a computer much over the Christmas/New Year holiday break, so I will most likely never catch up. Yes, I do realise that I don’t have to read everything (and I do skim quite a lot in fact) but really there is so much crafty goodness in almost all of your posts that I just don’t want to miss out!

For my own part, I will try to squeeze another blog entry or two in here before Christmas.

Yesterday we were driving along when we suddenly went very wonky around a roundabout and realised that we had a problem!

Paul stopped the car and had a look and realised that OH MY GOD we were missing a wheel!

Oh, come on! How gullible are you? No, we just had a flat tyre!

Jack was very excited and loved seeing his dad fixing it up. He got a quick lesson on how the brakes and shocks etc work while it was all visible.

Here is my wonderful husband Paul doing the manly stuff:

And look - here we both are. Isn’t he cute?

I think so!