Christmas Recap

How was your Christmas?! Mine was lovely! It began with time off of work, and our yearly tradition to bake and decorate gingerbread cookies...

I decorated my little pink Christmas tree, I dearly love my white fluffy lights...

I made some of my own ornaments this year, I was inspired by a nostalgic memory of our old chenille Father Christmas ornaments, sadly disintegrated with age. So, I made my own kitty ones, I was helped with a tutorial from here, easy as pie!

On Christmas Eve, just in the nick of time, a parcel arrived from Holly of Hollyrocks, I will blog properly about our swap soon, but I was very excited to have new little cupcake ornaments from her for my tree:

This year, as I have mentioned, the budget was very tight. I spent the first week of my holidays working away at my sewing machine, all hours of the day, hand making all the gifts for my close friends and family.
Unfortunately, I had little time left between finishing and wrapping the presents, plus I was so sleep deprived I wasn't thinking straight, so have no photos of my hard work! I did manage to remember to photograph what I gave to my two best friends though:

I made them clutch purses from this pattern, and felt ornaments.

I made Darren and myself our own set of lined Christmas Stockings, using the cutest vintage style cat and dog print, with a very helpful tutorial from here:

Also, after seeing many different versions around the internet for Christmas cookie mix jars, I decided to make up a batch of my own for friends and family, I used this recipe. I topped the jars with pretty fabric, that I thought could be used as a doily afterwards:

Perhaps after chasing down my family with a camera I'll blog about what I made for everyone else next week! (hoping for a new one very soon thanks to generous support from my family for Christmas!)