50 makes for Christmas - 31 to 40

Just 3 weeks away from the big day and I find it hard to believe I have completed 40 little makes and have just 10 more to go!  Here is a summary of the last ten in case you missed any





31 Baboushka snowglobes





32 Christmas jam jars





33 Decoupage gift tags





34 Free prinables





35 More pinecone firelighters





36 Pomander Oranges





37 Easy make paper pom poms






38 Hips and Haws






39 Christmas Cocktails






40 Delicious slow cooker red cabbage



And links below to the previous 30

Makes 21-30

Makes 11 to 20

Makes 1 to 10


I hope your own preparations are steaming ahead, I would love to hear what you have been making yourself.

Christmas stocking 41/50 - 50 makes for Christmas

I can honestly say that this stocking has a massive amount of love sewn in to it as it is the first thing I have made for my lovely Granddaughter. She will about 6 weeks old at Christmas and will have absolutely no idea of what is going on around her!

I drew the stocking shape on a bit of old newspaper thinking I could tweak it if I wasn't happy, it is not perfect but I felt it was good enough, I sometimes waste time trying to improve things when the basics are just fine.  The Christmas tree shape was inspired by some felt tree decorations I made last year, I thought it had a nice childlike quality that would endure as she grows up.

There is a small secret pocket on the inside that can be used to leave a little note for Santa or that Santa could stash some chocolate coins in there or even pop in a small cuddly friend and have him peeping out over the top of the stocking, all these decisions are out of my hands as it will be up to my daughter, her partner and Santa to decide.

This is not surprisingly my favourite make of this project and with just a few makes left to complete my 50 makes for Christmas there is not much room for me to top this.

Do you have any homemade Christmas items that have a connection through the generations?

Slow cooker red cabbage 40/50 - 50 makes for Christmas

Mmmmm slow cooker red cabbage, tastes heavenly, is very easy to make and is quite inexpensive (especially if you can pick up the cabbage when it is on an offer). It freezes really well so I only need to make this a couple of times a year and freeze it in portions. I love it with my Christmas dinner but it also works well with lots of Winter comfort foods like bangers and mash, stews and casseroles

Ingredients

Red cabbage - sliced
2 large onions - sliced
2 large Bramley cooking apples - peeled and sliced
knob of butter
100ml Red Wine Vinegar
300ml hot water
tsp sugar
salt and pepper

Method

Put all the ingredients into the slow cooker give them a stir and cook for about 3 hrs on fast or 6 hours on low.

Notes

• The quantities and times given are a guide line only.  
• Add 1 tsp of mixed spice and 1 tsp of cinnamon for a "mulled"  flavour.
• The addition of a few raisins adds a new texture and flavour
• Substitute 100mls of Mulled Apple juice for 100mls of hot water
• Use up stuff you have in that you think will marry into the flavours already there
• Eating apples ( preferably tart) or pears can be substituted for the Bramleys

1st of December tomorrow and with only 10 makes left it looks like I will pull off my 50 makes for Christmas.


What are your Christmas dinner must haves? and can you make any in advance?

Christmas Cocktails 39/50 - 50 makes for Christmas

Christmas is without a doubt the season of indulgence, so I have started planning a few festive treats by way of some Christmas Cocktails.  The supermarkets are usually full of offers on spirits in the run up to Christmas in a bid to entice us in to do our big shop.

I am kicking off with this one that is a firm favourite with the ladies in our family and is affectionately known as a winter warmer, I think it came from a Nigella Lawson interview I heard on the radio several years ago


A75cl  bottle of Prosseco or Cava  - Chilled (I usually just get which ever is cheapest,)

125ml triple sec or any other orange flavoured liqueur (you can buy Cointreau or Grand Marnier if you like a label)

500ml Cranberry juice - Chilled


Just put them all in a jug and pour into your flute or cocktail glass. Most of the supermarkets seem to stock the little mini bottles of Prosecco so you could easily make a scaled down version.

                                                                         
If you have made the investment in a bottle of triple sec another way you could use it is to add a little tot in your hot chocolate it is a rather nice bedtime indulgence.

Using the triple sec as a starting point you only need cranberry juice, vodka and lime and you have got yourself a Cosmopolitan much loved by the Sex in the city girls and the reddy/pinky colour garnished with a peel of lime give it a lovely festive colour.

                                                               


I am a big fan of Winter Pimms, we discovered this last year when we took a winter break in St Ives and popped into the St Ives Harbour hotel for gin o'clock.  It is quite a tricky beast to get hold of and I believe it is only available in Waitrose and it is always seems to be sold out when I make the pilgrimage to try and get some.  I was delighted when I found this recipe on Pinterest, I have kind of followed this but done my own thing, I mulled a carton of apple juice and added a capful of brandy a measure of Pimms (well the cheap equivalent!) to a mug and topped up with the mulled apple juice and added a slice of orange (it really does make a difference).  The mulled apple juice is delicious by itself and if you are not drinking alcohol it is nice to have a special drink that isn't full of gas.

Having invested in a bottle of brandy for the Winter Pimms I was then poking around to find other cocktail ideas to use it in and I followed a link to this delightful post from a life of geekery for "The brandy apple - an Autumnal cocktail".  It only has three ingredients one of which is brandy, hardly surprising cloudy apple juice is in there and it is just topped off with ginger ale, the good news is this is an Autumnal cocktail so you don't have to wait for it to get any closer to Christmas before giving it a go!  I am thinking that apple juice and ginger ale might also make a nice little mocktail

Cheers everyone a little celebration for make 39 of my 50 makes for Christmas

Do you have any favourite Christmas cocktails or drinks that remind you of Christmas?  When we were children I remember my Mum getting in some bottles of Babycham and a bottle of nut brown beer, she made shandy from the beer and we were allowed to have some (enough beer just to change the colour of the lemonade) and we thought that we were being very naughty!

Free Christmas Decorations - Hips & Haws 38/50 - 50 makes for Christmas

I have been taking my camera for a walk this Autumn, I think my original intention was to increase the amount of walking I did but once I get my camera in my hand I see photos every few steps so I am not sure that I am actually gaining any benefit other than being in the big outdoors.

In early Autumn I seemed to have a bit of an obsession for photographing Hips and Haws, I was poking round on the internet looking at other peoples photos and a couple came up where they had been used to make Christmas decorations. They had been gathered and then threaded onto wire and shaped into either a wreath or heart shape.  I rather liked this as they look like chunky red beads we use in our Christmas decorations, or is it the other way round?





Add a  ribbon or a piece of twine on the top to hang them on the tree and bingo a free Christmas decoration.  I did have a little chat with my conscience before deciding that I want to make these as I was concerned if I was taking food away from the birds as there is no way of knowing how harsh the winter may be and these could make all the difference to some little soul. My solution - hang them outside on my little olive tree on the patio, we can enjoy them through the glass of the patio doors and they are still accessible to the local wildlife.

However my cunning plan was knocked off course when I went out to collect the hips and haws and there was very scant pickings so I didn't feel comfortable taking anything from what was left.  This is an excellent blog post with some fabulous photos  (see above) and full of inspiration but may require translating.

I am going to keep this in mind for next year when hopefully there will be an abunance of hips and haws.

I am crossing this off the list as no 38 leaving just 12 makes to complete my 50 makes of Christmas.

Tissue paper pom-poms 37/50 - 50 makes for Christmas

Way back in make September I showed you this make for Paper pom poms out of paper cake cases, although they came together OK they weren't quite the WOW that I was looking.  In my Pinterest feed I kept seeing tutorials for these big tissue paper pom poms but thought they would be quite faffy to make, I was so wrong.

All you need to do is take two sheets of tissue paper in differing colours and lay them on top of each other, cut them in half vertically and in half again horizontally, so you end up with 8 sheets of paper stacked in alternating colours.

All you do now is pleat them

Tie a bit of wire around the middle to hold it all together

Cut a curve or a point on the end

Tie a string on the wire in the middle long enough for you to hang it up with

Then the fun begins, you just simply fan them out and pull back each of the layers of papers and your Pom Pom emerges

I have played around with this formula a little and made some smaller versions to put on Christmas presents  but they could also be used on your Christmas tree.

I tried it out first time with some tissue that I had saved to reuse, when I realised how easy this was to do I was ready to splash out on some tissue from Hobbycraft as a pound gets you a pack of 10 sheets, however I remembered that about five years ago I had picked some up from the Pound shop in the January sale for 50p! sometimes my magpie tendencies do pay off.

If you are making these in advance don't open them out until you are ready to hang them as they are quite delicate and are very good at collecting dust!

Make 37 done and the 40 mark is on the horizon, I am sure I can squeeze in the rest of my 50 makes for Christmas around hospital visiting and Grandma duties.

What do you think of the pom-pom ? I must confess to being bold over by them

One of the best days of my life - I am a Granny

Sunday 13th November at 16.00 our family became a little bigger when we welcomed Esme Sarah to the world.

My daughter was absolutely amazing and did the whole thing without pain relief, she said she was holding back until it got really bad! I was privileged to be there for the whole thing and even got to cut the cord. I cried like a mad thing when her head eventually came out and I am tearing up now just thinking about it.  She had a Midwife led birth and the team were brilliant.


Baby came a little over two weeks early and weighed in at just 2.41 kgs  ( 5.5lbs) so she is a tiny little scrap and they have had to stay in hospital for a few days.  She is on a 3 hour feeding regiment and the hospital staff are very strict on keeping to this as she needs to keep her strength up so she can come home.


I am still continuing with my 50 makes but in the short term they may be a bit erratic in their timing.

The view from cloud 9 is pretty good and I just can't wait for her to able to come home xx