Lulu Carter

the stockings were hung....but the baby might not fit it

I did manage to get Charlies stocking finished!As with the big boys, his stocking is made from heavy linen, lined and embroidered. Just in time to pack it in the car and drive to Mums for the holiday. Perhpas by the end of this year there will be some for the adults although admittedly they would take filling of the more decadent kind.No erasers for us please Santa!

      

And just in case you were needing a baby fix.....Goodness knows these little people are addictive!

At six weeks this guy was struggling to fit in the chair.His new tricks between six and seven weeks have been active tear ducts, rotating 360 degrees on the bed, chatting, pushing himself up on his strong little legs which results in terrifying launches forward or upwards and yelping from me. I think we might be in for an early bird. Help!

I will see you in the new year! Have a fun filled night and dont make resolutions that put too much pressure on yourself. That is my new year resolution.Guilt is a pain and all we can do is our best.

xxx

 

 

 

wrapped up

       

     

I hope you all had a wonderful christmas weekend with family and friends. We were woken veeeery early by two extrememly excited boys who clearly still believe in Santa. The reindeer had left carrot on the loungeroom floor (surely they should be housetrained by now?) and Santa was particularly messy with his gingerbread and christmas cake scoffing but we forgive him that of course! I blame his thick sleigh gloves. The guy cannot be expected to eat delicately while wearing those....

There was the reading of a christmas story on Christmas eve which we do every year, and this year Oliver did the honours reading The Christmas Story from Little Golden Books.My copy happily found in amongst the books Mum has stashed away. Hording can be a beautiful thing sometimes.

We cooked, sang, napped and played charades over lunch while wearing our paper crowns. There was too much Lego, a house filled with smoke when bbqing the prawns went haywire and some naps snuck in.The boys spent a fair amount of time standing on the back deck squirting the trees with their super soakers from Grandad. A perfect summers day entertainment for small people! All up it was a lovely Christmas break. 

So from my family to yours 

xxxxx

 

 

 

Candy Scales Felt Wreath

Its October and you know what that means right?! Two months people.TWO MONTHS!

So lets get cracking. I created this a good twelve months ago and for some reason it has sat here in my folder.Well thats just no good! Its much better if someone out there is in need of a wreath idea dont you think?

You Will Need:

- 1 x polystyrene wreath 14" ( 35cm) diameter

- Felt in 3 colours. 30 cm wide strip of each

(the more colours you use the less of each colour you will need )

- Strong craft glue

- 1 1/4" hole punch or sharp craft scissors

- 1 1/2 yards ( 1.2 metres ) of wide grosgrain ribbon for hanging.I used 1 1/2" wide

 

Step 1 :  Punch or cut out your circles.I started with roughly twenty then cut more as I needed them

Step 2 : Work out your colour repeat. Odd numbers of anything are always a good rule to stick to which is why I went with three colours.

Step 3 : Lay the wreath down flat on your table and start by placing a dollop of glue on one side of a felt circle about 1/2" from the edge. Stick the circle ontot the wreath and repeat with the next circle/colour, overlapping slightly.Work the circles around the wreath.

Step 4 : As you progress around the wreath, you will find that the outside has spaces between the circles as you are laying them around. This is normal as they fan wider in the layering on the outside/widest part of the wreath. Just insert some short rows to those spaces trying to keep your pattern in tact.

Step 5 : Once you have completed the scales, leave your wreath to dry. How long this takes will depend on the glue you used.

Step 6 : Double your ribbon over and place the loop into the centre of the wreath then pull the two tail ends of ribbon through the loop.Pull snuggly into place. Use the tails to tie your gorgeous wreath onto your doorknob.

Step 7 : This stuff below will be everywhere. Its very pretty and you're exhausted sooo step over it and go and eat some chocolate.Maybe lots of choclate. You deserve it. The fairies will come and clean up the mess. You can come back to clean up later!

Happy Christmas!!

xxxx

Wishing you all a Wonderful Christmas!!!

Tonight we went to St Pauls Cathedral for carol singing.

It was a truly beautiful thing to do so close to christmas and when the choral procession came through I cried!

Something certainly worth doing as a Christmas treat if you are in London at this time of year.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas!! Have a wonderful day and may it be filled with champagne and pressies.xxxx

the home stretch

We now know the secret to making a great big snow ball.

There are no chocolates left to make it to friday.Greedy fingers....

The jelly bear family standing by the door never made it to the loungeroom-it took me two whole days for the culprit to fess up.

Tomorrow we are off to carols at St Pauls Cathedral( sooo excited!) and then some christmas markets.

Things I wish I'd got done have been let go.Being happy with what is.

Almost there. How are you doing?

xxxx

Dear Blogland,Its me.......Lulu.......(nothing but blank beeps in response)

 I'm not sure what happened really.The same busy fever that takes over all of us in early December got me too but I didnt handle it.I felt steemrolled and then this little scrap of plastic and I am tapping away on,decided it hated me and I could not upload and bloody thing let alone be on the internet for longer than a hiccup and to be frank it was a bit much.So a few days turned into a week and that became a lot longer.I am very sorry.I also lost interest on a weird level and whilst I had things I wanted to share with you, I couldn't be bothered battling the computer.

Now the computer and I have come to some kind of resolve and I have backed up everything and deleted a whole lot more so fingers crossed we are good to go people. I realised how much I missed you and everything you share with me and teach me and I am ready to play again after my sulk.

For those of you who empathised with our school decision, I am delighted to tell you that we are four days in and there are smiles.Lots of smiles.We did the right thing of that we have no doubt.

Christmas making was rather stop and start(can I really be speaking of something that happened last year??).I did manage to achieve a couple of things that I was determined to get finished and given that I bought the printed squares back in August, the thought of not getting these done was enough of a smack so on christmas eve the boys got their christmas cushions.

These came to me all the way from a Berlin christmas market.Lucky me!

 

We finally got to use the candle we bought at a christmas market in Lille in 2008.

I hope I find you all living 2010 (so far!) the way you want it to be.

xxxx

 
 
 
 
 
 

Merry Christmas everyone!!

I wish you all a wonderful relaxed and happy day and an amazing 2010! May it be everything you need it to be and all that you can make it.

Lots of Love

xxxx

classmate treats

Its the last day of school tomorrow and Henry will be handing these out (complete with candy cane of course!) to his classmates.

I tried to find the tutorial on the Martha site for you but it doesn't seem to be there so..

Buy a pack of 1" polystyrene balls.

Pair them up and squish one in each pair between your hands until it is compressed and smaller.

Glue the small one on top of the other.

Pour some glitter snow ( I used the Martha brand)into a small glass.

Stick a pin in one end but so that you can hold it.

Paste the other end in decoupage glue and then dip in the glass sloshing it a round until all coated.

Pull out pin and repeat with other end

Lay them on a dish to dry.

Put a dab of glue and carefully stick on two black seed beads.

Snip a carrot nose from some felt and glue along the end then attach to face.

Tie some cute ribbon around neck as scarf.

Push a chopstick into the snowman's bottom and wiggle around just a little so you can fit a pencil in the hole.

Blob some craft glue into the hole then insert your pencil.

Ta da!!

Very cute and the best thing is that afterwards you will find everything around you covered in sparkles!!

I don't have the antidote to that yet : )

xxxx
 
 

angels in the kitchen

A very happy arrival today from this lovely lady saw some afterschool crafting happen.

I tied a couple of branches together and we made some paper decorations inspired by Rie Elise Larsson's paper craft projects.

I made scrap angels with the children in craft club the last week and had intended to make some with the boys.They are perfect on our christmas mobile with todays craft.I had been saving a little scrap bag of linen,tulle and leftover lace for just this

Henrys angel.My favourite out of the three.

Mine.

Olivers angel.

There are some rather large decorations now hanging in the loungeroom too.It seems that once you begin stapling and beading it is a little hard to stop....

I hope your prep is going to plan.

xxxx
 
 
 
 
 
 

begun in earnest

#image from Martha Stewart 

The Christmas crafting that is.Inspired by an old issue of Marie Claire Idees,Oliver and I bought wool in gelato colours today and then I showed the boys how to make pompoms.Anticipating my getting very fast at the wrapping,snipping,tying part,we should have a very pretty garland to show soon.

The other thing that got underway was the making of teensy sparkly snowmen to top nice new sharp pencils.Gorgeous little gifts for classmates.Oliver saw the felt candy cane mice so I think some of those will be on the agenda in the next couple of days too.Thank heavens for old issues of Martha Kids and Holiday special issues.I knew there was foresight and reason behind my magazine addictions.....

Now if Spotlight would kindly stock the range of Marthas christmas craft products all would be right with the world ; )

xxxx