A little piece of Christmas past

Our Christmas decorations have all come down over the last week and the last few pieces got put into boxes on Tuesday. Our strategy is to remove a few a day so that it doesn't look too bare and sad when they are finally all gone. We also have the added incentive of Justin's birthday the day after 12th night so that encourages us to get them down earlier.

I love looking at all our tree decorations as I put them away in the box for another year. I take pleasure in the new ones we bought (we always get a couple of new ones each year) but I also love the familiarity of the old ones.

I was very pleased when my mum gave me a couple of her decorations for my tree. They were always the ones I lovingly put on when I was a little girl and it reminds me of all the wonderful Christmases I have had when I put them on my tree each year.

Little reindeer (which is in fact a Babycham deer) always nestles in the centre of the tree (her sibling still lives with my parents on their tree) and I have two tinsel bells that have the most delightful tinkle (a real fairy like tinkle) that get put on branches within reach to surprise us with their lovely sound whenever they get brushed against.

I hope when my children are all grown up they can capture a little piece of Christmas past with their own special decorations that I will lovingly hand on to them for their own trees.

© 2012 Nicola Noble

Reindeer noses

As mentioned previously, I am in love with Pinterest ... but as also mentioned, it is easy to pin a million great ideas but not so easy to actually find the time to have a go at them. So tonight I can feel proud of myself for completing my second Pinterest project.


I spotted the very cute idea of a bag of (edible) reindeer noses from A Personal Touch and had to have a go at these for Sophie to give to some of her friends this Christmas.

I bought some gobstoppers from our local retro sweet shop (Sweet Memories of Twickenham) who very kindly picked out all the red ones for me and also a couple of large bags of Maltesers. Then tonight I popped 8 brown noses and one red nose into clear bags and made some labels to go on the top.

I decided to hand draw the labels rather than try to create them on the computer. This goes against the grain of a perfectionist who likes every copy to be identical, but I am pleased with how they came out and think it suits the simpleness of the gift.  I borrowed one of Sophie's glitter gel pens to colour the nose - you can't see the sparkle of the red nose in the photo - and I stamped a few snowflakes in silver. I wanted to get the photos on here tonight so they aren't great quality - I will try and take some better ones in daylight.

Let's hope Sophie likes them ...

© 2011 Nicola Noble

Christmas cards

I recently made my first Christmas card for this year (for a friend who lives in Malaysia so it had to go in the post early!) and it reminded me how much I like making Christmas cards but also how much work it is to make enough for everyone!

The first Christmas I was a stay-at-home Mummy I set to and made cards for all 60+ people on our list and I also made a large number for my husband to send to work contacts. The next year I made for the the good friends on the list and the year after that I made for the very good friends on the list ... 

I still have aspirations to make all my cards but the reality of two children under six has put that idea on hold again for this year at least. So for those of you who get a hand-made card this year - consider yourself the very, very good friends!

The cute puffy reindeers came from Paperchase last year and I painted them with silver glitter to add the obligatory sparkle. The snowflake stamps were a (self-bought) Christmas gift last year from Muji. I stamped them in dark blue (which came with the stamps) and silver for a bit more sparkle.

Previous years' designs have all been created using my Sizzix die-cutter and include snowflakes and various designs of Christmas tree.

So if you are making your own Christmas cards this year, have fun and I will try to do better next year :o)

 © 2011 Nicola Noble