Pre-Christmas Package from Home

Last week I received a parcel from my mother, just in time for Saint Nicholas Day. I’d jokingly complained earlier that Bambi receives parcels from his parents several times in a year, and she was so wonderful to send me one, too, how sweet of her!

She covered everything in small fir branches and mistle toe twigs. I love mistle toes, and so does she. A really fond childhood memory of mine  is a big, dried mistle toe bushel hanging over her sofa.
Now these are in a jar on my window sill decorated with the straw star and raindeer she sent with them.

Also, she sent me beeswax candles. Those are another point on my “why I could never go vegan” list. There’s nothing like the scent of hot beeswax in a cold winter’s night.
And of course there were sweets in for me, too. Chocolate covered lebkuchen hearts, peanuts, walnuts and two little chocolate Santas, I guess the latter from my grandmother.

And just in time when Scoundrel started to read Moominpappa at Sea to me my Grandmother also gave me a very pretty cross-stitch bookmark:

I still have no advent calendar (and maybe I’m not even getting myself one this year, and we decided not to put the large one up), but this is just as wonderful.

By the way: I’ll take entries for the giveaway until midnight (GMT +1) today and will then draw the winner from my new hat! Good luck!

Categorised Present Ideas

I love reading gift idea lists around Christmas. The following list is divided into three parts, one for general ideas, one for Lolita and one for Mori. Of course this doesn’t mean any restrictions, I just like my ideas a little bit organised. ^^
All ideas can be afforded with a maximum 10€ or less if you’ve got some or all of the material already (except maybe the headphone idea from the Lolita category).

General Presents

1. Grain pillows are incredibly useful. I have one in my bed every night during the chillier time of the year. The definite advantage of grain pillows over hot water bottles is that they can’t spill and don’t get as cold in the morning. They can be used as cooling packs, too, just put them in the fridge instead of the microwave or oven. AND they are easily self-made, all you need is a small bag of grain, some more heat-resistant fabric and the usual sewing supplies. You can also sew an extra cover, as the pillow itself isn’t washable. Just don’t use metal colour or buttons if you want to heat it in the microwave, and nothing that could be too sensible to heat if meant for the oven.
2. Calendars can be a very personal gift. I’m talking self-made, of course. You could use photos, draw something or even make a collage with pictures you think the person the calendar’s for would appreciate. I’m making one for my father this year with watercolour paintings of some sights of my wonderful town and one for his sister with photographs of Hollis, as she likes teddy bears.
3. Syrup is one of these things you can never have enough of. You can find wonderful recipes online for about every flavour you can think of. You could make your own labels like I did last summer for the Rosemary and Thyme lemonade syrup or decorate pretty bottles with ribbons and tags listing the ingredients.

Lolitaesque Presents

1. Dolly Pin Cushions consist of a doll’s head and arms and a body (torso and a wide, stuffed “hoop skirt”) made of fabric. The head-and-arms sets some DIY supply shops sell are originally meant for tea cozies (as far as I know), but I think a pin cushion would also be nice. If you want you can also craft it in a way to leave a little storing space under the doll’s wide skirt. I think I’m going to make one for myself this year…
2. Headphones can be wonderful accessoires, and they can also make you more confident (you won’t hear any negative comments but only the soundtrack of your own marvellous live). Accessorize sells rather pretty and funny ones (I love the ones with the Union Jack design), but you can also mod them yourself. Just add some paint, deco rhinestones, lace or other little trinkets according to the presentee’s taste and style. I think I’ll do this myself in the new year, be sure to get a new Hedgefairy tutorial (a little late for this Christmas, anyhow)!
3. Dress-shaped biscuits. I remember reading about this in some blog, but I couldn’t find it anymore, sorry. The idea was to print out stock pictures of your favourite brand pieces, use them as stencils for the dough and decorate the baked biscuits with sugar drawings of the original piece’s features. For packing you could make a flat box, line it with tissue paper and decorate the top matching to the respective brand you used for the stencils. Or just design your own dresses and make it a made-up brand!

Mori Girl Presents

1. Calorimetries and/ or headbands are something that I’ve been told about they weren’t too hard to knit, but with my grandiose non-existent knitting skills I highly doubt that. Anyway, I think they make a pretty winter Mori accessoire! I especially like this (albeit in another colour) and this one from Ravelry, but tutorials can be found all over the aethernet.
2. Soft curlers are a great project for fabric scraps and a pretty and healthier-for-the-hair alternative to normal curlers or even curling irons. You can find one of many tutorials here.
3. Felt brooches could also qualify as a “for everyone” gift as they are easy to make and can take any form you can dream of. Robins and other small birds would be great motifs for Mori girls, but any other woodland creature or flower or plant would be pretty, too. I’d recommend sewing them together (glue can be so ugly if something goes wrong, and hand-stitched seams looks so much better, anyway!) and stuffing them a little bit for more texture and fluffed-up bird goodness.

Back Home

Finally I’m back in Marburg! I missed my fairytale town dearly during the winter solstice though I enjoyed to be at my mother’s house, too, of course.

But now I’ve got all my art and craft supplies around me again to finally make all the Hogswatch* gifts for my friends! We don’t see each other during the holidays nowadays, so I can give out the presents only after the 25th anyway. Sure, I’d loved to be on time, but the circumstances… you know.

So, at the moment I’m sewing my small gift for the Scoundrel who will arrive here in the afternoon again after he spent the festivities at his grandmother’s house.

Also, I’m eager to clean and scrub the whole flat until it shines before the turn of the year – out with the old! It’s some kind of ritual I inherited from my mother, and – only by the way – I’m in charge, too.

I still don’t know how we’ll spend our new year’s eve as the blowing up of the architecture models won’t happen this year as the Imp is engaged elsewhere.

Oh, I love to be back here!

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* Hogswatch is the “Discword christmas” and new years eve at the same time, centered around the legend of the Hogfather (some kind of Father Christmas). As it marks the year’s end, it is obviously set on December 31st, hence the “legal” delay of presents.