Happy New Year!

Here we are at the end of another year, it's hard to believe that the Millennium was 10 years ago, it seems like only yesterday! Here's some of my Christmas in pictures the above mosaic shows some of my crochet and below some baking- Christmas rocky road, white chocolate & cranberry fudge, candy cane bark, white chocolate & cranberry cookies, mint crisps, Nigella's chocolate Christmas cake, mince pies, mocha cake in a mug and Boxing day chutney.

You may wonder why I have photos of my bird table, well I was visited by a Black Cap whilst I was cooking dinner on Christmas day and have never seen one before in my garden, hence the photos (I took about 30!) I'm also pleased to say that he's been back everyday since.

Now I'm busy making a New Year's Eve buffet or 'choosy' as my children have always called it.. So I'll say Happy New Year to you all and I hope 2010 turns out to be a good one for you

A Merry Christmas from Cornwall

Eden's ' A time of gifts'

Who's this fine gentleman, dressed all in red.

A hub cap tree.

I love these Cardoons.

Decorating gingerbread trees.

Mini wreath making.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and Prosperous New Year.

A Pause in Advent week 4

The final pause in Advent and how quickly has the past four weeks gone by!

My tree is up with lots and lots of decorations, mainly vintage. I'm afraid I'm not the 'less is more' type and can't resist buying vintage baubles when I'm lucky enough to find them in the charity shops or boot sales. Because of an influx of baubles this year I've had to fill my cake stands and some glass vases with them, I couldn't fit any more on the tree.

I've also got lots of fairy lights scattered around inside and out.

Now I just need to catch up on all the neglected housework, due to my produce market sewing. Then I have to work through this little lot;

- kitchen decorations, clean the fish tanks, write cards, wrap presents, finish a few crochet presents and lots of cooking. I have chutney on the go at the moment then tomorrow/Wednesday I will be making cranberry & white chocolate fudge & cookies, candy cane brittle, Christmas rocky road, mint crisps, gingerbread cookies, mince pies and Nigella's chocolate Christmas cake. The aim is for it all to be done before Mr CB finishes work on Wednesday. Then I can prep the Christmas dinner, cook sausage rolls and roast a ham joint on Christmas eve morning ready to relax and enjoy the festivities from then on and hopefully go into Padstow for the afternoon depending on the weather of course. Now I better get a move on or none of this will be done.

A Pause in Advent week 3.

Well I'm still here and now have my post for the third week of a Pause in Advent, albeit 4 days late!

On Sunday we decided to take it easy although there are 101 things still on my to do list, I still haven't wrapped any presents or written cards. I have been doing a lot of sewing and crocheting for the 2nd produce market this Saturday though. Anyway I digress we started the day with a trip to the garden centre to see their brilliant Christmas display and to have a coffee and some millionaires shortbread.

We then wrapped up and headed for the seaside, it was actually a beautiful day but very cold.

We sat on Looe seafront and had fish and chips for lunch, so much for the pre Christmas diet, looking at this view.

I think it was probably the first time that I've been to Looe in December and was surprised to see all the seaweed on the sand, rather than holidaymakers, the gulls were enjoying a good rummage though.

Lily found some treasure - a mermaids purse :)

Her reindeer also enjoyed his time there!

Someone obviously used some of the seaweed to good effect.

By 4 o'clock it was absolutely freezing and definately time to go home and sit in front of the fire.

It was good though just to take some time out from all the hustle and bustle of Christmas, which I thought was quite appropriate for a pause in Advent! At this point I was going to wish my eldest daughter Jemma good luck for her chartered accountants exam in financial accounting but she's done it now so I hope it went well for her. I will do my best (computer allowing) to be back for the final pause in Advent on Monday as I'm off to Eden on Sunday.

Back online!

Apologies for those that may have been looking for my third ' A Pause in Advent' post. I started to do it on Monday and my computer just shut itself down, I assume it had a virus! After 3 days of fiddling I appear to have it working again and as long as it remains working I will be back later with a new post. I'm going to run a full system scan now just in case.

A very mini Christmas

Amazingly I've actually done something that I said I would do - the pictures of my miniature Christmas house, with all the pieces that I made. :)

First the beaded window garlands.

Fimo (Polymer clay) food - salmon mousse, pork pie, cheeseboard, sausage rolls and meat platter.

Gingerbread houses, every year I say I'm going to make a real one maybe I will this year.

Christmas cakes.

Christmas pudding, mince pies and yule logs.

Cheese hamper and Dundee cake hamper.

I do have a complete Christmas dinner made of Fimo but that is in my Fisherman's cottage.

Now for the decorations - a cross stitch robin.

Fimo again (I really did love playing with Fimo, it's very relaxing) -Snowmen, bell, candle centrepiece.

In situ - Mrs Claus in the shop.

Santa in the grotto.

The restaurant.

Tea room.

And finally the front of the house.

Now some of you may think I'm a little strange but dolls house are very addictive. I had my first 'grown up' one 6 years ago and now have a dozen or so! I found I could incorparate all the crafts that I liked to do, including crochet on tiny, tiny hooks! They were also very therapeutic for me when my mum died. One day I will take some photos of the insides of the other houses, at the moment they are rather dusty and I have no time to dust!

Can you believe it will be Christmas day in 2 weeks time, scary! I haven't wrapped any presents or written any cards yet. This weekend I want to make some Boxing day chutney, cranberry fudge and mint crisp, put up the outside lights, finish the sewing for next week's produce/craft market as well as all the housework and shopping, no rest for the wicked as my mum would say!

Have a great weekend x