Deck the window..

A walk around town made me realise how very late I was in decking up the home. I haven't even begun. The past few days I have been experimenting baking christmas cookies in small batches. I don't know what's your definition of small, but in this home about 40 to 50 cookies is a small batch cause they are over in more or else 24 hours. They last a wee bit longer if I wail out loud and ask them to slow down.  The purpose of this experiment was to take the help of the family in deciding which were the best and hence should make it to our table on christmas eve. So far, all of them have been given the go ahead signal to be baked again.

Coming back to the home, the best we have done is get the christmas boxes from the cellar into the house. Walking around town made me realise that maybe I need to take a break from the kitchen and do something. Hence the windows in the entrance to our home are just now dressed up.

And now blogged about..:D

Empty Yoghurt bottles, sand, red ribbons and some greens make up my t light holders which will be lit in the evenings to light up the entrance to our home.

I bought a few shoots of pine leaves/ever greens and 2 potted plants. Replanted them again(though they aren't visible), poking in the evergreen shoots to fill in the spaces. I didn't realise that the pot is quite stained. The hanging geraniums seemed to have covered the stains before. Yet to figure out how best to hide them. The kids cinnamon stars have found a home and Santa is a treasure from a christmas market we attended last year.

Cinnamon Ornaments: A disaster

When you look at the pictures, i am sure you must be thinking, disaster?? No way!!

I too would have loved to say the same. When I first saw this on Pinterest, I knew I had to, wanted to make them. After scouring for ways to make them I finally narrowed down to one. Only difference being, i decided to make the applesauce and cinnamon powder from scratch!! That was mistake number 1!!!

Back in summer, I had plucked apples just for the heck of it during our walks and different day trips. I knew that no apple would fall on my head, so to the amusement of my kids and dismay of my husband, I would jump a little, pull a few branches here and there trying to get one juicy apple. In all I had plucked 10..:D  They had survived so long, not rotten in any way, just a wee bit shrivelled. What better  way than to use them for a craft project. The end result, a beautiful apple sauce.

Next was the cinnamon powder. There began my trouble. I don't know what made me think that I could make lots of it myself. My poor spice grinder kept giving up so many times, thanks to the ridiculously hard barks. Before you knew it, my kitchen was covered in powder, I was covered in powder, husband says the floor feels sticky too and now I see, the camera too has a beautiful brown shine.

Then came the kneading part, mixing the sauce and powder together to get the perfect dough. As much as I tried, I never got it. By this point I didn't even care. I was covered from top to toe with this heady scent of cinnamon and Ms A realised how very frustrated I was. From here, she took over. Patiently rolling the dough, cutting the stars out and getting them ready to bake.

(The result of homemade cinnamon powder, the stars looked coarse)

I must say, the final part(baking)was a test for me. I had no clue whether they would come out hard as rock, or crumble like cookies. We had come this far, we would continue.

So there, we should have had a happy ending right?

Well, they came out like stone, black stone, burnt well!!!

(The original baking time was an hour, they had burnt in 35 minutes)

All that was remaining was for me to weep. I had spent 2 hours preparing and covering my entire house and myself in cinnamon and this was what I got. Burnt ornaments and lovely pictures. 

Honestly, they would have found a place in the bin.

Well, the children came to their rescue once again, and promptly painted them. They still have to add a few final touches.

Will I attempt making them again. I do not know.

Frosty the snowman

If you've been following me on facebook you would have by now figured out that I have begun working on christmas deco. For the past three years, our christmas deco has multiplied into almost 3 boxes(we came with one). It's hard to overcome temptation especially during the famous german christmas markets. In our case, the husband likes an ornament, I like a handcrafted piece and the kids fancy a christmas memento or two themselves and voila, we all come home with something. 

I like to think that all of this will remain for many years to come and maybe the kids will someday have fond memories of them all(just like how I have of the christmas tree and deco in my parents home)

This year, along with the the advent wreath for the candles and one more for the main door, I decided that we shall have a string of pine leaves on one of our doors with only handmade deco. Something to do to keep me busy during the dark days of autumn and winter and also look forward to the season of cheer. These snowmen were first on my list. While you got to buy all the material(which is easy), assembling it all was like unlocking a jig saw puzzle. I managed to glue nothing but my fingers every time(thanks to the teeny tiny beads). Almost close to giving up, I so badly wanted to make them and gave a last shot with some experimentation. So here's what I did(sadly no pics). 

You need: Styrofoam balls or cottonwool balls, 5 cm and 3 cm. Red buttons or wooden beads 8mm, A black hat 40x20mm, A red satin band 3mm, wooden beads in red 6mm(for the nose), Black wooden beads 3mm(for the eyes), Checked cotton band 15mm. Super glue.

Glue both the cottonwool balls together. Work on the beads one by one(Make a rough marking of the eyes, mouth, nose and beads with a light pencil). What I did was to put the bead one at a time through a safety pin, glue it on the desired spot and pull the pin out gently. Worked like a charm(after I had glued my fingers together quite a bit). Before gluing the hat, stitch in the red satin band through to help you hang the snowman later. Tie the snowman's shawl around him, brush his cheeks with some pink colour and he is ready for X'mas.

If you like you can stick a tiny paper snowflake on his hat. I also have added light eyebrows since the photo shoot..:D

(4 more to go!!)