CBYJ

I made two similar ones for my mother and her boyfriend (the plain rainbow coloured ones) We actually have the tradition on Christmas that we (even though we live in Germany, we celebrate the UK way. With socks. The difference is that the UK gets their presents on the 25th in socks. In Germany children get their presents on the 24th which are brought by Santa personally or lie under the Christmas tree.) However, we have a mix. On the 24th everyone puts a certain present under the Christmas tree for a certain person of the family that is chosen beforehand. The present belongs to a chosen category as well. This year we had the topic bedroom utensils/ blankets. This got me to the idea to make patchwork blankets. Meaning that I had to get a sewing machine, fabric, and learn how to sew. Long story short, I bought a cuddly blanket and decided to make pillows for everyone instead as a main present for the 25th.

Learning how to sew wasn't that hard. There are many many videos online (YT) that show you step by step. I believe though the most important thing is that one shouldn't be scared. Just sew a long! The time I needed for each pillow got shorter and shorter! For the first one I needed almost a day. The last one required me 3,5 hours and had no mistakes in it.

Lastly, you sew on the back side as well. 

For the whole concept I post you a video again because learning by actually seeing is working better than just reading.

Now this are the pillows I have for my Mothers boyfriend. My mother got a similar one with the colours in different places. I chose the colours because they said to me they don't want a grey piece because it's rather triste. He couldn't tell me a certain colour though because he is so indecisive but mentioned his favorite colour blue. After that I decided for him that he'll get a colourful one which equals the rainbow.

This is the pillow for my stepdad. :) 

And this is for my best friend. It's a berry colour which fits perfectly in her apartment. 

All the pillows together whilst one was still in work. I am finished with all of them now. My sister got a blue one.

I hope you liked it!

What do you give your family for Christmas this year? 

Step One: 

Have your dog set in place

What you need

You will need 24 for brown paper bags

24 clothing pins

Crafting papers of your choice

Or if you want to buy the actual material: click here.

Preparing to get into the craving. 

I had the crating paper bought like that but they are easily to make on your own as well. It just takes a bit longer. 

You will have to cut oval circles and half them to get two bodies. You will need 24 of them.

After that you cut out little stars or other forms you want and prefer and write down the number for each day until the 24th.

These bodies will go on the brown paper bags right on the bottom of one side.

After that fill your bags with sweets and treats of your choice. 

To close your bags and fully turn them into owls you will need 48 eyes or 24 pairs. Cut out white little circles and even smaller black ones. Glue the black iris on the white eye ball. 

Now fold your bags and close the bag gluing the eyes on them and your owl is done. 

The end product is 48 (in my case 96) cute but freaky eyes starring back of you and your calendar is done!

I hope you liked this idea and maybe you will try it. 

Until next time!

Hello Everyone! 

After I showed you my Christmas Dinner, I want to show you the rest of our Christmas Days as well. 

First of I wish all of you a very merry Christmas, I hope Santa was extra nice to you and brought you something lovely and filled you stocking with a lot of Chocolates! 

This is our Christmas tee, one I am really proud of! We decorated in brown/ bronze and gold this year which suits our living room really well and keeps it all very neutral to other years where the decoration was red..

One the 24.12.2014

 

A little bit closer you can see our drunken candles which are LED candles you slip on the twigs. Our balls go from glittery to steel and matte ones and from big over middle and tiny ones. We then also used "angel hair" really thin gold and curled lines of tinsel which looks really dreamy and gives a magical vibe to it. I love the tree! On the top we have a golden start with perals

These are our stockings the night before! From left to right it mine, my sisters, Mum's boyfriend and Mums. 

All lined up and waiting to be filled. 

We do all the last minute decoration like putting up the stocking and tree one or two days before Christmas Eve. I do not know why but it has always been like that. Probably because then it's holiday time and we can all do it together as a family. 

One these days we also do the cooking, which I posted about earlier today. 

On that evening we do not go to Church but we sit together as a family and play games and talk, have the family dinner of course and watch movies. This year we watched Love Actually, which was a first for my mother and my sister. Later that night my Mothers boyfriend finally arrived and we got introduced. This was a first for me and my sister because he is "the new man". But he is nice.

One the 25.12.2014

The first one to wake up was my sister who woke up the rest. After a cup of coffee we all gathered around the tree and unpacked the presents.

Of course, how could it be different, the stockings where full of chocolates, sweets and treats.

These were me Christmas presents and I also got winter weals for my car which were the main present :) I then got a lot of chocolate, a self made candle by my sister a lot of cards for the movies from my aunty, a 10th pack of smokes from my Mum (which I thought was really, really cute) and a book about fashion PR, to learn more about the job I want to study and work in when I am finished with school.

Out of all the presents I got this was one of the best. It's a little owl where you have to "rip" the wings apart to se a watch. You can clip it anywhere you like, like on your keys or pants to make a pocket watch out of it. I love it, so delicate.

My second favorite present is this new coffee cup made by my sister. So lovely, so personal and cute, I never want to miss it and it means so much to me! What a little Cutie she is.. :) 

Even our dog got some as you might know from my LHOTY post last week, and she was very excited to be part of this. So much so she wouldn't sit still! 

And in the end she was so happy about her new little jumper! On her first walk she wasn't shaking anymore and was proudly walking around to show it of! Very cute.

Here she is with my sister and in her beloved jumper.

Almost forgot but on Christmas Eve we to each other something new and cosy. This year it shall be a bathing robe. Everyone gave one to another which means I gave my Mum something, my Mum her boyfriend, he my Mum and I gave something my sister. 

In the end I got a new white fluffily bathing robe, my Mum the same in red, her boyfriend the same in grey and my sister one for young adults in light yellow with colourful dots on it. 

Later that day we all went to the movies and out for dinner in the evening, finishing the day with a little music, reading and being together. 

Today everyone is rather for themselves, I am "working" on my blog and clean.

All in all we had a beautiful Christmas full of new traditions and with new experiences. 

How was your Christmas and what did you get? I wish you all a merry Christmas again! 

XXX C

one the 26.12.14

SNOW!! It really was snowing for the first time this year! We almost never have snow around Christmas. SO beautiful, we have got more by now (evening) as today morning. 

So it can melt by tomorrow, for this year we do know snow still exists, thank you. 

Hello Everyone! 

Time has come and I have made it to get all of my Christmas Presents in time. Before I wrap them though I want to share them with you, maybe give you some ideas to buy at last if you haven't had any ideas.

Have fun reading and looking!    

  

Before I can get started on the presents, we need stockings! Of course! I got ours from Amazon. The green one with the Santa is for my sister, the brown Snowman one goes to my mothers boyfriend, my Mum takes the red one with the little Santa and I get the brown green one with the reindeer. 

They are about 30- 40 cm long and really big. Mine and my sisters are cosy as well, they all look really good and will make the deal for Christmas.

Now as always, Yankee Candles. I bought the apple and pine needle candle which smells very spicy and sharp (might not be everyones taste) but I like it and also this dark pine needle colour is my favorite so I will keep that. But the Christmas Cookie Candle is for my best friend. This one smells real, really nice JUST like Christmas. Very sweet and homie just very beautiful and lovely. Your room will smell as if you were in a bakery.

So these two are very contrary but both have there pros and cons depending on your own taste but we cannot argue about Yankee Candles quality. I always find these are nice little stocking fillers.

For my best boy - friend I give an audio book which is called "He's back" in german "Er is wieder da" Now this is a parody and in no way means that I am racist or make fun of what has happened in the past. The book is about Hitler waking up again after a very long sleep in the 21st Century where we have a woman as president and every one has their own religious believes and now he is back still in the believe everything is the way it was before he fell asleep. It is support to be funny as the author makes fun of clichés people worldwide have about the Holocaust. I for myself haven't listened to it yet but my Dad has and he said it was a good book with sense and with comedy on the right places not the wrong ones. I trust his words here. 

Secondly I bought "The Pointless Book" by Alfie from YouTube and I think this is just very fitting for a boy/ 20 yr olds as well. My friend would never read a book I know that but with this one here, he can actually make it his book, use it, play with it and so on. His inner child will love it! 

For my Grandparents I have something truly amazing I think. You need to know that my grandparents have had a pretty long life. They are 84 and 79 years old but slowly but surly I can see them going towards the end. Of course I do not wish for that to happen in the nearest future but I want to have something to remember them by. As they are so old, they have a long, adventurous story to tell as they also are the last generation who has lived within the war back then.

I have bought a book for each of them where they can handwrite down their life, thoughts, things I don't know yet, how things and their life used to be and what they have done and haven't done. They get the book and eventually I get it back, a piece of them or their life actually in one book for the following generations. I found this so lovely because they have had another full life before us! 

Also I got them a book with the best of cross words puzzles from the last 60 years as they both love to do them so much! 

Now my best friends finally gets her first onesie as an owl. There is a story behind it but I think too personal for her and not for me to tell on here. All I say though is that it's a very cute background. Anyways I also got the onesies from Amazon. It is very, very fluffy I must say, she will be so cosy and comfortable in it. I am sure she will love it and now she is also able to attend my onesie- party in January! This one cost me about 25 Euros, so totally doable.

My sister, also wished for a onesie and I was about to buy a giraffe for her but then I stumbled over this pug onesie and she is such a dog lover I thought this was the most fitting out of all my choices and I am so, so happy that I did. This I got from Amazon as well and this for 23 Euros. It is also so nicely cosy, like the owl and looks just cute! I think she will be in the clouds when she opens this one.

My aunty gets a new bed for her puppy. Now my aunty doesn't have a lot of money so she still uses a dog bed that is a year younger than me so almost 20. I thought to myself this mustn't be and looked in our local pet store for the fluffiest and warmest little bed I could find. And this is what I found. Fitting  to the dogs hair and very comfortable for the little one, I believe she appreciates this present a lot as she won't be able to buy one herself and doesn't get anything else.

Ahh Traditions: How I love them! Every year we give each family member something cosy, either pajamas, onesies, cosy jumpers and this year it's New Bathing Robes for everyone! Yay! 

I bought all but mine (of course) and the red one is for my mother, grey for her boyfriend and the yellow dotty one for my sister 

They all a wool, fleece combination so again very cosy. 

These ones we will open on Christmas Eve though so we can open the other presents the next morning with the new then morning robe already. 

And this glass is for my Dad. It a scotch glass that has "Dad, the enjoyer since 1970" written on it. He loves to sit down very old school sipping his scotch whilst smoking a cigar. And now he has the fitting glass for it as well, I thought this was a great little idea and the line I had printed it is just funny. I got it on the internet but I do not have the link anymore, sadly but it host like 20 Euros all together. With that I will buy him a good bottle of scotch and this is it this year.

And for my Mother I will make a full on 50 pages big scrapbook with photos out of our last year. It's not finished yet and hopefully I'll make it in time!

I am so thankful my family is not that big... 

But not to forget, the almost most important of all! The Chocolate. I mostly have Lindt chocolate as it is the best in quality and taste. For my sister I also have a KinderChocolate Santa and some Maxy Toffifee Package. This and the Christmas Cookies we are going to bake on the weekend will be filling all of our sweets and treats plates! I am so excited. 

One our later and everything is wrapped up! 

Looks pretty :) 

What do you think and what do you give you loved ones for Christmas?

I hope I could give you some ideas and that you enjoyed reading. 

XXX C