Life at the moment

Well, December flew by didn't it! I can't believe that I have finally managed to sit down and write for the first time in over three weeks. It's been a busy month!

Life at the moment for me has been about...

Finishing...work and taking time off for two whole weeks, to say that this year has been a challenge feels like an under statement. It's been the busiest, most challenging and toughest year of my working career. A year of staying strong and just keeping going. I'm now enjoying a well earned break...

Singing...along to Christmas tunes each day

Preparing...our home for Christmas. We bought a real Christmas tree this year and love all of the red and white scandi style decorations I've collected over the years

Making...a few new Christmas additions to our decorations this year, a cushion and a draught excluder.

Watching...and admiring Mr C's woodworking skills. Mr C has been creating alcove shelving, a cupboard and kitchen shelving during December. I'm super proud and impressed, it's made our home feel so lovely just before the big day

Spending...quality time with our family during the Christmas week

Hosting...Christmas Day for friends! The day was brilliant with a delicious spread of food cooked by Mr C

Tidying...our spare room and corners of our home ready for our friends staying at Christmas and New Year

Receiving...parcels, lovely cards and gifts. I didn't have time or head space this year to do cards, we decided to donate to a charity very close to our hearts.

Relaxing...under a gorgeous new blue herringbone blanket, it has been on my wish list for quite a while.

Reflecting...on the past year

Planning...and thinking about what I hope for during 2015

Loving...the twinkling fairy lights and glow of candle light at dusk

Documenting...the month with Ali Edward's December Daily process and Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas

Updating...my Project Life album and catching up with the few missing weeks I haven't quite finished

Smelling...our tree each morning and lighting scented candles filling our home with delicious smells

Reading...blogs and magazines that have been piling up high over the past two months

Embracing...December for all that it brings

Kissing...Mr C under the mistletoe


I hope you have all had a lovely Christmas break and wishing you all a happy new year!

Personalised Homemade Filled Christmas Bauble :: a wedding gift

Last weekend Mr C and I attended the fabulous wedding of our special friends Chris and Clare. Congratulations to the both of you, it was a truly beautiful day! As part of the celebrations we were asked to bring a bauble for the Christmas tree at their wedding. Chris and Clare wanted to have a set of decorations to put on their own tree year after year to remind them of their special day. It's such a lovely idea!

I wanted to make something personalised and after a bit of thinking I decided to create a personalised filled glass bauble as our contribution to their Christmas tree decorations. I decided that a personalised Christmas bauble would be a lovely gift and that it would enable me to get a bit crafty too! I wanted to make something that was simple and quick to make and to use my Christmas crafty stash.

I asked Clare about what types of colours she would like on her tree and she said she was quite traditional, so I decided to make a filled bauble with a silver, gold and white theme.

I bought a clear glass bauble with a removable top so that I could fill it with whatever I wanted. The size of the top of the bauble is quite small and so it does limit what you can add to it, however it worked perfectly with what I had already planned.

I assembled my Christmas crafting supplies and pulled out a few things from my stash that I thought would work nicely. I found some table confetti in my crafty stash, and selected some gold sequins, silver hearts, gold stars, silver snowflakes and the all important 'Just Married' confetti. I loved the combination, it was super pretty and suited the event and the ongoing use of their bauble.

I added some of the confetti to the bauble and filled it up so the bottom of the bauble was covered.

I wanted the bauble to be personalised for Clare and Chris so that it felt even more of an original gift. I could've added something to the outside but decided to be adventurous and see how I could represent them and their wedding day inside the bauble.

I decided to stamp their names and the year onto card strips. I found some card in my stash, one side of the card was gold and the other white. I cut the card into two strips each were just under 1cm wide so that they could fit easily into the top of the bauble, and cut the length slightly longer than the circumference of the bauble.

Using my clear stamps and gold ink I stamped their names on the white side of the card strips. I stamped 'Chris & Clare 2014' twice on one strip and on the second strip I stamped 'Clare & Chris 2014' twice. I wanted to symbolise both of them equally in their marriage and wanted the strips to symbolise two interconnected rings.

I added a few heart stamps around the wording to add a bit of extra detail.

I let the strips dry and started to assemble the rest of the bauble. To add a bit of extra gold to the bauble I found a small piece of thin gold tinsel with stars on it in my supplies box and decided that it would make a nice feature of the bauble.

I added the tinsel to the bauble...

and then added in the card strips to the bauble one at a time so that they would form two interconnected rings. This part was quite fiddly to get them exactly in the right place and took a bit of patience and moving around. To help the strips fit into the bauble I curled the card a little so that it would fit into the sphere of the bauble and sit flush against the glass.

Before adding in the second card strip I added the remaining confetti so that some of it fell into the tinsel so it wouldn't all be at the bottom of the bauble.

Adding the second strip of card was quite tricky and after a bit of giggling around I managed to get both strips into place. You can see in the photo the two card strips criss crossing over each other just off centre of the bottom of the bauble.

Next I added the removable silver top back onto the bauble and replaced the silver hanging thread with a piece of gold ribbon from my craft stash. I cut the ends of the ribbon in a pretty v shape so that it finished it off. 

Tah dah! 

I really really loved creating a personalised wedding bauble for Chris and Clare and hope that love it too. To keep the bauble protected I bought a small box and added my own handwritten brown luggage label with gold pen and added a piece of gold ribbon and slipped it into the box so Chris and Clare will be able to remember who it was from for years to come.

I have a few ideas for a bauble that I am going to make for our tree this year. If you've followed my blog before you'll know I love to decorate using red and white. I am planning to make a filled bauble for our own tree this year and I'll show you the final bauble later on this month!

I hope you are all enjoying the first week of December!