Weekend Pottering

I do cherish my weekends, they are truly the highlight of the week and I wish they went on forever! Especially at this time of the year when you end up doing so many festive things; partying, decorating, meeting rarely seen friends and relatives, eating, wrapping and giving presents, writing cards, lighting candles, singing along to the radio.... it's just lovely.

This weekend has been full of festive feel-good. We aren't allowed to put up the 'big tree' yet as The Brother wants to do it with us when he gets back from university next weekend (we are squeezing that into a tiny window of opportunity when the whole family is in the same house for about three hours before going off in different directions again), but I am allowed to put up my little 3 foot tall tree as it is my own one; as well as decorating the kitchen.

I have made paper chains, and we have the addition of lovely tissue paper shaped decorations to hang from the ceiling along with glittery card stars. At some point I must get out the big honeycomb paper red pom poms to put up- if I can find where they were packed away too!

On Saturday my wreath base arrived in the post from Hobbycraft. I wandered around the garden collecting greenery to put onto the rattan wood base, and gathered a bucketful of Rosemary and Ivy which was partly pushed into the wood and partly stitched on to hold it in places. (I did feel a little lightheaded at the fumes coming from all that Rosemary!!) On top of that I added some lovely mini red plastic apples, dried fruits leftover from last Christmas, cinnamon sticks and plastic red berries which give it a beautifully festive appearance, along with the most amazing smells.

I did take a little time out from present wrapping and card writing as I had booked a friend of mine with a posh camera to come and take photos of my stitchscapes. It was all very glamorous wrapped up in our coats in my Grandmother's garden, making makeshift screens from old bed sheets and a ladder. The morning started out with thick fog but the sun soon burnt through and I had to help create an even lighting by casting a shadow over the stitchscapes- high tech stuff!! Hopefully I will be able to edit the images and send them off to be made into prints for my Etsy shop.

After taking my personal photographer out for a long and very filling lunch with some other friends and family, we settled down for an evening of early present swapping which has made us all feel rather festive, even though there are two weeks to go yet! The Mother is burning her advent candle every night which she finds very exciting, and we are starting to receive lots of Christmas cards to hang along a string. It's definitely beginning to look a lot like Christmas!!