Christmas Prep: Christmas Cake Eaten!

Hope you all had a splendid Christmas with lots of great food and drink and merriment with friends and family. I thought I'd share a few pics of the finished Christmas cakes as I mentioned before here and here.

And for those of you into 'food porn', here's a pic of the inside. Can you smell the brandy and taste the fruit? I can!!

These are the images that inspired our designs, and I think Mr PC did a great job of laying the decorations on both the cakes!

via pinterest

via pinterest

Christmas Prep: Christmas Cake in Progress

Christmas is not Christmas without a decent Christmas cake. All the better if it is home baked, but I have had some nice shop bought ones too. The other night I covered the cakes in marzipan ready for the fondant icing. And, as there were trimmings, we ate them whilst watching the telly! I was going to use the spare marzipan to make something but...

Over the next day or two I'll be decorating these lovelies and then they will be ready for the Christmas festivities!

Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree...

... How lovely are thy branches!

I thought I would round up this Christmassy themed week with my piece de resistance - the Christmas tree!

I am the first to admit that I'm rather anal particular about the way my Christmas tree should look. It all starts with selecting the tree at the tree farm. It must be a minimum of 6 foot, the taller the better really but there must be room for the star on the top. It must be bushy and full from top to bottom with lots of branches. We have a tree stand that takes water which helps the tree last longer and you'd be surprised how much water it soaks up! Watering the tree daily is an absolute must, particularly if you put it up early.

Ready for dressing

The lights go on first and I always ensure to have the wire under the branches with the lights on the top, so they look as if there by magic. Then the tinsel goes on towards the middle of the tree so that it doesn't overtake the decorations themselves. This year I decided not to use tinsel at all and just use the red and gold beads. I'm trying something new and I think I like it without the tinsel! Mr PC, however is most displeased with me putting my foot down on the tinsel front. You can't please everyone...

Decorations at the ready!

I always unpack all the decorations and lay them on to trays according to their size before I start. I put the largest decorations on first and space them out across the tree. The 'special' decorations get pride of place so they can be shown off to their best. Then the smaller decorations go on and then the chocolate ones and candy canes go on last as these are the ones that come off the tree first!

The star goes on the top and the tree skirt gets laid around the bottom once it's all finished.

When decorating the tree last week I joked to Mr PC that I should write a book and call it 'The Only Way to Decorate a Christmas Tree'. He told me he didn't think it would sell very many copies. I can't think why...

Christmas Make: Christmassy Bunting

There has been a huge trend in bunting in the last year or so. Everyone's jumping on the 'vintage bunting' bandwagon. Last year I thought it would be cute to make some Christmas bunting and thought it looked nice but wasn't enthralled by it. The process of making it was too fresh in my mind and looking at it just reminded me of the blood, sweat and temper tantrums I had with the sewing machine while trying to sew it together.

This year, however, I've unpacked it and decided that I do really like it after all and am really rather pleased with it!

Cute snowman print

Holly pattern

Bunting is for all occasions, not just summer garden parties!

Christmas Make: Candycane Tree Decoration - Tutorial

Last year I posted a tutorial for a quick and easy tree decoration using candy canes, one of my favourite additions to the Christmas tree.

This year I have made them again and so I thought I would repost the tutorial for those who missed it the first time around. Click here to see how you can make this splendidly festive decoration in a matter of minutes.

PS. You can read all of my Christmas themed posts here. Enjoy!

Christmas Make: Window Decor

This year I'm going all out on the Christmas decorations. I've spent a lot of time on Pinterest (my preferred method of procrastination) and have pinched incorporated a number of ideas into my decorating and preparations this year. 

Today I'm sharing a fabulously cheap and easy way to spruce up your windows for the festive season. It was rather difficult to photograph well but hopefully you can see what I did.

Red and gold glittery baubles

For this window, I used a length of wire and wound it around the curatin pole brackets so that I can still close the curtains without spoiling the decoration. Then I used some ribbon threaded through the baubles and tied around the wire.

These look really great, particularly in the daylight and they look great from the outside looking in too.  

Pom pom garland

Regular readers will be familiar with one of my newest obsessions - my pom pom maker! I made the pom pom wreath, and I also made some lovely pink and purple pom poms but they were pushed aside while I finished the wreath. They were destined to be made into a garland and now they're all strung together I wanted to show how great they can be as an alternative to bunting.