xmas stockings

Finally, we are spending a christmas at our own home, and our 3 1/2 year old is old enough to get excited about christmas. I planned to make something more intricate and beautiful than this, but in the end, there is limited time between putting the kids to bed and feeling too tired to sew... and when the 3.5 year old is awake, he is always at my elbow asking me what I'm doing and trying to press or turn knobs!
And so what we have is functional. Maybe I can embellish it in future years. A benefit of making your own is you can control the size...
Firstly I cut out a template in baking paper, and pinned it to a doubled over bit of red felt, and cut it out.
Secondly, I glued a strip of white felt over the top using craft glue, and pinned a loop of ribbon at the top of the boot.
Thirdly, I sewed around the edge, and trimmed the uneven edges.
Finally, I stuck on the christmas tree.
Voila!

What I'd do differently: I bought the felt a while ago. You could easily recycle red or green pillow cases or whatever to make these. You could do patterns with applique, which would be more sturdy than glueing on felt.

hey good looking what's cooking?

Well in this instance, gingerbread cookies and pfeffernuze. Spent a few hours late Sunday making mixtures, wrapped them and popped them in the fridge, then baked early Monday. Thanks to the (half)naked chef for last minute dash to the shops for ingredients I'd forgotten, use of funky kitchen equipment and not complaining even once about coming home to biscuit factory after a day spent at work serving food.

One only just realised hazard of the 'lets bake biscuits for Christmas' caper however, is the 'gee my porridge is taking ages to cook I might just have a few biscuits for breakfast' syndrome. Give me a beard and call me Santa, as I rub my rolly poly Christmas biscuit belly.

But am I deterred? Not in the slightest. This week - Miss Ali's passionfruit butter cookies I think...