Sunday, November 25, 2012

Christmas ideas.....

Can you believe that we only have 30 days until Christmas???? Have I done any Christmas shopping? No. Have I given Christmas a thought? No. Until today. I suddenly had a 'let's get a few Christmas ideas' moment and have spent the last couple of hours trawling the "tinternet" (as my little angels call it) for some inspiration. Here's what I've found so far....

Are these chairs not gorgeous? So simple yet so effective. If you don't have white chairs (as I don't with two young boys in the house!) you could always make or buy some slip covers. But even without the white chairs  I think the ribbon, cone and greenery would look just as good.

On the subject of the Christmas dinner table, I saw this place setting which I think is stunning.

I'm not a huge fan of too much bling on the table and I think the simplicity of this setting defines its beauty. The tags you could easily find and print from the net and we can all find a bit of greenery. Tie this all together with a piece of natural twine and there you have it. Gorgeous.

Next up .... a little bit of Christmas magic .....

..... a Santa key!!!! I thought this was a wonderful idea for those children who don't have a fireplace in their home. This triggered a whole scenario for me (being a preschool teacher)  where the child is given the key on Christmas Eve - naturally presented in a beautiful magical special box decorated with LOTS of glitter (I mean fairy dust....) - and is told to leave it outside the front or back door so that Santa can access the house and leave all the pressies! Can you imagine the excitement, the joy, the decision making process of exactly where to leave it so that Santa will find it???? I think I would have exploded with glee if my mom had given me this to leave outside.....perhaps DH will read this and make one for me to put outside on Christmas Eve even though we do have a fireplace.......

Moving on to all things wrapping, I'm always blown away by the diverse rolls of wrapping paper that are available. The patterns, the colours, the shininess (is there such a word?) of them all. I must admit to loving them but when I saw this I thought how simple and beautiful and natural the pressies look.

I think its the combination of the plain paper with the green and red of the accessories. It speaks more to me of Christmas than many of the sparkly blingy (again, a new word!) wrapping papers that we can buy. I'm definitely doing this on our pressies this year! I also love the basket and the straw.....

And finally I found this -


I'm not a great lover of Advent calendars but this one is such a lovely idea. Each tag contains a thought for the day or an action and can be general for the whole family or aimed at children which I loved. I thought up a couple on the spur of the moment -
"Hug your dog three times today!" 
"Tell your teacher you love her!" (I wonder why I thought of that one)
"Draw a Christmas picture and send it in the post to your grandparents." 
What do you think? You could make them very specific to your child or your family or (even better) you could make one as a gift for someone but leave the tags blank, then they could fill them in themselves! I might make one for my classroom for next year but we'd have to do it through November as we always close at the end of November for our major Summer holiday! 

So that's what I've found so far. I'm by no means finished but have made a board on Pinterest so please feel free to pop over and have a look. Here's the link.

Til soon.








7 comments:

  1. Yes, it's marching up on us for sure.
    Some lovely ideas on your Pinterest board Laura, I love those paper trees.

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  2. I like the idea of the Santa's key. That could save an awful lot of explaining (especially if your house doesn't have a chimney!)
    We also like to keep the Christmas dinner table fairly plain, because we believe that the food is the Main Event. We've done most of our shopping already. Isn't t'internet wonderful? It means we don't have to traipse forever around noisy, crowded shopping malls only to find they have sold out of what you really wanted to buy.

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  3. Love this post and your new look blog - so Christmassy! These ideas all look so tempting! I'm afraid my Christmas presentation isn't ever quite up to this but it doesn't stop me striving! White chairs would be to die for but in this household they wouldn't last white for long ! Love the Advent calendar idea - so much better than those awful chocolate ones! Happy Christmas preparations, Laura! E x

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  4. I love Christmas. But I've not done much yet - a few pressies bought. I'm thinking of doing the natural wrapping paper look this year too.

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  5. Wonderful ideas Laura, we do not have a chimney and Lil Mooey's has a special Santa key to put out side with a bowl of raindeer food :-)

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  6. Mmm, I'm all inspired now. I want to do those white chairs right away! Lovely. :)

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  7. Laura, what a beatiful post!!! Scary to think that Christmas is approaching at break neck speed...thanks for all the ideas, I will def be doing some of them. LOVE the key and CRAZY about the messages for the Advent calender. :)

    Ps, I hope by now you've received some of my messages?? YOU WON the Rainbow yarn on our FB page comp...I am such a banana that I only realised yesterday that you are...well, YOU!!! hahahah

    please email me maryanne@woolhogs.co.za so I can pop your goodies in the post xxx

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