Handmade Christmas

My home is rather bare when it comes to Christmas decorations this year.

With such limited space in a little house we have no room for a Christmas Tree. A small tree would quickly be toppled and nomed by two wee kittens. We have very few table-top surfaces to place things on. Also, my collection of Christmas decorations is small. Too small.

But the few things I do have are handmade with love and with more olde world charm than tinsel glitz.

For example, my front door sports a wreath, tarted up with pine cones, macadamia nuts and pretty feathers.


And my wrapping paper is tissue paper, hand stamped with a set of stamps I carved myself...


And across the top of a window in the living room there's a 'Merry Christmas' made of painted wooden letters attached to tartan ribbon...


So. Very sparse indeed...

But the other half of my handmade Christmas is that so many of the wonderful gifts I've received from generous friends have been handmade.

First I received a box of handmade goodies from Metanoia, including a gorgeous little cherry blossom shaped pouch, a patchwork purse and handmade chocolates in the shape of crowns all made by her clever self. You can see some of her patchworking adventures on her blog, The Quilted Hen.

Cute purse/pouch handmade for me by metanoia.
It was filled with handmade chocolates. How good is that?!

Then poisoned_kitty gave me a gift that included home-made cookies and a very sweet handmade card proving that she is a stamping-embossing genius.

On Sunday night Foogyah girl gave me a very unexpected gift of Sweet Dal packaged in a cute cookie jar. It was squishy deliciousness and I'm guilty of already eating half of the lot! She's written an entry about it on her blog, including a recipe.

Then night_child80 gave me a little gift pack that had some handmade soap and mineral eyeshadow (bought off etsy - supporting handmade Christmas gifts!)

Li gave me a box of Lush goodies - one of the few companies that still makes it's products by hand and supports environmentally friendly products and packaging.

The extra effort involved in making gifts or sourcing and supporting handmade ones is so very appreciated.