Epiphany - Taking Down the Christmas Decs

Pronunciation: /ɪˈpɪf(ə)ni, ɛ-/

noun (plural epiphanies)

• 1 (Epiphany) the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi (Matthew 2:1-12).
•  the festival commemorating the Epiphany on 6 January.

• 2a moment of sudden and great revelation or realization.

Epiphany 'the festival commemorating the Epiphany on 6 January'

Twelfth Night, which marks the coming of Ephiany and the end of the Twelve Days of Christmas is believed by some to be the last date to take down your Christmas decorations, else bad luck will befall you. Whilst I'm not sure I believe in this bad luck, there does come a point when you're ready to pack down the Christmas decs and start afresh. Here are a few things to do before you forget Christmas for another 11 months:

1. Cut out old Christmas cards to make gift tags:

2. Keep any flat pieces of wrapping paper big enough to cut out and use next year:

3. Shop for a few Christmas bargains in the January sales:

String reduced from £3.50 to £1 and 24 Gift Bags reduced from £8 to £1, Ikea

4. Put everything away neatly in a 'Christmas box':

5. Relax and eat leftover Christmas chocolate:

Epiphany 'a moment of sudden and great revelation or realisation'

I came to the realisation over the Christmas break that I can't do everything all the time. I have a demanding job, a long commute, I'm often all over the country and when I get home, I'm pretty knackered. So I need to stop giving myself a hard time; the house won't always be clean and tidy, dinner won't always be made-from-scratch, the ironing pile might start spilling out of the basket and I won't always go to the gym as often as I maybe should. Instead I will pursue the things that make me happy, enjoy each day as it comes and not sweat the small stuff.

So that means more cakes, more sewing and more blogging in 2014, cheers to that!

Twelfth Night

January 6th is Twelfth Night, or if you're superstitious, the last day to take down your Christmas decorations. But don't bin everything just yet! Here are a few things to save for a thrifty Christmas next year.

Cracker decorations- can be used to seal packets for some homemade treats next year:

Christmas cards- cut out to make gift tags:

You can recycle any leftover cards at Tesco supermarkets:

Long pieces of ribbon can be saved to wrap around smaller presents next year:

PS There are also some great Christmas bargains in the shops at the moment, to get you prepared early for Christmas 2013. Stick it all in a clearly marked box and you'll be laughing next year. Here are a few I found:

Waitrose 2 tier cake stand, £0.69:

Lindt Irish Cream Truffles, again in Waitrose, £1.14 (these are also available in special edition stracciatella flavour, yum!):

M&S Christmas dinner party invitations, £50p:

Happy crafting and sales shopping!

Mince Pies

You know Christmas is nearly here when you eat your first mince pie! So here's a recipe to make a batch and get that 'Christmas is coming!' feeling...

Ingredients:
225g cold butter, diced
350g plain flour
100g golden caster sugar
280g mincemeat
2 tbsp of milk
Icing sugar, to dust

1. To make the pastry, rub the butter into the flour, then mix in the sugar and a pinch of salt. Combine the pastry into a ball, adding a tbsp of milk if necessary to bring the dough together, although it should remain firm. Knead briefly.

2. Preheat the oven the 200℃ (180℃ for fan ovens)/400℉/Gas Mark 6 and grease 18 holes of two shallow muffin trays.

3. Roll the dough out on a floured board to around half a centimetre in depth and, using a cookie cutter slightly larger than the muffin tin circles, cut out 18 'bases' and press them into the tins.

4. Fill each pastry base with a couple of teaspoons of mincemeat. Be careful not to overfill.

5. Gather up the remaining dough from the bases, roll out to the same depth as previously and this time use a cookie cutter around the size of the muffin tin holes to make the tops. I used stars and hearts, but you could make full lids or use any shape you please.

6. Brush the tops lightly with milk (or a beaten egg if you prefer the glazed look) and bake in the centre of the pre-heated oven for around 20 minutes, or until golden.

If you want to make these in advance, they can be frozen after step 5. Mince pies make a lovely gift or treat to take to a friends, if you can resist gobbling them all up.

PS How do you eat yours? Hot? Cold? With cream? With brandy butter?

July Sales

Today I did something that I'm kind of not proud of. Well actually my thrifty self is very proud, but the bit of me that believes Christmas should only happen in December, not so much.

I went to Hobbycraft to buy some purple ink and they might have maybe had a big bin of Christmas rubber stamps for £1 each and I might have gone a little crazy....

OK, so I also got some felt reindeer and Christmas trees. I feel guilty even thinking about Christmas in the middle of July, but I'm sure I'll feel very smug come Christmas time!

That my was my little splurge for the month as this whole house-buying malarky is so expensive, but if you've got some spare cash for the sales, there are some great ones at the moment- my favourites (for window shopping only!) are Next, Habitat and Accessorize.

Festive Greetings

Belated festive greetings to one and all! I am now very happy to be back in The Lodge after a hectic week...

We helped my Mum move this van full of stuff from Cornwall to Kent:

We were lucky enough to get a wardrobe that matches ours that couldn't be accommodated (thank you Mum for the wardrobe and Dave for assembling it!)

I was really chuffed to come second in our cake competition at work with my festive yule log:

We had a bit of a disaster with a swollen door on our shed, which now means we can't get in to access our tool box, so the furniture we got today (to store yet more craft stuff!) had to be banged together with a saucepan:

And we spent Christmas with our loved ones, who appreciated their home made gifts:

Cloth bag for Dave's sister, with lovely fabric from Country Threads in Bath

Denim Kindle case, also for Dave's sister (tutorial to follow)

Christmas tree decorations

Flower brooches for my sister

Thanks to everyone for our lovely gifts- one of my personal favourites was this Mr and Mrs Christmas knitted by my Nan, thank you :)

Hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas!

Craft Space Clear Out

We have now put up our Christmas tree, after much debate about where we could fit a 7ft tree in our little lodge (the answer is in the middle of the floor, blocking both the window and the radiator!)

What with the Christmas tree and all of the craft materials strewn around in a last minute gift-making panic, there's barely room for us in the house, so tonight, drastic measures were taken and I began the difficult process of parting with my lecture notes to make room...

Goodbye first year!

Christmas Pudding Truffles

I will start by saying that truffles are sadly not thrifty, but they are delicious and home made ones are certainly a lovely gift and much cheaper than their shop-bought equivalents. I have been making truffles for Christmas for a few years now, but this year I decided to stray into unchartered territory- Christmas pudding truffles (in look, not flavour, although that will definitely be next!)

I was quite pleased with the result, even if they were a bit fiddly and could have done with a flatter base so they didn't keep rolling away for the photos...

Ingredients:
250g (8oz) good quality dark chocolate
175ml (6 fl oz) double cream
50g white chocolate
Green roll out icing
Red writing icing
+ A lot of patience

1. Break the chocolate up into a heatproof bowl
2. Heat the cream in a saucepan on a medium heat until its nearly boiling
3. Pour the cream over the chocolate and stir until the chocolate has metled and the two are combined
4 Leave the mixture to cool (at room temperature for the first 15 minutes and then it can go in the fridge to speed it up a bit!)
5. Using a teaspoon or melon baller, scoop out into small balls
6. Chill the truffles in the fridge for an hour. Whilst they are chilling, cut out holly leaves from green icing
7. Gently melt the white chocolate in a bowl over simmering water and carefully spoon over the top of the truffles
8. Stick the holly leaves in
9. Once the white chocolate has cooled, dot on berries with the writing icing

The truffles will keep for a few days in the fridge, or you can freeze them after step 5 if you want to decorate at a later stage.

Star Cookie Christmas Tree

This weekend saw the first attempt at the cookie Christmas tree, made using these cutters from Lakeland. We were really pleased with it and hope my step uncle, aunt and cousins are too!

Cookie Recipe

Ingredients:

225g plain flour

Pinch of salt

100g sugar

125g butter, cubed

1 egg yolk

1-2 tbsps cold water

1. Sift flour and salt into mixing bowl and stir in sugar

2. Work in butter using fingers

3. Stir in the egg yolk and enough water to hold the mixture together, bring into a ball

4. Wrap and chill the dough in the frige for at least 30 minutes

5. Roll out onto a floured surface (to about 3mm thickness) and cut out shapes

6. Bake for 10-12 minutes at 180 degrees/Gas Mark 4

Lakeland use a different recipe on the back of the cookie cutter box, which also looks tasty. We cheated and cut the star icing out from some ready rolled icing for ease, but you could make your own to put on top. We then made a little base from a square of cardboard covered in foil and wrapped it up in cellophane to make it look a bit special:

Christmas Cards

It's that time of year again- time for getting out the glue and scissors and producing Christmas cards that look like they came back with a 3 year old from nursery school! So this year, I am determined to produce more sophisticated Christmas cards. This means less of the glitter and PVA and more...

Red card with pretty decorations cut from old gift tags:

Use of the craft knife to cut words with a background from recycled wrapping paper:

Not completely satisfied with either of these ideas yet, but maybe with some refinement (and a sharper knife) they could be good.

In the end I couldn't resist a few glittery ones...

Happy Christmas crafting everyone!