I got there just in the nick of time with the Advent Calender. It was finally hung up at 2am, with it's first little present in it.
And before we go any further, can I just say that this advent calender photograph's like crap for some reason.
As you can see I've made 24 pockets, which are sewn on three sides. On the fourth side I've only sewn them half way up, and then I've sewn a vintage mother of pearl button on the other side so that the passing of each day can be marked by turning the edge of the pocket down.
I've used quilt batting and a sturdy canvas to back it and then quilted it to give it some extra stability. At the moment it's hanging on the back of the cellar door, and is looking a little lonely, being the only decoration up at the moment.
This is the first year that Bella's had a calender and I have to say that it caused some expected confusion on her part. At first she couldn't quite understand why she was only getting one present - but after threats of never getting another present ever again unless she started acting a little more grateful - she got on board with the whole thing!
We had a pretty successful December 1st, although I have completely failed at decking the halls - mainly because Jim and I decided to purchase a huge new piece of furniture that subsequently meant hours of assembly, hours of driving back to Ikea to swap the broken piece for a fixed one, and hours and hours of rearranging the entire sitting room and the kitchen, not to mention finally taking all of Bella's toys back to her room for the first time ever!
We did manage to get some Christmas baking done though.
We used our favourite eggless, ginger biscuit recipe and our new Christmas cookie cutters. And up until we decided to destroy the entire ground floor of the house, it was feeling pretty christmassy around here!
