Christmas 2015

Christmas went by so quickly this year, despite the fact I felt like I'd been preparing for it for ages. 

Before and after. It was nice to get my hair done in time for Christmas for once (pre-booking is a tricky habit to master) so my hair is looking nice and sharp and pink (and matching my lippie, of course).

I still love our little black tree with its pastel lights. Folk who say white lights are classier can get lost! And... er, I've decided that 'pink and turquoise' is the new 'red and green'. Way more cute as Christmas colours!

Oh yeah, and this is the handbag I made my mum for her Christmas present! I did it using this pattern. I've never made a handbag before... or probably will again... or have ever followed a pattern before, but I got matched with my mum in our family's Christmas present syndicate and wanted to make her something special. It's made of yellow wool with a silk lining and has a magnetic fastener. 

Lastly (and tastiestly) here are the two cakes a made for our family Christmas dinner. A red velvet cake and a dark chocolate and pistachio cake. I have to confess the icing on the RV one is shop bought as, after two batches of failed gloopy, liquidy cream cheese icing, I gave in and turned to Asda for some help. I must ask my mother in law how she makes hers...

Anyway, I hope you guys had a lovely Christmas this year. Did you get any cool presents?? I'm still spending my Christmas money! Although I did get an extra cool present I'll be posting about very soon.

Pink Pressies

I always like to see what "little mindings" people got for Christmas so I thought I'd share mine here, including some bigger presents that came as a bit of a surprise.  

I couldn't believe the generosity of the girls in my department at work this year. Just look at the pile of pinky goodness they got me. The funniest has to be the bat notepad with pink edging that my department supervisor got me ("It was so you!")

The present I definitely was not expecting to get was my dad's old camera. He said he really wanted me to have it though. It's a bit more advanced than what I'm using right now, but luckily it comes with an instruction booklet which I'll need to pour over when I've got more time.

Here's a pile of cute stationary from my mum and dad and my sister and also a dress from the "goth section" of h&m that my sister got me. She knows me so well.

My dad also got me a neat little pink screw-driver which will come in incredibly handy and means that I won't have to keep borrowing Tim's all the time. Yay! And it's pink, of course.

"It was this or a skeleton toilet-roll holder." My sister again, being very sweet and looking all over for something will skulls on it for her weird little sister. 

I'd love to know what you guys got for Christmas, particularly if your pressies all had some strange accidental theme like all the pink things I got this year (although that's probably not so accidental since it's pretty obvious I like pink!).

Christmas 2014

I hope everyone had a good Christmas this year! We had a fairly low-key Christmas. Very few presents and we didn't even remember to put the tree up. Still, that's not really what Christmas is about and it's not as though anyone's really going to be mad if you don't decorate the house enough. For me anyway, the most important thing about Christmas is remembering the amazing gift of salvation we've been given in Jesus Christ, even if I find it hard to focus on that sometimes, amid all the rushing around to get things ready for Christmas. When I do stop to think and pray about it though, it blows my mind every time. Can't believe God gives us this love and forgiveness we don't deserve at all. Amazing! Anyway, I'm rambling...

Hey look it's the dark, thick-rimmed specs convention. On Christmas day I wore a black knitted mini-dress from Mango with my plastic harness from restyle. Bit of an odd-looking contraption to get into, but I love it! I also wore Illamasqua lipstick in the colour 'Kontrol' and did my eyes all glittery. Aww.

And I've already written about what my husband gave me for Christmas but, for him, I bought these t-shirts from Rotten Cotton. They're based on the films Braindead and Xtro, two of our favourite movies. When they arrived, I almost wished I'd got them in a size extra small and worn them myself instead, but Tim looks cracking in them, I've got to admit.

Gingerbread Christmas Tree Decorations

This year, I thought I'd have a go at making some gingerbread Christmas tree decorations. I used this great recipe (I had to add extra flour though as the dough was too sticky at first) and had enough left over to give to some away too.

I just heard that my wee niece was helping my sister put them on their tree yesterday. How cute is that! The best thing is that they make the whole room smell like gingerbread.

And after finishing our last little bit of Christmas shopping last night, Tim and I (finally) got our tree up. I'd bought some pastel multicoloured lights for it the other day along with some tiny baubles in different colours to make it a little bit more cutesy-looking this year. The long teal coloured baubles were a lovely present from one of Tim's sisters.

Here's a gingerbread heart nestling in the tree. It's hard to tell from the photos, but the tree is black, of course.

Finally, after completing all our Christmas shopping last night, I bought myself a Christmassy treat in the form of a gingerbread muffin from Costa which I only got round to eating this afternoon. I felt a bit cruel eating the cute little gingerbread man on top, but I coped.