How many days to Christmas?

I know that I’m not the first person to mention Christmas. The local garden centre is already unpacking Christmas decorations which seems a little premature but it probably isn’t too soon to start gathering ideas for books to buy for family and friends.

Grubson Pug’s Christmas Voyage by Jane Anne Hodgson, published by Whistling Cat looks like it may well be an ideal Christmas present that could become a family favourite to be re-read every year as the Christmas anticipation builds.

Whistling Cat Books is a new publisher, based in Oxfordshire, that “believes in nourishing children’s imaginations through amusing, engaging, original stories which are traditionally illustrated (hand-drawn rather than computer generated) and produced with care and attention to detail.”

Developing an idea …. non-invasive Christmas decoration

What if you were going to be away from home for Christmas? What could you take with you to ensure that your home-from-home would not seem bare in the festive season?

Voila – a  non-invasive Christmas decoration!

This is the prototype. Materials used here were a tatty old red paper napkin, a piece of scrap paper (for the leaves of unidentified species) and a large berry cut from a piece of sky in a magazine picture. As you can see, in the prototype, the side of the folded large triangle has been stapled, as were the leaves and berry.

I will now try a version made from red and green felt, with the side sewn closed and the leaves and berries sewn on with a couple of stitches. Or what about using  4 red fabric triangles with quilt batting/wadding sandwiched in between?

If my pictures and words don’t make sense then think about a photo held in an album by those triangular photo-corners.

Ruth in Wonderland

I don’t know about you but I’m still a bit of a child when it comes to stunning window displays. Yesterday I popped up to London and walked across Waterloo Bridge to see an exhibition by my boss at Somerset House and then afterwards just wandered slowly around a little of London. Maybe I’ll share some photos with you over the next few days.

Everyone was back at work after the break and it wasn’t a weekend, Christmas and Sale shopping seemed to be all done and we’re supposed to be suffering from the credit crunch, so the pavements were relatively uncluttered. Eventually I found myself in Piccadilly and stories told to me by my grandmother came to mind. She told of “the poor children” pressing their noses against the windows of the rich and being amazed at the sights within. They saw houses decorated like palaces, piles of delicacies and sweetmeats, the like of which they could never have imagined, all lit up by candles that cast a magical glow. It felt a bit like that when I caught glimpses inside The Ritz and marvelled at the windows of Fortnum & Masons and the Waterford & Wedgwood shop in the Piccadilly Arcade. So now I propose to present to you a magic lantern show of what I saw.