Christmas day is 54 days away, are you ready?! This blog is going to cover a few of my preparations for the big day, including some homemade gifts.
I think I’m nearly finished my gift shopping, but, I must say I love to add an extra special touch to my gifts. I can’t say what I’m making this year for a few special people, because these people will be reading this blog. I will show you what I made last year, lavender hearts!! These were such a cute little gift to give to people, and were lovely and easy to make. I personally love the smell of lavender and always have a lavender heart hung by my bed, the smell makes me feel more relaxed. I’m going to make some extra little gifts filled with lavender this year… what do you think?
This is a link to a video showing you how to make the lavender hearts. I played around with different shapes and sizes until I found one I liked. It may be worth laminating your template so you can keep it to use for next time. I used a sewing machine for most of the sewing because I found that easier. I must disclose I am a beginner sewer, I only really started sewing last year. I swapped the button for a little red ribbon, it’s completely up to you https://youtu.be/WRLVeRuQd7Y
Now you’ve made your gorgeous lavender hearts you need a gift bag for them. This is a really simple, cost effective and stunning idea for gift bags, one which my Godmother showed me and gave me the ideas for.
These are the gift bags I used. The size I used in my video were small, they do a range of sizes.
Now you’ve made your gifts and your gift bags you just need some tissue paper to wrap them in and you’re done!
Lastly, I’m going to show you my personal favourite un traditional Christmas cake you can make this for a gift, for yourselves, or your social bubble, for Christmas and Thanks Giving if you celebrate the holiday. It’s super easy and effective. I used fondant berries but real holly leaves, when I make this again I will make the leaves out of fondant so all the cake is edible. This is a holly leaf cutter you could use to cut out some green fondant into leaf shapes, I then roll some red fondant into balls to make the holly berries. 
This was originally a Malteser cake, but seeing as I can’t eat Maltesers because I’m coeliac I changed the decorations to chocolate buttons, which I think are just as effective. The whole cake I made is gluten free. The recipe I show isn’t gluten free, I just swapped the flour to be gluten free and made sure the baking powder was gluten free too. This is just one version of how to make the cake below, as you can see from the photo I changed a few details but still got an effective Christmas pudding cake!
https://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/recipes/maltesers-christmas-pudding
You now have gifts wrapped beautifully in gift bags and a lovely festive cake, why not celebrate, following current covid guidelines.
I wish everyone celebrating the Thanks Giving Holiday a very happy time. I will have my next blog ready for the beginning of December. I will be showing you how we make our traditional Gypsophilia Wreath, if you would like to make this you’ll need some Gypsophilia (we like a large head, the small headed ones aren’t great. We get these from a flower market) An Oasis ring (we use an 18 inch size) you can buy them from Amazon, Hobbycraft, eBay and lots of different places. Some glitter spray, Scissors, water to soak your oasis ring in for 24 hours before, and finally a lot of Christmas music playing in the background! I know the Prime Minister has just put England into lockdown starting Thursday but let’s try to be positive. Until next time, be safe.
Laura’s blog 