Pre-lit boughs of green

Decorating the tree is something that I really look forward to every year. The Carpenter's Christmas album (albums are music on discs for those under 18, crap I'm old) playing, the fireplace channel on (see, I'm up on technology!), the dogs snoozing on the couch in the light of the Christmas lights and my husband making a mockery of the entire affair. Now THAT is what Christmas is in the Ledlow house.
I've been known to leave the tree up well into March but I promise to draw the line at February this year. Here's how our tree comes together. It's a 7.5' pre-lit Bayberry Spruce from Costco. First it gets put together, always by me, and I'm too dumb not to wear long sleeves and avoid getting my arms scratched to heck:

Then comes the star and garland. The star is from Canadian Tire and the garland is wooden cranberries that my family has been using since the early 90's (I told you I was old!):

You can barely see the garland, but alas:

We always put on the special ornaments first. Ones we made as children, ones we have been given over the years and ones we have collected since getting married by giving them to each other or collecting on our travels. I always put my pewter ornaments on first (mostly Seagull Pewter). My parents gave me one every year until I was about 25. Here is one of my favourites:

Then my husband (Adam) puts his most prized possession on the tree. The yellow "angel" that he made in 1984 (yes, old, I told you) that now looks like a sparkly Christmas alien:

Then the abundance of ornaments in our collection. Some as old as 32 years and some that have been given to the kids since they were born. Either way...it's a lot: 

Adam gave me a tip this year: decorate the tree with it un-lit! It's much easier to gauge the placement of everything. It really is! 

Lastly we put on the tin stars and tin icicles. We opted for no icicles this year since our little one is a tad on the mischievous side and would no doubt end up yanking them off and cutting himself. They are from The Pietersma Tinworks Ltd:

And here is our tree all decorated! Our kids were at Nan and Pop's house (thank you!) when we decorated so we set their ornaments aside and left the bottom third of the tree empty for them to decorate.  Fingers crossed that Henry doesn't pull the tree down! 

We used to have a lot of generic Christmas balls that we would put on the tree but every year we put on less and less as we accumulate more special ornaments. This year I don't think we used any! 

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas! Enjoy your family and be good to one another! 

christmas at our house

Interestingly enough we never actually spend Christmas at our own house!  We're always rotating between my parent's winter wonderland up north and my always welcoming in-laws place.  This year we'll be up north with our boys, my parents and my brother (since we only see him at Christmas, YAY!). 
Even though we don't actually spend Christmas here and we likely won't have any company over the holidays (so sad! LOL) I still decorate (of course) and enjoy my time spent crafting new Christmasy goodies for the house. 
Here are a few highlights of some of the Noel nifties around our house this year :). 

Here's the wreath on our front door.  I bought it at Home Sense four years ago and it's still going strong!  I glued on the mini ornaments (from the dollar store) and I added the bow (the ribbon is from Michael's this year.  $16.99 for the roll but I had a 60% off coupon!):

 

Here's our garland, also faux and used every year!  Real greenery is pretty but so much work!  The garland is from Michael's and the stars are from Canadian Tire from a few years ago:

 

And here it is at night.  It's hard to tell but there's a flood light pointed up at the front door...a very unimpressive photo!  Much prettier in person :):



 

And the inside decor...I made this wreath earlier this year and it was so hard to wait until Christmas to put it up!  The plain grapevine wreath was $4.99 at Michael's.  I added the felt (from Fabricland) rosettes (trace and cut out a felt circle about the size of a CD then cut the circle into a spiral and roll the fabric into a rosette and stick a straight pin through the centre and hot glue into place):

 

I made these festive baubles from styrofoam balls of varying sizes and wrapped and hot glued strips of fabric and burlap around them:

 

This cute garland was made by my crafty Mom last year of little trinkets from around the house (some of which she randomly had around for years, I'm sure, including one of my Girl Guide badges...cute!):

 

This is the garland on our tree!  I made it last year from an old book and simply scotch-taped strips of paper into a pretty paper chain:

 

This lovely snow globe was a gift from our good friend Grace a few years back and has become a staple in our home at Christmas:

 

These are doily snowflakes that I made this year!  I got the inspiration from www.marthastewart.com ...although I didn't use her stiffening method.  I got the doilies second hand at Talize for .99 cents each and I stiffened them using one part white glue and one part water.  Just dip them in the paste and let them dry flat on wax paper for 24 hours and voila!:

 

This is a wrought iron snowflake candle holder and it's from the One of a Kind Show about 5 years ago.  I have three of them and they are randomly place throughout the house this year:

 

We have three of these hanging about the place this year.  I picked these up at Bouclair last year!  I have since realized that they would be very simple to make, but alas, I don't have all day to be crafting!:

 

So there you have it!  That's the general feel of the decor around our house at Christmas time.  A lot of home made, re purposed and reused (year after year) decorations that we love! 

If anyone wants more in depth instructions on how to make any of the items then e mail me at twillandtwine@gmail.com and I'd be happy to fill you in on the details! 

Merry Christmas to all!



 



 



 



 





 



 



 





it only took 6 days...

My mom taught me to knit when I was just a wee one (probably five or six).  I've never really had a flare for it or been particularly good at it (there always seemed to be a problem with my stitch tension) and I often don't finish my projects because I'm SO unbelievably slow (hence the title of this blog...it really did take me 6 days of knitting sporadically to finish this but note: it only takes my Mom an hour or two)! 

The only things I've ever really been able to complete (aside from a couple of basic scarves that took me months to make) are dishcloths.  My Mom made them a lot when I was a kid (it was all we used come dish-doing time) and taught me how to make them a number of times since I always forgot how.

Last week I felt like making one since it had probably been a few years since I last made one and I needed to be taught again!  WOW I'm good.

Here is what she taught me:
Start out with 100% cotton yarn.  I've always used Bernat Hanicrafter http://www.bernat.com/product.php?LGC=handicraftercotton  (this yarn is usually only about $1.89 at Wal-Mart and comes in so many colours and patterns. This one was free since my Mom gave it to me!) and size 10 knitting needles. 

This time I used metal needles but I usually prefer plastic since they're not as slippy-slidey and you're less likely to lose a stitch off the end. 



 

Start by casting five stitches onto your needle. 

Knit one row.

Knit two, add a stitch, knit to the end of the row.  Continue to knit two, add a stitch and knit to the end of the row and you'll start to see the corner of the cloth take shape, like this:

Just keep knitting two, adding a stitch, and knitting to the end of the row until you end up with 45 stitches on your needle (obviously I needed longer needles) like this:

 

Then you start decreasing stitches.  All you have to do is this:
Knit two, knit two together, knit to the end of the row.  Do that for each row until you're left with 5 stitches on your needle and cast off the last five stitches...AND YOU'RE DONE!  Here's my finished cloth:

 

You always have the option of crocheting a coordinating colour around the edge (which is what Mom always does) but I have no idea how to do that!  I'm sure she's shown me a few times but crocheting is lost on me so this is how my cloth will stay! 

NOW.  If you've made it to the end of the blog you have a chance to win this cloth!  All you have to do is either comment below or e mail me at twillandtwine@gmail.com and tell me why you want it! 
I'll randomly draw a winner that will be announced on my next blog post!  A note to whomever wins: make sure you wash and dry it before using it! 

Good luck!