Stage Three

I have officially reached all requirements for stage three on my Christmas scale.

Stage 1. Believe in Santa, everything is magic, its all about the presents!
Stage 2. Pretend to believe in Santa, everything is relaxing, it's all about the presents!
Stage 3. Become Santa, everything magic requires your hard work, its all about the food!

This year I am making the Christmas dinner for the extended family. Me. Turkey, gravy, potatoes the whole deal. I am wishing for a perfect juicy turkey {I know it can be done!} golden crunchy potatoes and perfectly done roast vegetables. No need to panic.

Buffet all dressed for deserts. {Although that's a bit of joke as it's woefully inadequate to hold all the deserts my family will have.}

Now thats a party table! Looks like way more fun ... maybe I'll sit with the kids this year.

Joy Joy Joy

What party planning, decorator loving, holiday worshiping, baking mamma doesn't LOVE Christmas? Even in my house where I adore matt finishes and washed out neutral colours everything is a bit glittery and bright. I love the music {though my family thinks October is too early to start playing it, as if} I love the food {I have usually eaten about 2 packs of mince pies by December, no judging} I love the decorations, the family time, the weather, the craft, the treats, the kindess, the cards and being a Christian I love celebrating the birth of Jesus. Love it, love it, love it. 

Featuring my 'new' cake stand

Sadly our Christmas DVD collection had exceeded the Christmas book collection. Will have to fix that.

All these family photos were taken by Deep Grey

That's were the 'sentimental' ornaments hang.

Here is what I used that painted frame for in my playroom to showcase the kids Christmas art and cards. I got these pegs in a Christmas sale last year for $4 they are just stuck to the wall with blutak and the frame with some 3M velcro tabs. 

Is this not the most Australian Christmas picture, mango anyone? 

December Madness

Oh my gosh the year has gone, so many projects left undone. 
No time for delays or excuses don't stall, dash away dash away dash away all.

Sorry, the fist line rhymed by accident and i couldn't help myself. So I have a ton of things I want to finish before Christmas but as always not even half of them will get done. To save time I'm just bunching some of them all together in one big post.

The recipe is the same here:
Cheap second hand finds
Add 1 quick coat of spray primer {because they were all stained}
Add 1 quick coat of paint in your choice of colour
Sand away some of the finish to make it look less 'I did this myself'
And finish with 1 coat of Poly {only if you absolutely have to}


Op Shop Cake Stand $5.
When I got this home I noticed someone had written their New Zealand address on the bottom which made me take a second look at the wood, should I really paint over it, what if it's valuable? It was very high quality and crafted really well. On the other hand I think it's ugly, so yes. 

 

Op Shop Photo Frame $3.50 / Existing Frame Free

On a recent trip to Sydney I ordered two letters for my girls from a market stall for $15 each. I choose the patterns and the colours to go with the girls room though I didn't really know how I would use them. After a bit of thought I came up with an idea, I just needed two pretty frames. I choose Taubmans Green Sisal and Pale Crimson for the colours. 

 

More Frames

I bid about $12 for a frame I wanted at the tender centre and won. When I went to pick it up I found out it was part of a group. Seven {mostly} very crappy plastic frames, I took them all just in case. 

I painted that large green one at the back for something in my playroom with a charcoal metallic spray paint.

A vast improvement.

 

I have had sick kids of late and as a result have been hanging out at the chemist a lot. Spied this gift bag $1.99 I thought it was gorgeous and deserved to be in a frame and because I own a lot of frames I found I had the perfect one. I used the same charcoal spray paint. It's sparkly up close. 

Still so much I want to finish!

Almost Spooky Stuff

I don't know the historical significance of Halloween {and I probably never will} but I do know I love the cheap imported products! It's not festive, it's not pretty, it's not even significant {to me} but Halloween is without a doubt the best fun around.

My kids decorated this with some stuff from the two dollar store and it looked very spooky in the dark. 

The ghosts can only been seen at night ... rightly so. Fyn just stuck them inside the lampshade with blutak, simple and effective. 

And even though I knew they were fake and I knew they were there, they still freaked me out whenever I walked past, a whole bag of black spiders for $2. They're scattered all over the house now so I assume they will randomly scare everyone. 

A sweet friend organised for a large group of Twilight lovers {yes I'm one those girls} to see the new movie together. She thought a DVD marathon was a good idea to refresh our memories {and recommit to our teams.}

What to drink? B+ of course!

I did the usual drinks buffet with some red candles, apples and chocolates for a twilight touch. I also stole an idea from my sister who had a pink chocolate fountain at her daughters pool party. I can't believe I never thought of that, genius! I thought a red chocolate fountain {you know, for blood} would be a bit gross and yummy. So I was just finishing up my red chocolate which was about 4 blocks of good quality white chocolate an entire bottle of red food colouring and a touch of black to get that deep red colour, when I heard a blood curdling scream {dramatic effect added}. My baby had hit his chin and bitten his tongue. So while I was mopping up the real blood, the chocolate blood burned. Such a shame!

Luckily I store chocolate like it's the end of the world, sadly not red food colouring so I had to settle for milk chocolate. Not spooky at all, but definitely yummy. And for the record I am team Jacob {most of the time.}

And this is the edible graveyard I made for the kids.

Ingredients: brownies, chocolate custard, shortbread, chocolate finger biscuits, oreos, brocolini and white chocolate. I also bought some chocolate candy rocks. 

How quickly it all fell apart because at this early stage I realised I did not have enough packet chocolate icing to cover my sponge and I couldn't be bothered to make any. Why didn't I just buy chocolate sponge? I've said it before, not a genius. So carry on it's not like the kids are going to care anyway. 

Cut around the coffins then hollow them out. Fill with chocolate custard and all sorts of freaky stuff like spiders, worms, G.I Joe legs etc. I used a couple of lolly grubs. {Tombstones and dirt made the same way as the science party rocks} Dip the shortbread into black coloured chocolate and use black icing gel to write on your tombstones. Cover everything in Oreo dirt and flash forward to this.

Try to ignore the exposed sponge!

This $2 toy laughed wickedly and had flashing eyes. Very cool.

This is a yummy way to dig your own grave! I find it much easier to make food pretty rather than ugly but I'm still happy with how it turned out. And in case you were wondering, no they did not eat the brocolini grass.