Happy Christmas

I would like to say thank you to everyone who has ordered from me, bought something from me, followed my blog, FB page, posted comments, etc (I'm sure there are more things!) over the past year.  It has been a good year and I hope the next one will be as good.

I would like to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and New Year!

(P.S. the knitted Happy Christmas was made into cards a couple of years ago and I am wondering about getting them reprinted and adding more to the range next year - what do you think?)

Alternative Christmas Cards

I usually try to make my Christmas cards every year, even though that means I am always last minute when posting them. 

This year I got business cards printed at Moo.com, punched a hole in one end, strung a red ribbon through and tied it in a knot so it can be hung up:

I borrowed a piece of festive-coloured fair-isle from Wendy of Burra Bears and took a photo of it (thanks Wendy!).  I then made this into an image for the front of the card and made another image with our message on it on the back, picking a colour from the fair-isle for the background colour.

They were very easy to make and it is something different, I'm sure you could think up many other variations!

I only posted them yesterday in tiny brown envelopes (I did say I was last minute) so any of you that normally gets a card from us, they are on their way!

Snow on snow on snow

There seems to be no sign of the thaw, and while I love the snow and the beauty it brings I also feel sorry for the folk that are stuck in airports and are trying to travel for Christmas. 

When I was out earlier today with Tib the border collie, I took the camera, the colours were so beautiful and it was so still.  The photo above shows the mussel ropes at the bottom of the croft.

The stones on the dyke looked fluffy:

The long grass looks like tiny feathers:

I think the sheep must be getting fed up with this weather:

Other animals are having fun in this weather - we have seen otter tracks every day in the snow and we have seen tracks where the otters have been sledging!  The tracks below changed into the sledge tracks:

The otter sledged all the way down the hill through the fence and over the banks into the sea:

The wild rabbits must have had a dance party in our drive last night:

This is the view from the house - its lovely when it like this but also glad to be warm inside!

Christmas is coming....

Christmas isn't far away now - most of my work is done (expect for one or two little things I forgotten about, paperwork, etc), and the house is more or less decorated.

The dockin (dock) wreath below made by Jeanette Nowak has been hung on my favourite cupboard, with one of my spotty felt decorations which I hope will be for sale next Christmas......

 I have already made many mince pies, and will probably make many more (last year I made over 100)....

They are great when guests come around, as a pudding with ice cream and to give as presents.....

We have still got plenty of snow making it feel festive - this was the view out the sitting room window at one point on Saturday - a "blind moorie" as we would say in Shetland.

It's looking pretty likely that we will have a white Christmas, but then again, who knows?!

Feeling Festive

This year I have been determined to enjoy the run-up to Christmas, or at least be aware it's happening.  In previous years I have been so busy making things, packing, going to the Post Office, sometimes the decorations have only gone up on Christmas Eve night and the mince pies have been made after Christmas. 

I set a final date for web orders and while I have a backlog of orders waiting to go out it is manageable and I have done some festive things already - we have already polished off one batch of mincemeat pies.  I have started putting some decorations up in the house:

Nothing beats several sets of fairy lights scattered around.  The picture below is a string of fairy lights in a vase with some aubergine baubles and is sitting in the place of the usual lamp.

The Christmas has just gone up with an aubergine theme:

I have managed to make my Christmas cake - I know that purists would frown on making a cake last minute, but this is a really good recipe from Delia Smith -  Last Minute Sherry Christmas cake.  Click the recipe title for the link to the recipe.

I use stout instead of sherry as I think it gives a milder flavour (this year I used Unst Brewery's sjolmet stout), and tweak some of the other ingredients depending how I feel.

There is still lots to do, but this year I AM going to enjoy it!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend x