Craft & Coffee Mornings November Summary

We have now reached the end of our first Craft & Coffee Morning month and the sessions so far have been fantastic. We have had a great turn out each time and everyone's creations have been amazing!

Our first C&C of the month was the Christmas Snow Globe featuring a cute woodland scene with a festive bunny. 

Our second C&C was another decoration made using an acetate box and included a wintery Christmas scene. Everyone also got to make a small card to accompany their decoration.

Our attendees showing off their handmade decorations!

Our final C&C of the month was a beautiful trio of Nordic inspired Christmas cards using the Tim Holtz 'Nordic Winter' Thinlits die set. 

We die cut all the different elements from a variety of different coloured card stock and laid out a variety of stamp sets that included snowflake designs, paint brush marks and Christmas sentiments. All that was left to do was to get creative and make some cards!

Pauline's Cards

Mags Cards

Connie's Cards

Kim's Cards

Everyone made some wonderful cards which they can use as inspiration for more Christmas cards or to use on handmade decorations and table favors.

We have two C&C sessions in December so if you think you will be interested in coming along you can find out all the details here. And of course in the run up to Christmas both sessions will be Christmas themed projects. We hope to see you there!

Decorations Galore at The Sussex Christmas Barn

Fancy restocking your Christmas tree decorations? Then we have the perfect place for you! The Sussex Christmas Barn features a mesmerising variety of Christmas decorations and ornaments that will have you filling up your basket in no time! 

Set in the beautiful Sussex countryside, you will find this barn down a small country road in Barcombe near Lewes. From the outside it may seem like there isn't much going on but once you open the big wooden door, your eyes will be treated to a glittering delight!

No matter what your colour scheme for Christmas is you are sure to find something that will fit. There are several tables stacked with decorations and beautiful Christmas trees that display the ornaments beautifully.

Now if you are thinking it's all well and good having all these decorations but I haven't even bought a tree yet this year. Well look no further as Sussex Christmas Barn also sell a wonderful selection of real Christmas trees in all shapes and sizes! So once you've picked out your tree head inside to pick out your decorations for it.

If all that Christmas tree shopping has got you feeling peckish then have no fear as they also have a cafe on site which has a great selection of food, including cakes, sweet treats and a lunch menu.

Both me and mum visited on separate occasions and from our experiences we would definitely recommend arriving early (especially at weekends) as it can become quite crowded. So if you prefer to relax and mooch around freely, get there for opening time.

Now on to our purchases.......

I only have my items to share with you and I have to admit I was quite restrained as I am already the biggest hoarder of Christmas decorations so I had to be good.

Our first decoration is this beautiful metal wreath which has two birds perched on a leafy branch. This is actually quite big in size so wouldn't necessarily go on the tree so I'll probably hang this one up around the house.

Price: £4.88

The other decorations I bought were these mercury glass ornaments that I am just in love with this year. They look so vintage and catch the light beautifully. These are fairly small in size and I was even thinking of using them as part of a gift by adding it as a decoration on the wrapping of their gift. Depends if I can part with them..... I also got the bag for free with my purchase which was an extra bonus.

Price: £1.60 each

So that concludes our summary of another fantastic Christmas location! Also be sure to look out for this beautiful wreath below which is displayed on the neighbours wall as you exit the barn. So Christmassy!

Christmas at Up Country

If you are looking for a way to get yourself in the Christmas spirit and you live in the West Sussex/ East Sussex area then look no further than Up Country Garden Centre and Bakehouse. 

Yesterday Me and Conor were having a Christmas themed outing and in particular were visiting Sussex Christmas Barns (future blog post to come). On our way there we came across a very enticing sign for 'Christmas at Up Country' and we instantly knew that we would be making a stop there on the way back......and we are so glad we did.

As soon as you arrive at this garden centre you are greeted with a 'Festive Forest' of Christmas trees which lead you through to the entrance of the garden centre.

Once we reached the automatic doors entrance, the doors opened to reveal a Christmas Wonderland!

You can follow the path around rooms full of beautiful decorations, lighting, wrapping and more!

The final turn of the Christmas walkway reveals a magical train (does not move) which children can climb aboard and have their picture taken. Up Country are currently running a competition whereby you can win £100 of Up Country vouchers by just uploading a picture of yourself in front of their Christmas train on the Up Country Facebook page.

Picture courtesy of Up Country Garden Centre and Bakehouse website

The garden centre also features some great gift ideas for the gardeners in your life and if you are feeling a bit peckish than don't miss out on the Bakehouse. Though we do recommend arriving early so you are not in for a long food wait.

All in all this is a fantastic location to find those Christmas decorations you have been looking for and is also a great way to shop local. 

For an extra Christmassy feel be sure to visit the weekend of the 30th Nov/1st Dec for Up Country's Festive Weekend. This event will feature a Christmas Treasure Hunt, Food tasting, Choir Singing (1st Dec.), 10% off decorations with a purchase of a Christmas tree and finally it will also feature the big man himself - Mr Santa Claus. What better way to kick off the countdown to Christmas!

The Fairy Tale Fair - Craft & Design Fair Patcham

We had a fantastic time at The Fairy Tale Fair at Patcham Methodist Church last Saturday and enjoyed meeting lots of new customers and other stallholders, sharing our love of craft and Christmas!

As usual Claire (organiser of the fair) created a wonderful atmosphere at the fair, with some great entertainment, workshop tables and lots of stallholders selling some fantastic makes!

We arrived nice and early so that we could get our stall to look at it's best, with lots of twinkling Christmas lights to help make all that glitter sparkle and shine.

As usual our Glitter Domes were top sellers as well as our Christmas tree bottles. Our mittens also went down a treat and were perfect for those who needed to warm their hands!

The icing on the cake (literally!) were the fantastic treats from Bunston Bakes who served plenty of sweet treats alongside some savoury items including Cheese Twists, Sausage Rolls, sandwiches and frittatas. Of course we couldn't resist and we decided to go for a Lemon and White chocolate Shortbread - delicious!

Whilst we were at the fair we couldn't help but make a couple of purchases ourselves. I got a few presents sorted by buying some personalised decorations from The Amy Verse. Whilst mum bought a stained glass house decoration from Glass Art.

All in all Saturday was a fantastic day and has definitely got us in the Christmas spirit. 

Our next fair will be at the Christmas Gift Fair at Ardingly in association with Friends of Sussex Hospices. If you missed us on Saturday we hope to see you at this one which will be on Wednesday 27th November 2019!

Christmas Craft Fairs Stock List

We have just under 2 weeks before our first Christmas fair at Patcham for the Fairy Tale Fair (if you would like to see where we are selling this year please click here).

So we thought we would share with you some of the items we have made so far to give you an idea of what we will be selling on the day. 

Our stall usually consists of lots of handmade Christmas decorations that you can hang on your tree. We also have a few gift items, including handmade mittens.

Our first sneak peek is of our range of Glitter Domes we will have to choose from this year. Each year the amount of designs gets larger with a few firm favourites still in the mix. 

I am convinced that we have something for everyone, from llamas and unicorns to the more traditional reindeer woodland scenes and gingerbread houses. Take your pick!

Next up are our gorgeous fairies that you can either hang at the top of your tree (maybe a small tree as these fairies are quite petite) or perhaps perch them on a mantelpiece or bookshelf.

If you like to create an element of magic at Christmas then look no further than our Christmas wish bottles. Hang these cute bottles on your tree and get little ones to write a wish on the scroll inside and then place it back in the bottle. With a little Christmas magic, it might just come true!

New for this year we have some glass dome decorations (variation of our Glitter Domes) with a couple of Christmas scenes to choose from.

Our final sneak peek is of our handmade mittens; which this time round we have lots and lots of colours to choose from. These beautiful mittens also include button detailing and are the perfect accessory to keep your wrists and hands warm during the festive season. They also make great gifts!

We hope these tantalising sneak peeks have convinced you to attend one of the Christmas fairs we will be selling at and maybe you will pick up a decoration or two!

Please remember we only take cash or cheque as we do not have a card machine so make sure you are prepared.

We hope to see you there!

REWIND SERIES: Christmas Dome Workshop Recap

This is our last post for the REWIND Series on the blog and is a recap of our Christmas Dome workshop which we hosted at the end of last year.

This beautiful project is an excellent piece of Christmas home decor and even includes lights to make it look even more magical!

So let's recap on the day......unfortunately as per some of our other REWIND posts we don't have many photos from the day but we will try and give a brief description of how we made the project along the way.

As per all of our workshops our guests were presented with a kit to make their project, with lots of elements pre-prepped for them so as to make the day go more smoothly.

For this project we used Glass Domes from Hobbycraft and pre-drilled a hole in the wooden base so that the LED lights could fit through.

For the house we used the Tim Holtz Village Dwelling Bigz XL die and cut different parts of the house from different coloured cardstock according to our design. We also embossed the sides of the house to make it look like a winter cabin. We included some Christmas trimmings to decorate the house using the Tim Holtz Village Christmastime Thinlits die set.

For the windows of the house we used some acetate with Tim Holtz Idea-ology Frosted Film on top to create a wintery window.

Before our guests could fix their house in position they needed to carefully thread through their lights and secure them in place on the base. We did this by adding some hot glue to hold the wire in position.

Once these were in place the house could be stuck down and the rest of the embellishments could be added.

Our guests decorated some trees with glitter and baubles and also created a snowy base using Cosmic Shimmer Fluffy Stuff and added even more glitter for extra sparkle.

To make our Christmas scene even more magical we also added an MDF Santa with his reindeers to look as though Santa was flying over the house. This was probably the trickiest bit to finish off the scene as we needed to get this in place using some hot glue so that the wire affixed to the inside of the chimney.

Once their scene was complete they just needed to pop the glass dome over the top and add some red grosgrain ribbon around the base.

Whoalah!

Once again this workshop was such a wonderful day and we filled the air with some Christmas tunes and kept everyone going with a fantastic lunch and tasty Christmas treats!

So that concludes our REWIND series as this project was our last workshop of 2018. 

We hope you have enjoyed this catch up and we hope from now on we can be more consistent with our posts to keep you all inspired.