I started thinking about Christmas gifts quite early as I’ve already had a few Christmas events and before I know it I’ve made quite a few things, upon which I felt the urge to report.

First up are the Christmas decorations made for my grandchildren. This has become something of a tradition and of course I now have three grandchildren, so three ornaments were made.

I have embroidered their names and the year on the back. Miss G has the angel, Mister L has the penguin and Miss E has the snowman. The snowman met a slightly sticky end when the felt ring from around the circle came adrift. Instead of replacing it with more felt, I glued some ric-rac round the edge. I think it looks much better!

I also make each grandchild a Christmas stocking. I seem to have managed to make each one of them two stockings – one for their own house and one for ours, so this meant three new stockings: two for Miss E and another one for Master L as his parents are coming back to live in Perth and he will be joining us on Christmas Day.

Miss E has the angels and Master L has the penguin.

I made a Montessori style Christmas tree. I’ve been wanting to make one for a while as it involves helping children coordinate colours, identify patterns and shapes. These “tasks” enhance children’s recognition skills and logical reasoning. Well, that’s the theory!

I made the tree from some green felt from my mother’s stash, and cut it on my Cricut Maker using a pattern from Jennifer Maker.

I used more of Mum’s fabric for the backing and used scraps of wool wadding donated by a friend which I sewed together to give the backing some stability.

I blanket stitched the tree to the backing with silver thread, also from my mother’s stash! She’d love all this. The ornaments were cut on the Cricut from whatever felt I had in the drawer.

There are pockets at the bottom to store the ornaments, and the whole thing is hung on a piece of dowelling.

I already had green velcro which we’d bought in New York, so I used that. I notice that Miss G has to look hard for it, but she’s catching on fast! Here is a video of it being used, but it seems Granddad is enjoying it more!

When I got on the floor to play the first time, I got myself a cushion to sit on and now the tree doesn’t get decorated unless we both have cushions to sit on! It’s quite nice to talk about the decorations, what colour they are, and where they are best placed.

I made 3D Christmas cards, also on my Cricut. These fold flat for delivery and have a LE tea light in them. They are surprisingly effective.

One of the gifts I’ve been giving is a little bag of Christmas pot pourri. They contain dried oranges, cloves, cinnamon, pine cones, star anise, bay leaves and rosemary. Most of the contents came from my son’s new garden, which is full of wondrous things. I made some of the bags from fabric left over from the Christmas tree backing and also some scraps of Christmas fabric I had in my stash.

I used recycled string and raffia and made some labels. The bag gets put in a saucepan, covered with water and simmered all day, topping up the water when necessary. The whole house smells like Christmas! Archie claims that it smells like the mulled wine in a New York bar – that will do me!

I fancied making a little house (also on my Cricut), and painting some snow on the roof and the ground and using some of my mother’s Christmas cake decorations to zhuzh it up.

An LED tea light inside and it looks as though there’s a fire inside.

It fascinates Miss G, who loves showing it to her baby.

Megan from Meggipeg gave me a dome earlier this year, and I have put a Christmas scene in it, and yes, I did it on the Cricut! If I were to do it again I would place some of the elements a little differently as there is a train on a snowbank which is hard to see. The reindeer are strung from the top of the dome with fishing line. I put lights in it so that it has more impact at night and sat it on a glass cake stand.

This is just the beginning of my Christmas making, now I have gifts to make, so I’ll be back after Christmas with them, none of which will be made using the Cricut!