Christmas preparations have been in full swing here at Fadanista, and I thought I’d do a preliminary post showing the things that aren’t secret, so my after Christmas post will be more manageable.

Miss G’s Christmas crown from last year mysteriously vanished so I made both her and Miss E new ones. They love to match, so they are identical which meant that I could attempt making them minimal waste, or even zero waste.

I simply made a design based on the one shared by Sandy, @sunnydayz6 last year and cut it with my Cricut. it is so nice to have beautiful cuts! Because I was making two crowns, I was able to offset them and they finished up looking like the first photo below. Then I just lifted off the two crown shapes.

So I did this three times – the outer crown, the inner crown and the interfacing. I could have bonded the fabric prior to cutting and would do that next time. Maybe.

Because of the accurate cutting the crowns were so easy to sew together. I use elastic to fasten so I’m not constantly retying the crowns – a lesson I learned last year!

If you look at the next photo you’ll see what I was left with. I could have had less wastage but I wanted to be sure I had plenty of fabric.

To make this zero or minimal waste I had to find a use for those scraps. The bigger pieces have been put aside to be made into Christmas ornaments, and I took every other scrap, including what I trimmed off after sewing, and put it in this glass that I acquired some somewhere.

And this now adorns my Christmas tree and will be added to if I have other Christmassy scraps. I’m surprisingly pleased with this.

I did several of the workshops during the Making Zen retreat last month and tried to integrate several of them into small gifts for friends that I meet for lunch fairly regularly.

I decided to use the techniques to make small journal covers and found some replaceable books to put in them. The removable covers were part of one of the workshops and then I just decorated them using the information in some of the other workshops.

I had so much fun doing these, I learned lots of new techniques and used lots of bits I had around. Nothing new was bought for them.

Some individual photos to show detail:

the one on the left is just a collage of scraps I found – hence the embroidered word, and the one on the right is a compilation of two embroidery classes, one from November and one from May.

I’m quite fond of this one. One of the workshops in May was making a moth from odds and ends, and the body was fashioned from some wool roving. I made all the elements but never put them together. I finished up blanket stitching the wings on to the covers and embroidering a rather funny looking body and face down the spine.

I also love this one, where I took the embroidered flowers and added a bee and some French knots

I made a couple out of old doilies and lace tray cloths. It’s so nice to use these in some way.

Some have different backs, and others I simply laid a whole piece across the front and the back to create one layer

There was a calico cottage workshop and again I just modified it and used the cottages idea on my journals

I think this one is my least favourite, and I need to practice the techniques more.

the inside flap of the cover is finished off by hand or by machine and the book can slide in and out of this. I had to add one of my labels to each book of course. I don’t apologise for my dodgy stitching, these were mostly made in the car.

I took all my books to various lunches and let my friends choose. I was quite interested in what went first. The cat (which I forgot to photograph on its own) was snapped up as were most of the lacy ones. The moth and embroidered flowers went quickly too. I’m putting this here so I remember if I ever make these for gifts again.

The last thing I want to show you are tree decorations made by my mother and which I only discovered this year. She would have been well into her eighties when she made these and had very arthritic fingers, but still displayed amazing dexterity.

They are little dioramas created inside egg shells. She had several undecorated eggshells in the box, obviously for future decorations. This brought a lump to my throat! I’ve added one at the bottom so you can see what she used. These are from regular chicken eggs and are probably a large size.

I think they need to be examined individually so I’ve selected a few to photograph. The backgrounds are painted and some sort of modelling clay has been used for the objects.

This one is so my mother. There’s a christmas tree, a fireplace with stockings hung up and lots of toys.

another typical scene – Christmas dinner with crackers and pudding!

A different tree scene, but I am showing it as I love that ball at bottom left. I just had a closer look at the real thing, which isn’t nearly as clunky looking in real life. I hadn’t realised that there is a pram and a scooter in there, but can clearly see them now.

An English cottage (I think my mother missed England more than she ever let on) and it’s hard to see but those are dray horses in the foreground.

However, she did do loads of paintings of the Australian bush and so I had to show the kangaroos.

There were three eggs with dolls in them. Miss G loves all these ornaments but especially likes the dolls. This was my favourite, there’s a rather evil looking one in there too!

We never had a star on top of our tree when I was a child, we always had a fairy (or an angel?), so I have kept that tradition going. I have several fairies my mother made and there is a box of half made ones that I inherited. This is the one on top of the tree, she has a butterfly on the end of her wand!

My mother made me this little one when I was a recycled single and living alone in an apartment. She delivered a tree complete with her own home made decorations. Sadly most haven’t survived the intervening 35 odd years, but this fairy was on the top and I’ve treasured it.

I keep some of my decorations in this very old biscuit tin and this year I thought it was worthy of becoming part of the decorations. The label on the bottom has gone but it may have been Peek Freens? Are those boys just worn out or have they imbibed too much of the mulled wine?

Finally, the lovely Marjorie from Brisbane sent me the inspiration for the two gnomes. She also sent a clump of mohair for the beards. I decided to use raw sheep wool for the red gnome’s beard and spent a lot of time teasing out grass seeds and other unmentionables! I used Marjories mohair for the blue one but added a bit I found in my stash to make it thicker, but it was longer and I don’t know how to trim it. The gnomes are quite delightful though. The trees I knitted years ago and I thought they went so well with the gnomes I had to make a little grouping.

that present under the tree is for me! I wonder what it is??

I also made youngest son a wreath for the front door of his house. He was refusing to have any decorations but has come to terms with the bits I’m sprinkling around! The wreath is made completely from an old tablecloth, with the leaves being cut on my Cricut – it does such a good job and I’m useless at cutting out. I tea dyed a few leaves and placed them here and there. I love the simplicity of this wreath and have leaves left over so there might be another one in the offing!

Finally a very blurred photo of two little ones having a tea party on our guest bed. Miss G loves to get into the bed and have a cup of tea. I’m terrified that Miss E will fall off, as the bed is high. Probably why the photo is blurred, I was on high alert!