All the homemade Christmas people over here please, lets share our ideas :) - SECOND EDITION :)

[BabyDubsEverywhere]

OLD THREAD

We were all on about pinterest, jars, and where we are up to in our christmas planning :)

Lets go...

Lisatheonewhoeatsdrytoast - We've made the vanilla brown sugar and lemon sugar scrubs in little 250ml jars already. Assuming it's air tight, I don't see any reason why it shouldn't last!

I'm sure if you post or pm your email address then there's plenty of us that can invite away.

Wow, I lost track of this for a couple of weeks and you're already into thread 2! I was posting under another name before, so may I say hi again here?

I've made pickled spiced plums (which are nice, we opened a jar to try since they've been maturing for a month), and lemon vodka, bramble vodka, and cherry brandy. Can I ask - what's your lemon vodka tasting like at the moment? I'm not honestly mad keen on mine! It tastes quite strongly of pith and doesn't have the lovely aromatic lemon-zest flavour I thought it'd have. Am I doing something wrong (there is sugar in it, in case you wondered!), or will the flavour develop into something nicer?

I have also just potted up paperwhite bulbs that I'd forgotten about - they were just starting to sprout (oops! ) but they look nice just poking through the soil now. Hopefully they will be ok!

Right, back to read the rest of the old thread slowly! Your plans are all very distracting inspirational.

I have pm'd you twice LiamW because i forgot my email in the first one Right i'm going to make this brown sugar thingy now then and i'm doing the lemon hand scrub thing too.

EllaDee love your name! The last thing I saw that actress in was a costume drama (Emma I think?) and I couldn't believe how utterly different from Ella Dee she looked.

I am suffering from Pinstress which is when you have amassed so many lovely ideas for Christmas gift making that even if you stop eating, sleeping and taking care of your children you will never have time to make them all

So far I have 'made' Bob The Builder and pirate notebooks for both sons and a pack of pirate mechanical pencils for DS1. I say made but the pencils and notebooks were plain Asda value ones (£1.86 in total) and I just put together and printed stickers to cover them in on A4 adhesive paper (£7 I think for 100 sheets on Amazon but I will use the other sheets too for other projects. Honest.) The little pencils look really cool covered in tiny pirate motifs and patterns - I am pleased with the way they turned out for such a small outlay! I have done a crayon roll for DS2 who is 18 months and adores a) crayons and b) putting things into little slots so that one is guaranteed to go down well. I am also in the middle of turning an old and lovely pair of his baby jeans into a little bag for him to carry around - next to putting things in slots and demanding total domination of the entire house his favourite thing to do is carry his big bro's lunch bag around so I think he will like having a bag of his own. I have made 3 sets of beanbags - plain and patterned denim ones for DS2 and stripey ones for his two toddling cousins with the letters of their names printed on the back (thank-you whoever invented printer transfer paper.) DS1 demanded I make beanbags for him too so now I am working on a set of three monster ones for him. I also made him a big activity book - I used printable wordsearches, crosswords, number puzzles, colouring in pages etc from sites like Activity Village and made up a few pages that are about his life (eg a wordsearch of the names of his 11 cousins, spot the difference family photo) and bound it all on a spiral binder. He will like it but we will like him having something other than non-stop talking to do now and again in the holidays . I also made him some hot chocolate spoons loaded with mini marshmallows to stir into hot milk using a spoon mould I already had.

I haven't been posting much because I was ashamed of how little I have got done but when I see it written down it doesn't look so bad :)

ancient - thanks! I actually chose it because it's a homophone for my old one (sort of).

I love the sound of your activity book - makes me wish I had appropriate-age children in the family to give them to! Baby niece was born at the end of April so will not I think even realize it's Christmas. But she will have a nice starry quilt (if I can finish it in time) from me. I'll have to come back to this thread in a few years for more ideas.

Oh, thanks for the recipe twolittlemonkeys! I'll let you know how it turns out.

ancient it sounds like you've made LOADS of stuff!! All of it sounds pretty time consuming too! I too have pin-fatigue - so much I want to do but not getting much done. I did manage to make some christmas pud rum & blackberry vodka and 2 batches of chutneys. Did a trip to hobbycraft yesterday for supplies & spent way too much. The problem I have is that we are trying to sell our house & every time I get all my craft stuff out ready to start something we get a viewing so I have to ram it all in the understairs cupboard tidy it all away! Frantically trying to get the smell of chutney out of the house before a viewing later on!

The smell of chutney would encourage me to buy a house, zeeky!

Has anyone found or has a recipe for Jelly Tot Vodka? I really want to give this a shot, for a cousin of mine!!!

I imagine jelly tot vodka is like all other flavoured vodkas.

Put the thing in the vodka
add sugar (if needed)
stir
wait
stir
wait
repeat stirring and waiting
filter off anything yuck

I'd say leave out the green ones to get a nicer colour.

yes i thought the same about the green!! I think i shall attempt this, is there something about leaving it for a couple of weeks, then filter it? Never made vodka before so completely new to the process?!

Leave it til it's dissolved, then run through something like muslin in a sieve to get rid of any yucky bits.

Have I let my lemon one go too strong then? I'm really not sure it's nice but I don't want to chuck that amount of vodka unless it's clear I've messed up.

Loving this thread - also Pin-fucked Been on it 2 days and have about 500 pins!

Made the melted rainbow crayons today with limited success (small steps)

Also working on handprint art, and considering liquorice allsorts vodka (would it work?)

Gonna start on felt decorations for the tree tomorrow.

Thank you for a lovely thread (pissed and emotional)

ella could you try putting some sugar into it?

thunder - oh, damn! I saw a recipe that said to peel off the zest with a potato peeler so yes, there is a little bit of pith because it cuts wide strips. I thought you were meant to. That will probably be it.

cheese - I'll try a bit of sugar. I was wondering why it wasn't nice and aromatic, but maybe the pith is covering that taste up.

Darn, darn, darn.

Just made some totally sinful fudge - chocolate Baileys flavour. It was soooo easy & quick to make & tastes AMAZING!!! Obviously this is just a trial batch which I will need to sample copiously to make sure it is suitable as gifts

Thanks thunder - I will do!

I've made lemonade before - the brown-sugar version - and put whole half-lemons in there, pith and all, so it hadn't occurred to me. Stupid, because I know how bitter it is if you zest it into cake mixture.

Ah well ... if nothing else DH says it is still fine Russian vodka and he will do his patriotic duty to it.

Ok, so i'm still going on about this jelly tot vodka!! Should i just follow the skittle type recipe, replacing with jelly tots?? And after i freeze it, when do i take it out and how do i store it until christmas??

Now been added to Pintarest pinterest.com/cbudbaxter/pins/ that's moi!

(Btw, the commiserations are appreciated - I feel so daft!)

Lisatheone my bro says put the jelly tots in the vodka, give it a good shake, keep it somewhere warm like the airing cupboard, shake it every day until the jelly tots dissolve. Strain it through muslin or a sieve lined with kitchen roll et voila.