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...

Just made some Lemon sugar hand scrub and after testing a couple of times, can confirm that I have the softest hands in the world .

I did have to put loads of lemon essential oil in thought to get only a vague whiff of lemon. Was really hoping that my hands would smell all lovely and lemony but they don't really . Should I just try bunging a load more in? Or would some lemon juice make it smell stronger. Want to keep for Christmas so thought lemon juice might make it go yucky...

Have just spent a whole afternoon reading these two threads while the DCs spend the last day of half term staring at various screens . Have bought some lovely little tins of olive oil and want to make Italian styled mini hampers, with unusual pasta and probably a couple of jars of sauces. Any ideas for sauces that wouldnt break the bank? Pesto and tapenade use expensive ingredients and we really need to keep costs down this year.
Thanks

My jars of lemon scrub don't look very nice now. The oil seems to have sunk to the bottom and when I shook the jar, it made the scrub clump together and the oil separate even more! I think I may have scrap them as gifts and use them myself instead. What a disappointment! Has anyone else had any success with the scrubs?

Think i might try making bath salts instead, as I bought a load of little jars for the scrubs I planned to make in various flavours!

zeeky, mine have also did this, I left them to settle for a while then stirred them and they are fine now!

Addictediam - glad to hear that all is not lost with the scrubs. I will leave them for a few days and see what happens.

I did one scrub and decided it wasn't up to giving to anyone else so will pop it in my own stocking as DH is very unlikely to do anything about a stocking for me without some serious prompting

Can I ask you to measure your wrists please? I'm making some bracelets to sell at the craft fair (and for gifts) but have very small wrists myself and would like an average measurement. TIA [hsmile]

15cm (probably I'd like to wear it at about 17cm depending on style)

acsec my actual wrist measures almost 14cm but I don't like bracelets much shorter than 16cm
(another one here with small wrists so not sure how much that's going to help!)

15cm here too. But as Flubba says, depending on the style, I would probably want 17/18cm? I don't know if we're helping much with our small measurements!

hmm, do all crafty people have small wrists?

Dont know if its been mentioned but Sainsburys do these jars for £1.

Average ladies wrist size for bracelets is about 7 inches - I make a range from 6.5-7.5 inches and that seems to cover nearly everyone. Mine is 17cm, my (loose) watch strap is 19cm which is about where I'd want a bracelet to be.

Helenagrace - a while ago, but I've made both turkish delight and marshmallows. have to admit both turned out more floppy than I'd have liked and I would add a bit more gelatine next time. The marshmallows tasted particularly nice though, and I've since seen various recipes which have something red like a raspberry syrup swirled into them and they look gorgeous, i might have to make them this year.

:o Thunderbolt :o

thunderbolt in the nicest possible way.... you're a twit!

I have to say, I was tempted to get my tape measure out to see just how big 21cm wrists were! :o

So, back to the thread . I have just made t-shirts with the girls à la pinterest here and it was so lovely, I'm going to do a grown-up one for my DH with the girls' pics for Christmas. Jubbly.

I need help please! I think I posted this request on the 1st thread and the last couple of weeks have been so busy that I've completely lost track of this one.

I have 12 tin buckets that I want to fill with something to make as presents for children. I already have some pirate pencils and some Christmas pencils so thought I could go with an arts n craft theme. Any suggestions as to what else I could put in them? I have considered homemade play dough but not sure if it'll last until Christmas if I make it now.

I've got a share of a table at our school ladies night next thursday so I need to get a move on so I've got something to sell when I get there .

I have 14 button Christmas tree decorations and 2 teacup pincushions so far...

My lemon scrub the same, i just stir it every so often and it seems to be ok, i'm planning on just doing this a couple of times a week until the big day, unless anyone else has any better ideas?!

BabyDubsEverywhere I used this honeycomb recipe last year and it worked well. I don't have a sugar thermometer so I did the dropping a bit in a glass of cold water method, which was fine. I guess to get it crunchy you have to make sure it's reached the 'hard crack' stage - drop a bit in cold water and it forms a lump that you can snap with no stickiness. I'm no expert though, having only made it once!

Are you any good at sewing (thinking sewing machines here?) as the crayon rolls I've made have been very easy and look great- you could adapt them as I have to fit the pencils you're already giving?

Or you could personalise some notepads/drawing pads to go with the pencils.