Top Ten Tips for Feeling Festive

This time next month it will be Boxing day, Scary or what! I'm not a person who need to be forced into thinking Christmassy thoughts, pretty much from the 1st of September I'm already planning my Christmas tree theme for the year, but I know some people find it hard to even think about Christmas before November is over. If you are finding it hard to get into the Christmas spirit here are my ten tips for kick-starting all those fuzzy festive feelings.

1. Plan a Christmas meal with Friends.

Every year our girls meet up for a Christmas meal, it is always a highlight for me as I don't get to go to a work Christmas do because it would just be me and Mum, so we do that on Christmas day. It's really lovely to meet up with our girls and have a catch up and a giggle. It's a nice excuse to get dressed up, Oh and there is always wine...lots of wine!

2. Shop for festive food.

In my opinion a Terry's chocolate orange is not just for Christmas, I love comfort food and I love it when all the Christmas flavoured goodies and party foods are available in the supermarkets. Anything orange or mint flavoured, Hot chocolate, Sausages in bacon, lindt chocolate reindeer, chocolate logs, mince pies, Christmas cake, gingerbread men, You name it, it's on my shopping list as soon as it hits the shelves! Mr Kipling sent us some of their festive treats recently and the Winter Whirls are just delightful! If you like cinnamon-y ginger treats you will love them.

3. Head to a department store Christmas decorations department.

I always love my yearly trip to London especially to visit Liberty's, Harrods, Selfridges' and John Lewis' Christmas departments. It is always guaranteed to get me feeling festive. I don't always buy anything, but it is great for getting ideas for decorations.

4. Plan Your Christmas Day Meal

If you are hosting a Christmas day meal (like I am this year) then plan that one, but if you are heading to family for the day, plan a separate festive meal for yourself and your best friend/ boyfriend/ husband. Steve and I always have a special meal on Christmas eve, just the two of us, I go all out, cook his favourite meal, decorate, and we get to open one small present from each other. If your not up for cooking, get a special takeaway or go out to a nice restaurant, make an evening just for you.

5. Shop for and write your Christmas cards.

I hand-make Christmas cards for family and close friends but for people living further away I will buy some. I make sure I get them early and write them right away so they are ready to post come December the 1st, this means I get the best choice of cards in the shops and it leaves me time for other things come December. 

6.Visit a Christmas market.

I Love a good Christmas market and there are loads, all over the country to take your pick from. H and I are heading to Bath this year and I am really excited as I haven't been there for ages. It's a nice reason to visit a town you haven't been to before. Check out christmasmarkets.com for one in your area, or an area you want to visit, why not make a weekend of it?

7. Go Ice skating.

I Love Ice skating, especially at this time of year, it is great fun, even if you are not very good at it. There are loads of indoor and outdoor temporary rinks put up all over the UK, but especially in London. Head over to Time out's site to check out where and when you can get your skates on.

8. Make an advent calendar 

Get your craft on! There are so many great ideas for making your own advent calender floating around sites like Pinterest, get some inspiration and get making.  Surrounding yourself with all things sparkly is a great way to get into the spirit.  If you don't want to make one for yourself or you don't have kids, make one for a friends children like the girls at A Beautiful Mess did.

9. Visit some spectacular Christmas lights.

When I was young my Dad used to drive us up to London to see the Christmas lights, one year we went all the way to Blackpool for the weekend to see the illuminations. I am going to stay in London late this year on my decoration shopping trip just to take a look at the Christmas lights and shop window decorations on Oxford Street. This is one thing sure to get the festive feelings flowing! 

10. Bake some Christmas treats.

there is nothing like the smell of Christmas baking, if you are not great at it, cheat like I do. Most supermarkets now sell ready-made gingerbread dough, just roll out, cut into shapes and bake!

I hope these tips have given you some good ideas to get your festive motivation going.

I would love to hear how you get in the Christmas spirit, let me know in the comments below.

Sammy xxx

Live it: Craft Candy App Launch Party

This week we were lucky enough to get invited by Zoe of Craft Candy to the launch for their new phone app so we thought we would tell you all about it.

If you haven't heard of Craft Candy, then you should definitely check it out. It's a website and now app where you can find your nearest and most relevant craft workshop. It is now nationwide and so you can find workshops not just in London but further afield - including all of our workshops. You can find by location or by Craft such as paper or jewellery, amongst many others. We had a ball at the launch in London!

Firstly we were greeted by a lovely goodie bag which we managed to wait until afterwards to check out! -albeit only to the nearest pret for a drink and a cheeky look through!

There was Gin provided by Jensen, who are a south London brand and as H loves Gin, it was a very lovely treat.

Then onto the cupcakes by The Teas Knees and I think by now you will know we are a cake fan! They had Red Velvet, Banoffee Pie and Lime & Coconut flavours and we tried a bit of them all! Well, you can't review without testing all the goods!

Lets take a moment to appreciate the Gingerbread twitter tree! What's that I hear you ask? We were intrigued too! The lovely lady from Maid of Gingerbread was writing all the tweets about the launch as they were happening and then adding them to the tree. People could then take away a gingerbread speech bubble to eat and it was lovely gingerbread!

We realised we had made it, as we got our name in icing on the gingerbread twitter tree!

The lovely Zoe gave a brief talk about the app and then left us to enjoy more delights from the night.

We then went over to Stars and Scars to make a shrink plastic charm! H decided on an anchor with the blog brand name on it, which is now a delightful necklace to be worn on blog outings and more!

Throughout the night we got chatting to many different crafty people; we saw Inma from The Old School Club; met some of the Shoreditch sisters, Charlotte who had the most amazing Liberty print satchel and Louise who is an avid reader of our blog - hello; and we said hello again to The Make Escape crew (check out the sparkly shoes below). There were plenty of people we didn't catch up with though, so do come say hello here on the blog or at the next event!  We are very friendly, honest.

I couldn't end this post without showing you what we got in the goodie bag!  It would just be unfair really wouldn't it!  So, here goes: Jensen Gin cocktails recipes, DMC cross stitch kits, Crafty Pint needle case and information, a reel of decorative tape, iPhone cross stitch case, Mini Urban 'Naughty word' cross stitch, business cards from all the sponsors and a Craft Candy button card and Bow Tie.

That should keep us busy for a while!

Big Thanks go again to Zoe at Craft Candy, we had a fab night and we wish you all the best with the app and of course the website.  Looking forward to the next catch-up.

H & Sammy

Live it.  Love it.  Make it