Belated Rudolph Day Update!

A little late on this one this month! Though I haven't let the day go by without doing a little something towards Christmas.

I have made my Mincemeat as per the recipe here. I now have 2 1ltr jars in the cupboard ready for mince pies and mince buns, can't wait to make some as the house smelt lovely as I was making it.

On Monday evening I made our Christmas cake - recipe here. Again the house smelt so good it was tough not to eat it there and then. It's wrapped up in a cake tin now and over the next couple of months i'll add the odd spoonful of Brandy to it for a little extra flavour.

Sunday evening was spent making Christmas Cards, I was on a bit of a roll and had to force myself to pack everything away in the end as it was late and way past bedtime! Here are a few of them

I still have a fair few to do and though i'm a bit behind from last year I think I should be ok. Once pay day comes up this week i'll hopefully be ticking a few more gifts of my list too.

Decluttering

I've spent this week clearing out our loft. It's been on my to do list for the past three years! With India in full time school now and me having a week off it seemed the perfect time. Now I don't like lofts, not been in any yet and not planning to, so instead my husband and stepsons dragged every box and bag down into their bedroom. The theory being that if it goes in there I don't have any choice but to sort it all or else they won't have an accessible bed the following weekend!

So once I had the house to myself on Monday I dived straight in. Mostly the boxes are filled with my books, I have way too many and unfortunately don't have the space to have them out in the house. I was strict with myself and ended up with around four boxes worth of books to go to our local charity shop at the weekend. Plus a few bags of rubbish, a few bits which have already gone via Freecycle. I also have a few items which we will put on ebay.

As I went along I made sure I took note of what is in each box so it will be easy to find once they go back into the loft. The boxes still look scruffy on the outside but inside they are tidy and that's what counts!

They are lined up now waiting to go neatly back into the loft at the weekend.

The only boxes in the loft that didn't need sorting out where my Christmas ones - those 9 stayed where they were - at least for next 2 and a half months!

Christmas Cards

I have got around to making a few cards at last. I am seriously lacking in motivation and inspiration at the moment though. Mostly I made a huge mess getting all my craft stuff out all over the floor and sitting in the middle of it looking blankly!

So any suggestions, should I buy a magazine, I don't usually but may have to resort to one or two? Is there a good website anyone can recommend which has some ideas?