jamfancy

Hello
Well, Christmas is pretty much over and if you are lucky and generous relatives gave you cash for Christmas, your thoughts may be turning to……shoes, naturally!
Here are some of my current favourites:
Mina Perhonen, I saw these in Japan, but they were way out of my price range, Im never certain about Western boots, but these had butterflies

More Mina I think


these are from Poti, very cute and extremely well priced


Jeffry Campbell
Gold shoes from Cledran

These adorable boots from Cocue, that I am struggling not to buy

and these strappy but Im hoping infinitely practical and comfy shoes from Birkenstock as seen at Clevernettle that I did cave in over and buy

and just in case any of these seem a bit tempting to you, they can usually be found by doing a search at Rakuten, which wonderfully allows for us international shoppers to get access to Japanese goodies.

Hello
Not sure why, but in making a  picture for Pauls handmade chocolate packaging we came up with the idea of a little bandit chef.

Hello
Well, this was new last year………….but as I havent made anything new this year thought I would put up pictures of it again.  It was the rather creeepy white faux wood wreath that set this all off

Alice’s Tea Party



and the white Rabbit

Hansel and Gretel


and things you would find in the woods



Red Riding Hood too, she really needs a wolf though I think, maybe just a quick sewing project for today……………………

Paul has comandeered my sewing table though to make filled chocolates, perhaps I should just document the messy chocolatey fun instead!

Hello
Paul and I are really getting into the Christmas spirit, we’ve had our first party, the house is decorated and the eating has begun in earnest
much to the shock and dismay of this giant Chocolate snowman I bought from Koko Black today

Hope you are all having a lovely, fun and filling lead up to your Christmas!

Hello
I was going to post something else entirely this morning, but came across Dinosaur Designs as I was browsing about and got a very nice surprise.  Its been ages since I last visited.  I own a lovely deep red chunky rose ring and a butterfly in green, but they went a bit geometric for my tastes and Id basically forgotten about them, but look at some of these lovelies…..
from the bird collection


My other favourite of the collections were the Fungi, just saying Fungi is nice too




and they have mushroom lamps too!

for more mushroom fun you can go to their fungiverse and make and name your own mushroom.  There used to be a store near me, hope it is still there, Id love a little mushroom of my own.

Hello
Went a bit Max on the Christmas cake this year, just finished him off this morning

I suppose the big question is, will we eat him?

Hello
Paul and I make a Gingerbread House for Christmas each year and I thought I would share our funny old recipe and diagram of how to make it with you.  It came from an old set of Cookbooks of the World or something like that, but I have no idea the real name of the book.  Its a great tasting house though, sort of just a little cakey rather than the brittle biscuit type of Gingerbread.

Paul did the fancy icing line work on this one and added something a little different with an opening door and shutters on the windows.  You can add any kind of door or window that you like really.

The hardest part is not eating half the lollies you are supposed to be decorating with  and even eating the icing as well, you can end up on one Hell of a sugar high!
* Just a note, the only real changes to the recipe that Paul does is to beat the egg whites to the very stiffest peak forming consistency possible, then add the sugar in two parts instead of lots of little parts as it says in the recipe.  Hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Hello
Its a bit of a re-run, but I was setting up the Creepy Christmas tree yesterday and thought Id share it with you all again, it always gives me a laugh.

the cast of creepy characters:
Some kind of friend of Wednesday Adams, maybe Tuesday?

Her Furry Friends, cranky cat

bad attitude bunny

and the despondent deer

and all the decorations:
dead rats and double headed deer, spiders and decapitated angels, mummified bunnies and cats heads, actual sausage dogs and skulls with a snake and sad teddy bear.





Maybe next year I will get around to making that severed head I’ve always wanted!
Hope your Christmas decorating is going well.

Hello
Just popped over to random.org whilst having my breakfast and the winner is lucky number 87 Piccadilly!!  Ive sent you an email too  : )  Congratulations and thank you very much to everyone who entered and for the very kind and often amusing comments too.  I enjoyed this a great deal and will have to make it a tradition I think.

Hello
A little while back Paul and I had our first Wedding Anniversary.  We have two of them, the “when we met” one, which is eighteen years now and the Wedding, which was our first, traditionally the gifts should be of paper.
I knew exactly what I wanted to give Paul and I was so very, very lucky as to be able to get it.  I asked Amy Earles “Wool and Water” if she would consider doing paper dolls of Paul and me in our wedding outfits and she agreed!  I knew it would be beautiful, but it was so much more beautiful than I expected.

The detail is amazing and the cute little personal additions like Paul’s spotty socks and my doll carrying a little “Christina the Bride” Blythe doll were lovely.  I was blown away by them, wanting to touch but afraid to in case I damaged their miniature perfection.  I can’t say thank you enough Amy, they are so very special to both of us.

I have been keeping this vintage black wooden frame with carved hearts for probably a good ten years now, waiting for something just right for it and now it has its perfect match.
I made a present as well, at last getting around to putting our Wedding pictures into an album:






There are photos of us in there……………but I hate showing pictures of me, we have all our cards and even the cork from the Champagne bottle as well.  I really like this two Anniversary thing, more presents, more lovely dinners.