The Perfect Vintage Christmas - Super Kawaii Mama competition!

It’s hard to describe the perfect vintage Christmas, without describing my perfect Christmas! You see, there’s nothing I enjoy more at Christmas time then baking up some treats.





There is of course a tree to decorate with loving attention. Every decoration tells the story of years past – why some of our decorations came from my mother’s tree when she was a child!


Then I like to make my way to the post box, to mail a letter to Santa (there’s nothing wrong with asking for a pony at my age, is there?).




There’s fabulous parties to attend, calling for a dash of red lippy, and Christmas movies to watch.




In the days that lead to Christmas, there are trips to the city, to get that last minute shopping done, and admire the Christmas Displays.







Come Christmas Eve, there are always my three favourite men: Frank, Nat and Bing crooning away at us, while eating scrumptious fruit cake. We then fall asleep wearily, dreaming not of sugar plums or presents, but of seeing our family and friends.

Christmas morning brings me in my nightdress to unwrap presents, and that eternal Australian Christmas tradition – swatting flies off your roast lunch!

Merry Christmas!

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I’d like to add at this point a little thank you to SKM for running this competition – it reminded me to get cracking on all the simple Christmas things I wanted to do. We all get a little tied up in the commercial aspects of Christmas, so making the time to bake Melting Moments (as opposed to buying a box), stopping to enjoy the Christmas decorations with wonder (as opposed to hurrying past them frantically while trying to locate an X-Box game, five different CDs, a T-shirt with Transformers on it, and 15 C sized batteries for a remote controlled dinosaur), dress up to decorate the tree (as opposed to doing it in my pjs) and walking to the post office box with cards and letters (as opposed to not sending anything at all) made things very relaxed and sweet this time round. I will definitely continue at this lovely pace! Home made fudge wrapped with tartan ribbon anyone?

Check out Super Kawaii Mama’s blog while you’re at it – she’s ever so stylish :)

Easy Paper Snowflakes

Christmas decorations are crazily expensive! I don't know about you, but while the gorgeous Christmas decorations from various home decorating stores have novelty, as a poor struggling student, I'm not paying $12.95 per decoration!

Thankfully, there are many really cheap decorations you can cover your tree in and they look deluxe! So, for all of you sitting round bored out of your brains now, perhaps, you can make these.

3-D Snowflakes.

Try making these paper snowflakes outlined at How to Make a 3D Paper Snowflake (consider Wiki How To referenced!). They're very simple. I've hung mine somewhere they won't hit people in the head! They look great hung in door ways. They also make a nice vertical chain if you hang them along ribbon.

In case you're wondering, the biggest snow flake is about the size of my torso and made from A4 paper cut into squares.

Make tiny snowflakes with two cuts rather than three to hang on the tree with metallic gold thread. Don't staple these, it's best to use fine slivers of sticky tape! (I speak from experience...)

Look for my 3D Metallic Christmas stars which are perfect for decorating the tree with, within the next few days. I'll also show you different types of and ways to tie ribbon so all your Christmas presents look a million bucks (even if the present didn't cost that much!)

Well wishes x

Getting into the Christmas Feel

Some creative ideas for you over the next two weeks for my favorite time of the year:

To begin with, this is my favorite. I made this last year and it's the best thing I've contributed so far. You all know how cards are the most difficult things to display, so we try to stand them all up on shelves only for them to fall over at the slightest breeze, or we hook them over the blinds which while great on the inside, doesn't look so crash hot outside. Instead, try this.

You'll need:

* 4 x 2m ribbon in colour of your preference. I've used red with a gold lining because of the Christmas colour theme in my house but you can use any colours you prefer.
* 30 Christmas themed pegs. I've used little stockings with glitter on them. I found mine pre attached to a horizontal card hanger and cut them off.
* 4 Christmas decorations to attach to the end. You can use bells, angels, stars or greenery like mine.

All up this project was under $10. I got all the pieces at a bargain store locally.

Now it's simply a matter of securing the decoration to the end of the ribbon, you can use glue or just tie them to the end. If the decoration has a loop you could even sew the end of the ribbon neatly into the loop. Then attach them to the banisters like I have done, or else you could pin them in front of a window with thumb tacks. To store them, remove all the cards then just roll them neatly onto a stick and put away until next year.

NB. Alternative to making a card maker you can also just hang the ribbons and attach decorations along their length to make a novel Christmas display. I would recommend angels.