Growing up my parents would take us to London every Christmas. We would go one evening and see Father Christmas in Selfridges, look at the windows, and see the lights.
It was beyond exciting, I can remember it so well. The cold, the excitement, the crowds. It was just magical.
And it is a tradition that I really want to carry on with my own children, so last night we did just that!
We picked the children up from school, drove to the train station and off we went.
We headed straight to Regent Street and went to Hamleys, I have to admit that it was rammed and from a parents point of view probably not as enjoyable as it was for the children.
But they loved it! The staff there are fantastic and really do put on a show for the children, there are lots of demonstrations and excitement.
We walked to Carnaby Street and had dinner and then to Selfridges and looked at their Christmas windows, sadly they don't have a Grotto anymore. So this part of the tradition I will have to re-live elsewhere!
We had such a fabulous evening and the children are now well and truly ready for Christmas.
Do you have any traditions from your childhood that you want to carry on with your own children? Or perhaps you have some new traditions?

New Year is looming and I am truly terrible at New Year Resolutions, I always make them and never keep them.
I have read other blogs going for a New Year Feeling instead of a New Year Resolution. I like this mostly because I think it is more achievable! You aren't setting yourself up for a fall, and I am all up for that. So instead of writing a bullet point list of things you want to do in the year, you go for an over all  feeling instead.

I have lots of things I would like to achieve this year, but here are just a few.
I want to be braver, make more, craft more, put myself out there more, play more, be healthier.
So the feeling I am going for this year is ...

My husband will roll his eyes at the cheesiness of this. But I think positivity is something I need more of in my life and I am going for it in 2013.
What feeling you would like to achieve next year? Or do you have resolutions that you are going to go for?

This weekend we were doing one of our family traditions, which I think was supposed to be number 24 on the ShareAdvent event, but I have another family tradition that I am going to share on the 24th as well.
Every year we go to our local Christmas Tree Farm to purchase our tree. It is a welly boot affair with lots of running around and looking at inappropriate sized trees.
It is great fun and the kids love it. They usually want to buy the 10foot tree that wouldn't even fit in our front garden, I am then baddy Mummy who has to bring them back down to earth about the size of tree we can actually fit in our front room.
It's such a great afternoon out and the children then spend the rest of the day decorating the tree, or rather, decorating the bottom half of the tree.
This year it was timed with the film Elf being on the television, have you seen it?
If you haven't you HAVE to watch it. It is my all my time favourite Christmas film, and I think is number 17 on the ShareAdvent event. If you do nothing else on the list, watch Elf!

It's snowing! Great big fluffy snowflakes!
The children are literally whooping and went of to school in a very excited state.
The small girl and I are cozying up inside, (after a brief spell in the garden).
It has made me feel like I don't have enough knitwear in my life.
So I thought I would share with you a few of my knitwear likes from my Pinterest page...

Is it snowing where you are? If it is I hope you have enough knitwear in your life and are keeping warm. 

Blogs everywhere are already on the Christmas trip, but I have to admit it, I'm not feeling festive yet.
I am always a bit late of the mark for the festive excitement, I tend to do my whole Christmas shop two days before the big day, if not on Christmas Eve itself. And only then do I tend to feel excited.
I appreciate this probably makes me sound a bit, well,  Grinchy. And I would just like to defend myself and say that I am far from a Grinch! I do really love Christmas, I love how excited the children are and our little family traditions. Decorating the tree, fabulous films on the television. I won't go on, you get it.

So this year I am trying to break my own tradition, I am being organised and trying to get into the swing of it a bit earlier this year. I've even bought a few pressies already.
And I have also put myself up to do a couple of online activities to help me along the festive path, the first one being Share Advent, which is the brainchild of Skin and Blister.
It's a way for us all to share our different ideas, crafts and traditions in the form of an advent calendar.
I am going to do my best to join in and hopefully feel a little more festive a little earlier.
If you like the sound of joining in, or just having a nose pop here. You can do as much or as little as you'd like and take a peek at what everyone else is doing.
Below is Skin and blisters image and a list of some of the ideas for the advent, but she explains it much better on her own blog here.

Whilst I am on a bit of a roll of trying to feel festive, I am also going to have a shot at this, it is a December photo project. You need to take one photo a day for the whole of December. Which is pretty self explanatory.
As you can all see for your own eyes, I am no photographer! But I figure it's more about taking part than winning any prizes. Although I do have the sneaking feeling that there are going to be some seriously good pics being entered.
If you like the look of this as well, get yourself over there and sign up.
What with getting everyones Christmas wreath orders made, the Christmas shopping and everything else that this time of year brings.
I am going to be pretty busy, and hopefully feeling festive!

We did it! We survived our first craft fair.
Before I go any further I should probably first explain that our table was a coalition.
Myself and my good friends Rachel and Mandy decided to go in it together for our first crack of the craft fair whip.
Mandy is a cook extraordinaire and has her very own blog over at Tatty Bogles Makes and Bakes, and Rachel is a crochet queen but has no blog as of yet, (pressure is being applied).
We all worked like trojans last week to make enough goods to fill our own thirds of the table, and if I do say so myself, I think we did really well!
We had a lovely day and made some pennies so all in all it was a great success, we are now looking into doing more.
Now that I have finished the craft fair I need to start cracking on with everyones Christmas orders. Not to mention getting myself organised for Christmas.
I am only just starting to feel a little festive, I have avoided seeing 'the Christmas advert' that (for me) is the tipping point.
I won't say the words but it's the one with the big red truck?!
If you like the look of anything on our table then head on over to our Facebook page and have a peek at some of our goods. We have plans for a more extensive online shop, but that is still in the making.
I hope you are all feeling a little more festive and a little more organised than I am.

Life has just been totally crazy for the last week.  I am neglecting Everything, even my children are not getting the best of me at the moment!
The reason?
Well, last weekend, myself and two of my friends had the crazy idea of putting ourselves in for a craft fair.
This coming Saturday.
At the time it sounded like a good idea, I was swept away by the excitement of it, the conversations going along the lines of, 'we could totally do it'.
A few days in, and I am thinking we may well be a bit mad.
Every day I have been sat on the floor in my front room, crafting.
In fact, I have just taken a break for 10 minutes to write this and post a photo, so you can get the jist of the craziness.
I did take a (very) brief moment to consider posting a really lovely, pretty photo of all my goods laid out beautifully with some nicely placed ribbon.
But it wouldn't of been very honest.
Instead I am posting a photo of the reality, of where I have been sitting with dead legs, with moaning children, glueing, sticking, sewing and silently swearing. And if I am going to be really brutally honest, this isn't even it at it's worst.

And yes, that is a glass of red in there on the right. As I am on an honesty trip, I should probably also add that my wine intake has increased this week.
I am hoping that once Saturday is over, normality will return. The clothes washing will get done and the hoover will leave the cupboard.
Is it like this for everyone? Or are you seasoned crafters more organised, less messy, perhaps just more able to 'do it all'?!
I have to admit that even though it has been hard (and I am far from ready) I have rather enjoyed making on a larger scale than normal, having a deadline.
And am hoping that this is the start of something exciting.
I will be back once it is all over with an update, and of-course after I've shown the hoover the light of day.

We have been rather lucky over the last couple of weeks.
Our first little bit of luck was a competition win, sadly not of the lottery variety but exciting none the less.
But I should probably start at the beginning ...
There is a rather lovely blog we follow called Little Tree Designs which is by a rather talented pattern designer called Rebecca.
She was running a competition to win a vintage garland, now, I am a sucker for A. a garland and B. anything vintage. So I entered and kept everything crossed, luck was on my side and I won!
Over the moon does not cover it.
I received the garland in the post a little while ago and thought it high time to blog about it.
I really wanted to post a picture of the garland in situ, but am not putting it up until I have finished decorating so you will have to suffice with a photo from Little Tree Designs.

Isn't it fabulous??!!!!
A very big thankyou to Rebecca! And if you have a spare five minutes do pop over to her blog and have a look at her designs, she really is very clever.


Now, our second piece of good luck was also a competition, (can you see a theme here), over Halloween there was a pumpkin competition being run by Sorbet Designs. Sadly this time we did not win, but we came a very respectable third. And with that came a spot prize of vouchers for printing goodies.
We keep popping into the Sorbet Designs website looking at their offers and deciding what to spend our vouchers on, at the moment we are swaying towards some business stickers.
What would you spend them on?

I have been rather neglectful of my blog this week. I apologise.
I put this down to a couple of reasons, the main one being that the weather has well and truly changed. I know, at best, this is actually a bit lame!
But it has been so coooold, and I have found it quite difficult to get going and cracking on with all the things I actually need to be cracking on with.
Instead I have been doing a lot of time wasting, and drinking very hot tea.
I hope I am not the only one who struggles at the onset of winter? (Feel free to re-assure me).

However, today I have turned a corner. I spent the morning crafting with a couple of rather lovely friends of mine, and it has given me the push I needed to crack on!
Nothing is finished or ready to be shown to the world, but I am on the case.

In the meantime, I would like to say a big fat Congratulations to America. I am truly over the moon that you have chosen Mr.Obama to lead you for another 4 years.
I really, really like him.

So that's another Halloween finished!
Did you have fun?
We had a great time, we really embrace the Halloween celebrations in our house. I am just a bit gutted that it wasn't such a big thing when I was small.
We carved some pumpkins, made some ghosts to hang outside of our house, dressed up, handed out a tonne of sweets and the children went trick or treating.
The only down point of the whole thing is the amount of sweets we now have in the house, and how to manage that.
At the crack of dawn the children are asking to have sweets from their bounty, before there is a sharp intake of breath, I do say, No!

The children made these ghosts and we hung then out the front of our house, I sometimes forget that its the simple things that can bring the greatest pleasure.
We cut up an old sheet that had seen better days, screwed up some kitchen towel for the head and tied with some wool I found, then they drew faces on them with a marker pen.
It was so simple and didn't cost anything, wasn't crazy messy, but, the children Loved it! They are already talking about doing more next year.

The pumpkin carving is always a hit, although the best bit is always putting the tea light inside and putting them outside for the world to see.

Hope you like our Black and White moody theme for our pics, we will return to normal colour for our next post.