Christmas nail art haul

Christmas time, nail polish and wine! I am so full of festive cheer this weekend, having my lone day off in the midst of lots of days helping people finish their Christmas shopping. Working on a high street again, I just can't help myself from popping to the shops in my lunch break. Last week I picked up a few nail related items that I love. 

1. Hello Kitty Nail Polish Trio £3.66 Sainsbury's Local This comes in the shades of Pinkalicious, Glitter Ball and Ballet Dancer. I love Hello Kitty, and I love Nail polish, so couldn't resist this bargain!
2. Barry M polish £2.99 / £3.99 Superdrug in 354 Amethyst Glitter and SLE 2012 (think this is a special edition for Christmas!)
3. Christmas nail art wheel £3.00 Claire's I love this to pieces! Going to share a mani I did with this wheel. It's so festive and cute :)

Here is a close up of all the nail art pieces from the Claire's. How cute is Santa!

CRAFT DIY - Robin Applique Scarf

This year I wanted to make something special for my Nana. She is a great lover of birds, nature and the countryside. She also loves to garden. I wanted to get her something she would really appreciate, but it also had a be budget friendly as I just don't have the funds for big gifts this year. I decided to hand decorate a scarf with a seasonal bird - a cute robin!!

I started off with a scarf from the pound shop (I know - I am cheap-o this year!), which is basically black fleece material that has been hemmed. I chose this because I knew the fleece would be super easy to stitch on.

I grabbed some felt and embroidery thread from my stash in appropriate robin colours - red, brown and white. I also had a sheet of black for stitching the robin on - and to hide my stitches on the final product!

Supplies needed:

• 1 scarf
• Paper pattern
• Coloured felt
• Coloured embroidery thread + needle
• Scissors

Step 1: Make some paper patterns

Step 2: Draw round patterns onto felt in appropriate colours x2

Step 3: Lay out your cute felt pieces to check you are happy before you start sewing

Step 4: Stitch each piece onto a piece of black felt, make sure there is space to cut around the robin (about 1/2 cm). Use co-ordinating thread for each coloured felt piece. Don't forget to add a beak!

Step 5: Carefully trim around the black felt (you will need enough space to stitch this onto the scarf!)

Step 6: Stitch your robins onto the scarf! If you have time you could add leaves / berries - it would look so cute! Modeled by my lovely mum before I wrapped it up :)

p.s. she has already opened it and was very pleased! yay!

Paper party

I have been a super busy Christmas Elf lately. Here are a few things I have been working on - animal Christmas cards, and an engagement card.

Keep calm...

Source: tube-blaster.com via Hilda on Pinterest

This describes exactly how I feel today! I feel slightly manic today, with such a busy day at work and so much to do I just kept getting the giggles and finding everything hysterical! I think the customers must have thought I'd gone mad!

Since I've been home I've been in non-stop Christmas organisation mode. I have some parcels of presents to send out to friends in other parts of the UK / Ireland, and I have decided I must get them in the post tomorrow just to make sure they get to them in time for Christmas. But the problem was I hadn't wrapped the presents / written the cards / organised how to package them. So now I have run out of jiffy bags and also run out of handmade Christmas cards!

Here's hoping I get these babies into the post and off to their destinations first thing in the morning! Busy busy day tomorrow of meeting people tomorrow for Christmas catch ups, so had to make sure I have their cards and presents ready to go too. My bag is huge at the moment with all these parcels, and I will have to be that annoying person in the post office who has to buy jiffy bags and be in the way... and then hold up other people while I weigh all my parcels going to different places.... I hope they understand I hate holding them up too!!!!

I thought I was so organised, but the Christmas stress is slightly getting to me!!!!

(Sorry for extreme overuse of exclamation marks....)