Creative Christmas Packaging

Happy Holidays everyone! Today (the 24th) we celebrate Christmas here in Sweden. I know that for my overseas readers it's still a day early, so I thought I'd post some last-minute gift wrapping inspiration.


I love wrapping presents in simple brown paper, but it does feel a bit plain if you don't add some color! Last week I made these tags/ornaments for my gifts, inspired by Helena at Craft and Creativity. They are made of air-dry clay, stamped with regular rubber stamps. I think they do much to brighten up my gifts!


Hope you all have a wonderful holiday!

Christmas Cracker Tutorial

D'oh! I forgot to mention to you all that I had a guest post published over at the Pickled Herring a few days ago! Kathryn approached me several weeks ago asking if I would like to contribute to her "Scandinavian Christmas" blog series. Of course I was thrilled!


I contributed a tutorial for these very traditional Swedish Christmas ornaments. They are similar to British Christmas crackers, but less noisy and much simpler to make. We don't have a tree this year, but I hung the ornaments of a door handle for good measure:


If you'd like to make some ornaments of your own, head over here to read my tutorial!

Homemade Cinnamon Toffee

Hope you are all excited for the holidays to start! I am leaving for my mothers' today, and we will be celebrating Christmas in her cottage in the country. Before I leave, I wanted to share a recipe for some x-mas treats I made the other day - simple and tasty! The original recipe (in Swedish) can be found here, but I went ahead and translated for my non-Swedish readers! Here goes:


Cinnamon Toffee Recipe

Ingredients:
100 g (3,5 oz or roughly ½ cup) butter
2 dl (roughly 1 cup) granulated sugar
1 dl (roughly ½ cup) pale treacle
3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
4 tbsp all purpose flour

Directions:
Combine all ingredients in a heavy bottomed saucepan.
Bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Boil for about 5 minutes.
Pour the (very hot) toffee onto a parchment-lined baking sheet.
Allow to cool in the refrigerator, then cut into pieces using a sharp knife.
Store in the refrigerator, wrapped in parchment paper or cellophane.


These are my toffees before I wrapped them in parchment paper to give away. The recipe is supposed to make around 40 pieces, but of course that depends how large you make them. Beware, though - they are very sweet! Small pieces are best.

Patchworking

How is it December already?? We had the first snow in Stockholm yesterday - and though it melted within minutes, it was still a nice feeling. I've been doing quite a bit of Christmas crafting lately, but nothing I can show yet unfortunately! I have too many family mambers following my blog... So I thought I'd show you another little gift I made for Liv.


It's a patchwork ball, completely hand sewn using a great tutorial posted by iHanna. I've been following Hanna's blog for ages, and finally got round to making this. Hand sewing is really relaxing, and this ball is a great project even if you haven't done much hand sewing before.


I made two different balls for two different babies, and put a couple of little bells inside for added fun. It's the perfect size for throwing around - Keith has already asked me to make one for him, too!


Stockholm is great this time of year - all the Christmas lights, hanging out in cozy cafés, going to the Christmas market right in my neighborhood... I'm ready for the holidays!