Christmas decorations with pine cones

Scented cones piled high in a bowl makes a wonderful feature in your room . YOu can make gifts of them by lining a box with felt and filling it with the cones (collected free from the forest)

Method

collect:-
Pine cones
Large china mixing bowl
20 drops of pine or cedarwood oil
cling film
gift packaging ( optional)

1 Place the cones in the mixing bowl
2. Add the pine or cedarwood turning the cones as you do so to coat each one with the oil.
3. Cover tightly with clingfilm
4. Leave for one week
5 Place in a decoarative container

The oil will gradually evaporate into the room scenting the air as it does. Once it fades, simply repeat the process.

Our local garden centre is selling small bags of scented cones tied in muslin with pretty ribbon for £9.95 ! Think what you could do to present this on a market stall for little cost and maximum profit!

Christmas decorations

How many houses in your area decorate the whole of the outside for Christmas ? There are many in Norfolk where I live that really go overboard and the electricity bills must be enormous!
I would be interested to know what happens in other countries. One house locally collects for charity at the gate so I suppose it is a worthwhile cause . What are your views? I am doing a small survey on this to write a report for our local paper so would really welcome your comments and any pictures you may have.

Christmas spirit?

Have you yet collected any bits and pieces? Are you following my tips and recipes ?
Or are you already fed up with all the Christmas Hype in the shops? I generally feel very depressed with the long dark days and nights so try to cheer up with cooking and making decorations.

My family will not be having a very good time this year as my youngest has been left penniles with a small baby. The dad went off having emptied the joint bank account so we are all pulling together to try and help her.

I am hoping to purchase some toys on line at reasonable prices . DVDS and other electronic games and books and so on are always good for friends and relatives and if you click on the Amazon link at the side of this blog you will find some of these very cheaply.

Thats my tip for tonight - see you tomorrow!

Christmas cake

Ever made a BOILED christmas cake? Here is the recipe:-

500g mixed fruit , small tub of glace cherries, 250g sugar, 90g butter, 250ml water,280g flour, 2 tsp bicarbonate or saod, pinch salt, 1 egg - beaten, 4 tbsp BRANDY!

1. Heat oven to 150c
2 Boil all the fruit, sugar, butter and water together for about 10 minutes
3. Leave to cool
4. Stir in all the dry ingredients
5. POur in the egg and brandy all mixed up.
6. Line an 8 inch tin with two layers of greaseproof paper. Grease well and put the mixture in!
7 Bake for 1 1/2 hours. Test the centre of cake with a skewer . If ready the skewer will come out clean. Turn off oven and leave cake in it for a while to prevent sinking . Remove from oven
8. All to cool completely before taking out of the tin.
9. Sprinkle with brandy and seal with clingfilm. Allow to mature for at least two weeks . Sprinkle brandy once a month to keep moist!

EASY!

If you want LOADS of new ideas copy and paste this link into your browser:- YOu can download hundreds of recipes of your choice:

http://steffi1.vjjepub.hop.clickbank.net

Christmas table decoration 1

I hope you have been collecting all your bits and pieces for the first of many decorations. This one is really easy . Have you got any small fir cones wire and ribbon?

First , purchase a piece of oasis foam in the shape of a cone. Or buy a block and cut it into a cone shape so that it fits a small terracotta pot.

Items required:-
Florists wire
Small terracotta pot
pine cones
ribbon
spray paint - any colour you like but gold would be good at Christmas.
Lump of plasticine or florists clay
Florists holder. This is a plastic gadget you push into the plasticine and then place the foam cone on top!Costs about 15p

Method
Place the plasticine in the bottom of the pot
Place the plastic holder on top- push it hard in so the prongs are upwards.
Place the dry oasis cone on top of this. (Make sure your cone fits the diameter of the pot!)
Begin by wiring each small pine cone around the base leaving wire "legs" sticking out to stick into the cone shape , largest at the bottom and small at the top until you get a true cone tree effect and the oasis is completely covered.

Make small bows and put a piece of florists wire around leaving a "leg"of wire to push into the foam. Make sure all the foam is covered.Any gaps push in a wired bow.

You can spray the cone tree with paint or snow before you push the small bows in .

Tie a large bow around the pot - voila - a small or large table decoration depending on your pot size. YOu can even paint the pot first if you like or glue the ribbons with a glue gun.
It is really easy. I will make one and take a picture to publish later on in this blog!
Have a go!

Bye for now

Christmas pudding tips

This is the first of many tips and recipes I will be adding to this blog throughout the Christmas period. I so hope you are enjoying this and will add comments when you can.

It has been traditional to serve Christmas pudding with brandy sauce or worse - brandy butter. Our family has never liked either of those two options and short of using ordinary custard thought there was nothing really suitable. Well we have now, for years, been using brandy cream as an option. Not the stuff you buy in the supermarket but the real thing made at home in minutes.

Recipe:-

Ingredients;
* Whipping cream - light version if you wish or Elmlea - the cream alternative
* Brandy
* Caster sugar to taste ( we often use sugar substitute to "slightly" cut down the calories!)

Method:-

Whip the cream until nearly stiff.
Add the sugar or sugar substitute and a generous serving of brandy ( or rum if you prefer)
Continue whipping until stiff and spoon over the hot pudding just before serving.

WOW! Just watch that cream run down the hot pudding and taste the brandy in it - you really will NOT go back to custard or brandy butter.

Watch this space for more easy tips and recipes.

Also look at the list of treats and recipes at the link under here- paste and copy to view.
http://steffi1.searchhits.hop.clickbank.net

Christmas gifts

I found this article and thought it a "must read " for every internet surfer who is interested in Christmas gifts for like - minded people. Please read below:-

good computer or office chair as a Christmas present? Why?

Especially since the best Christmas gift for healthy computing (some would say) is a day away from the screen. Hard to argue there!

However, you will have to creep back sometime - and why not arrange for (or treat yourself to) a special Christmas present for healthy computing that will look after you for the rest of the year?

Invest in a quality ergonomic chair. Look for 5 feet, adjustable or preferably removable padded arms, adjustable lumbar support, well-graduated back and seat height adjustment, and seat covering in a natural breathing material such as mesh fabric polyester cotton or leather, with a waterfall edge and tilt control. You might like the appearance of button tufted computer chairs too.

Whew!

Remember that if you don't buy a good computer or office chair, you are not just getting a less comfortable product. Inferior manufacturing techniques may mean it could suddenly break or collapse, causing you - at the least, considerable embarrassment, at the worst, serious injury.

Even a caster coming off can make the chair useless or unsafe, especially if spares are hard or slow to obtain. Also while you are waiting, a broken office chair is awkward to store or return, looks horrible standing around, and is a reminder you wasted your money cutting corners!

A quality office chair will also look and feel a lot better than Brand X seating a year from now. But if you have an ergonomic brand name chair that is showing its age, why not spoil yourself and your workstation, by arranging replacement with an upgrade, or the latest model?

You can pick out a good ergonomic office chair now. Check out the best online office furniture suppliers. They can both advise on and supply almost any type or design of office chair, and fix any problems quickly.

They also offer some great discount deals on premium office chairs like Chairworks, Backsaver or even Herman Miller Aeron. The office chair suppliers' sites are usually fully illustrated, so you can see and compare what you are getting. Check out several sites, and make immediate note of the Web addresses of sites offering the chairs that take your fancy.

Following this, you should sample a couple of the best office chairs in a local office furniture branch - there is no substitute for personal seating preference. Play round with them; try sliding the chairs close to a desk or ideally,a workstation or computer set-up there. Then you can decide afterwards on the basis of appeal price and service, whether to purchase online or offline.

If the chair is not being collected, make sure you check prospective delivery dates either way!

Try and skip lounging or massaging options though. Seating like that MIGHT pamper you, but you’ll never get a proper healthy computing position-or get much work done in one!

To further save money, you might wait for the New Year sales. Downside to this is, will the best office chair still be part of the sale?

Also, is it really a Christmas gift after Christmas? You decide...

Whatever your choice regarding an ergonomic chair as a Christmas gift, here's wishing you healthy seating and computing 2006 and beyond!

Get hot Christmas gift resources and tips for ALL your needs-not just Healthy Computing- at Mick's latest information site,
Christmas Ideas NOW

The main site is still dedicated to keeping you fit safe and happy on and off your PC:
http://www.m1mart.co.uk

see also http://www.articleavenue.com

Christmas shopping on line

According to the latest estimate a huge 50% of Europeans will be shopping on line this Christmas . More and more people prefer to shop in comfort from home than in the crowded high streets .

Traditional retailers should be worried by this trend which is why - where I work- we have a booming dot.com operation to capitalise on the ordinary shopper and also the interner users. The Christmas season presents a prospect of a huge increase in sales. You can order anything from the online store and get it delivered by personal van the next day or , on a day to be decided by YOU!

No more trekking around the shopping malls with grumpy partners or grizzly children , have a glass of wine, sit at the PC, browse and order. The biggest bonus is that many internet retailers offer discounts and bonuses - cashbacks, freebies and all kinds of goodies to tempt you away from the traditional methods of shopping .
If you like the idea of shopping in comfort - why not try it yourself? There are a huge number of online stores including famous high street names.

Have a look now at this site www.ukonlinemarket.co.uk for loads of offers and freebies. And of course there is the world famous AMAZON site - you can buy anything you wish there really cheaply and at the moment they are offering free delivery for anything over £15.00 ! Really good deal for all those toys books and so on. If you click on the box at the side of this posting you will get right on to the Amazon site!

You will be surprised to see what is on offer there. - see you tomorrow!

Christmas decorations

Here we are again. Today I am rushing to get to work but with a view to later posts on this blog I suggest you start getting together a few things for your Christmas table decorations . I will explain in easy steps how to make something that looks great and cost pennies.

If you are really into traditional Christmas decorations with greenery and glitter or "snow" and candles , it is really easy to create a table decoration which looks as if you bought it for a lot of money.

Start collecting now - pine cones, bits of wired ribbon ( they have these at most card shops or garden centres and cost about £1 for 3metres) and purchase a few items - oasis - green if you wish to use fresh foliage and beige for artificial items. Do not buy real ribbon it is too limp to make an impact and anyway gold or silver looks best for Christmas. I bought 20 shatterproof baubles at my local £1 shop (for exactly one pound of course) Great value. I also got some decorative paper ribbon for 50p.

You may wish to visit your local garden centre or florist to see what they have in the way of Christmas decorations.This will give you some ideas and you can buy your oasis there as well. They also sell holders for candles to push into the oasis. They are usually green have a pointed bit at the bottom and a small cup shape to hold the candle at the top. This means when the candle burns down you can easily replace it. You can push candles straight into the green oasis but that is not very satisfactory as they fall over!. The holders only cost about 15p so will not break the bank.

And of course do not forget the candles!

Hope your nativity play is going well all you primary teachers - or try something really simple eg nine lessons and carols. I have done that very successfully with 9 year olds.

Speak to you tomorrow

Decorating

Well it is nearly here again and I don't know about you, but it seems no time since last year. Perhaps it is an age thing and the years go quicker as you get older? Anyway here we are thinking about how we can afford it and how little money we have to spare. I am starting this blog at Christmas but the tips on decorating and flowers and menus will apply all year round . Most of it in the current months will be about Christmas . When I was a teacher I was frantically trying to get together a nativity play - if you are at that stage there is a very good website which can help here. I will set up the link and you can have a look for yourself. Meanwhile must log off as I am supposed to be looking after my grandson. Let me know what you are worrying about re decorations, menus or whatever and I will offer sensible suggestions.