pretty paper. true stories. {and scrapbooking classes with cupcakes.}

Faux Christmas: noun. A day appointed for some activities normally reserved for Christmas day when some guests cannot be present on the 25th of December. Example: Since Tom and Amy are going to be cruising somewhere warm over the 25th, we opened a few presents on Faux Christmas today.

Does everyone have this from time to time? Surely yes. Even if it’s just a little something at work or the last day of school before the holidays. We’ve been drawing ours out over the whole weekend. Eight of us. Friday night we went to see Madness) at the O2, and discovered it’s eerily fast to get there and back on the 105 bus. Saturday night we had Christmas crackers, hats and table prezzies along with dinner at the pub and this morning we had Christmas brunch and a bit of presents. Like a sneak peek of the real thing, I suppose.

Once I was reminded of when Alicia made these I decided we needed to do such a thing as well, and they came out rather lovely I think. They made me smile a great deal, and I think I may need to get a few more jars to fill sometime soon. We wrote the instructions on little glassine envelopes, which we then filled with chocolate sprinkles, so everyone can have cocoa that is attractive as well as yummy. I’m sure it’s extra important.

Faux Christmas can be rather, rather lovely indeed.

xlovesx

PS: Nope, this isn’t our new place. Faux Christmas was largely held at the boy’s parents’ house. Shall I see if I can snap something in our new place soon? Like perhaps…Christmas decorations?

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Oh reliable internet access, how I miss you. Through a series of somewhat unfortunate events, we are technology-challenged in our new place for a while. Meaning we have no internet at home. Which is one of those things that sounds like no big deal…surely we have plenty to get on with in our dwindling city of cardboard boxes without wasting time by sitting in front of a screen, right? And ordinarily, I would say yes. But that’s kinda difficult when your job means you need to be online every day. Especially in December.

Suffice to say I am now at one with the internet hotspots in this part of the world. Things are getting done. And apparently our flat will join this century very, very soon. Which will be nice.

In the mean time I have been getting to grips with other sorts of technology. We have a dishwasher here, and I can’t tell you how happy this makes both of us. We both dread washing dishes, and that can make for a very dangerous situation indeed. It’s even a little two-person friendly washer. We also have a shocking bonus in a washer-dryer. Fluffy, hot towels for the first time in years! Please do not misunderstand me, as I really love England or I would never choose to live here, but the one thing that has constantly baffled me is the lack of dryers. Since space is at a premium, utility rooms are a luxury—that I understand—so washing machines end up in the kitchen. That I’m not totally sure I get, though the plumbing is there already, so I suppose it makes sense. Once you’ve ditched a kitchen cupboard for your washing machine, it’s not very convenient to ditch another for a dryer…leaving those not lucky enough to have space for a dryer to hang our washing to dry. This has proven difficult living in a flat with no garden to hang a washing line! Forgive me, but I really don’t like drying laundry in my living room. And even if we did have a garden…it does rain quite a few days of the year. So if you have never been to England, imagine yourself in a supermarket when you notice it has started to rain. Look around and you will undoubtedly see other shoppers picking up their mobile phones to call someone else at home and tell them to get the washing in, out of the rain. It is perfectly commonplace here, and yet it does seem to me a little like a comedy routine. Anyway…we can now dry things. In our kitchen. Don’t even have to swap machines or lose more cupboards. There is absolutely zero laundry in my living room right now, and that makes me gloriously happy.

Of course I have also been getting to know my new oven! It seems to be a bit more even than the last one (which had a habit of burning anything in the back right corner while leaving the front left corner totally uncooked) though it has its quirks, like not wanting to stop cooking. Ever. We’ll just have to keep eating, I suppose. It turns out that the little store with the pumpkin also had candy corn in for the autumn, so I couldn’t resist. {For Shaulean, who has been emailing me, the recipe is here. The only difference was that I left out the brandy butter—just regular cream cheese icing dusted with cinnamon.}

Once I got past the silly things like candy corn and Nutrageous bars, I started discovering other little gems, like the Ginger Curd in the top picture. For a tiny little shop, their collection of jams, curds and preserves is shocking and divine. Last year when I made these same cupcakes, the filling was inspired by just finding some ginger preserves. This year I found the ginger curd and whipped it up with some double cream, but otherwise the recipe for Gingerbread Latte cupcakes is just the same.

I had forgotten how pretty these look when they first come out of the oven.

The constant routine changes seem to have affected my ability to write about just one thing, so while I’m here, I’ll throw out these things that are blog posts in the back of my head:

*If you fancy a scrapping retreat in the spring, Karen Russell and I will be teaching at Scrap Fever and there is an early booking discount if you book by the 15th of December. So…you could put it on your Christmas list and hint a lot in the next day or two? So, so excited about that weekend.

*Issue two of You Can Craft is out now in the UK, and it has tons of tons of supplies with each issue. Perfect Christmas prezzie for someone you want to get crafting. Even if it is just so they will come over and craft with you. Which is perfectly fine. When you get this issue, see if you can spot the pillows from my living room!

*The girls who are journaling their Christmas are ohmygosh fabulous. Check out some of their work here for much red and green inspiration.

*Thank you to all the girls who cropped with me the last two weekends—in Enfield and Ipswich. It has been a fabulous end to the year for workshops!!

And now I better get back home and get to work on that ongoing project, as we have our first visitors this Friday!

xlovesx

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We are moved in but as normal there are a few things taking longer than we would like. Like say, the internet.

We love our new place but as normal have had a few surprises. Like say, we are allergic to the carpet.

We have finished rebuilding pretty much everything that needed to be rebuilt but we have lost a few things along the way. Like say, the screwdriver.

However, while we are cleaning, painting and generally finding out what fits where, I am writing lots of witty and endearing blog posts in my head. Let’s pretend that I actually blogged them and then we’ll all feel better. If that doesn’t make you feel better, I’ll add that we have just made some oatmeal cookies and you are welcome to have one.

And if that doesn’t make you feel better, I would suggest you not stand in the room with the carpet.

Soon I will return to this lovely little blog with photos of things like cookies and papercrafts but definitely not of whatever is in that carpet. I promise. {And yes, we are writing to the landlord to ask if we can just rip it out and go with the lovely floorboards that are underneath.}

xlovesx

PS: Please be kind and check out Pencillines this week, where those lovely girls asked me to force a sketch upon them and then they made such pretty things. Yay for buttons and paper and all things that are not carpet. Achoo!

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I received Apples for Jam for my 29th birthday, and at 30 I am ashamed of how little I have cooked from it. It’s true that I have cooked relatively little from most of my cookbooks, but I really think this book is a masterpiece. Tessa Kiros has arranged a book of family recipes by colour, and yet when you get to the pink chapter, it’s not a case of everything being sickly sweet desserts with pink icing. After all, some vegetables are pink too.

I fell in love with this book in the store for its weight and the look of it all. It’s typeset in my favourite font…American Typewriter…and I had never considered it for lengthy text like a full book, but in this book it creates this playful, contemporary and feminine look that is balanced by gorgeous full page pictures. With all the family content, it could make you clucky to have little ones running about, but I am still happy to have this and just as likely to reach for it for dinner party ideas, so children aren’t a requirement.

Today we had just two apples left – one green, one red – and they wouldn’t last another day. The red one in particular didn’t feel like it would taste nice on its own, so I searched for an apple recipe from this book and found such a simple idea that I did want to smack my head for turning to a book. Cut the apples in half, cover with brown sugar, cinnamon and a few oats, then fill the bottom of the bowl with water and stick them in the oven. Check on them every now and then to pour the juice back over the top. The book suggests serving them with ice cream, but we had vanilla custard and it was just as nice. I can’t eat ice cream as much in the winter, as I never, ever warm up. Maybe in July. And then I get cold again by September.

As they bake, the good insides pull away from the skins, which I didn’t eat. The green apple was far nicer than the red. And I liked the coziness of these a bit more than the boy like them. But then again, he doesn’t spend the vast majority of the year trying anything to get warm.

xlovesx

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I declare
my intention to Journal my Christmas. Writing something down every day. Creating a little bit whenever possible. Getting my stories documented for myself and maybe for others to read too.

I hope
by taking a little time each day to reflect, to write, to create, I will keep my Christmas alive and well, despite the commercial pressure that exists outside my door. Family, friends and hot beverages will help.

I may
meet others taking this same journey. I may share my work from time to time. I may remember just why I loved Christmas in the first place, and that may be a very magical moment indeed.

xlovesx

PS: You are welcome to join in today or throughout December, in fact. Just please know that registering you takes a real person, and I will not be at my computer during the day, as I’ll be helping the Enfield ScrapMates do something crafty. As soon as I am home, I will get you all set up and you’ll be good to go before the day is out.

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All through this week while I have been hit & miss with the internet, hit & miss with opening the right cardboard box and hit & miss with the idea of pizza-dough-from-scratch, I have been composing this message to North America. Or those of you who live in North America, I should say. I’m sure the dirt of the continent itself cares very little.

The message was this: be extra thankful for pumpkin pie.

I know, I know, it’s just one of those things. You have it at Thanksgiving. You might have it at Christmas too. You might even order it at the airport Denny’s in early November because there’s no cherry pie on the menu and you’re too far from here to get pie and make your flight. But by and large, pumpkin pie is just there. And I think for the two decades I spent living in North America, I just took it for granted. Even if you thought someone else was making the pie and found out at the last minute that there was no pie on its way, you could whip up a pumpkin pie in no time, between tins of pre-packed pumpkin pie filling and premade pie crusts already in those tin pie dishes.

Pumpkin pie was just so easy that everyone started branching out. Pumpkin cake. Pumpkin cheesecake. Pumpkin cheesecake ice cream. But here’s how I really knew someone was taking pumpkin pie for granted: I walked into a grocery store in the states on the morning of November first. There was a sign on a giant display of pumpkins: Halloween is over—free pumpkins. Really? Really, after trick or treating, the pumpkins had no intrinsic value?

You won’t really find pumpkin pie on menus over here. We don’t have Thanksgiving and our Christmas traditions involve things like mince pies, Christmas cake and Christmas pudding, which yes, all have some similarities. But no pumpkin. You’ll find pumpkin as an ingredient in main dishes like pumpkin-filled pasta and starters like pumpkin soup, but not for dessert. So when I said I was bringing pumpkin pie for dessert at a bonfire night party last year, I was met with some trepidation. It didn’t sound like a dessert, I guess. Remember, this is a land where pie is more synonymous with dinner itself: shepherd’s pie (which Scotland, Ireland and Northen England all claim to have invented!), steak & kidney pie (which as a vegetarian just sounds…not nice?) ...but after eating pumpkin pie, they were won over, and now everyone alerts me if they see pumpkins appearing in the shops so I can grab a few to roast and turn into pie. {And maybe a few cupcakes too, I’ll admit.}

We started moving in on Friday and had pretty much everything moved in (but not unpacked) by Sunday lunch time. So we headed to the Sunday afternoon farmer’s market in our new neighbourhood and found adorable pumpkins for a pound, just the right size to make two pies: one for us and one as a thank you for the boy’s parents who helped us move. And we ate ours off cardboard boxes, since we hadn’t quite unearthed the dining table yet. And that moment when you realise you are all moved in and you’ve unpacked enough stuff to be able to use your kitchen to bake pie? You realise that you should never take pumpkin pie for granted ever again.

Of course…the next day I ran into some irony. Turns out we have a little local food shop with a huge proportion of imported goods. Including tinned pumpkin. And yes, I bought some to put on the shelf just in case. So maybe this whole message I had imagined in my head wasn’t really all that important after all.

xlovesx

PS: No, it is not too late to sign up, so join us if you are dithering!

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I never watched Seinfeld the first time around. In fact, the first time I ever saw Seinfeld was the last ever episode. Which Seinfeld fans will confirm is a very stupid place to start. It’s the only episode with a plot. Apparently.

But years ago, I read some ancient issue of Reader’s Digest in a hospital waiting room, and without actually seeing an episode of Seinfeld, I managed to memorise an episode of Seinfeld. Well, part of an episode anyway. (No, my brain still does not understand that there are better things for it to do. It just memorises things so that later when I can google something thinking there is no way I have actually memorised that, only to find that actually, yes. I have. Anyway.)

When you’re moving, your whole world becomes boxes. All you think about is boxes. Boxes. Where are there boxes? You just wander down the street going in and out of stores. Are there boxes here? Have you seen any boxes? I mean it’s all you think
about. You can’t even talk to people because you can’t concentrate. Shut up! I’m looking for boxes. Just after a while you become like really into it you can smell them. You walk into a store. There’s boxes here. Don’t tell me you don’t have boxes. I can smell them… You’re at a funeral. Everyone’s mourning and crying around you, and you’re looking at the casket. Now that’s a nice box! Does anyone know where that guy got that box? When he’s done with it, do you think I could get that? It’s got some nice handles on it.

So right now, with about half of our non-furniture belongings packed and the other half needing to get that way by tomorrow, let me tell you just where all the boxes are. They are in our dining room. Stacked to the ceiling. I would show you a picture, but I’ve packed my camera. I think. It’s in there somewhere. But trust me, there are boxes there. Boxes galore. And yes, whenever someone mentions they have a box I can borrow, I borrow it. And as a result, some of the boxes have post-it notes secured with names so I can politely return said boxes to their rightful owners. Because trust me, I understand when you will mention to me that you are moving and it will be my turn to ask if you would like a box. We are all about the boxes.

And with that, I decided what could be better than totally non-related pictures of calm to show you just how peaceful it is around here right now. I mean, just show up on the doorstep and we’ll cook you dinner. Except the dining table is in pieces and all our dishes are wrapped in newspaper and packed into boxes. The photos also go along with all the philosophy that goes on while you are packing. Because really, picking things up and placing them in a box requires little thought but leaves you stuck in one place. So there is plenty of time to think. I dread to think the layers of philosophy I could get to if I had a larger house to pack! In the meantime, I am an oasis of calm, waiting for our new keys on Friday morning.

Oh, and I’m off to teach a workshop at Creative Living today. Apologies that I haven’t brought any cupcakes: my baking tins and my mixer appear to be in boxes. Some box, somewhere. Also: the flour.

xlovesx

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One of the things that I find makes it possible to create an album or a journal with daily entries is limiting. Gathering one set of supplies plus basic tools and not worrying about the rest of your stash once you’re started. Or at least not too much. And you may very well have enough Christmas stash to keep you making Christmas journals for the next three decades. If you do, by all means pull it out and put it to work. But if you don’t, this might be just the thing for you this Christmas. It’s Christmas in a pizza box.

The Snowfall kit has lots of blue tones with an emphasis on ice and snow and frosty winter. Like scrapping outside. In Lapland. I think you’d need gloves for that.

The Father Christmas kit has lots of rich reds and browns with a vintage feel. Like spoiling your dinner by eating Christmas chocolates by the fire. And probably getting chocolate on your new clothes.

The Snowfall kit includes:
8 sheets of 12×12 cardstock – including tan, green, white, red and blue
1 sheet of 8.5×11 bling cardstock (red, green or dark pink)
1 sheet of 6×12 die cut cardstock in green scallop

23 sheets of patterned paper, including:
10 12×12 sheets from My Mind’s Eye (the Frost collection)
4 12×12 sheets from Sassafrass Lass
7 12×12 sheets from American Crafts
2 12×12 sheets from Hambly Screen Prints

as well as:
1 12×12 sheet of printed accents from My Mind’s Eye
2 12×12 sheets of printed gift boxes from My Mind’s Eye (use as an actual box or like patterned paper)
4 12×12 transparent overlays from Hambly Screen Prints (On Edge in silver, Woodgrain in gold, Urban Chic Frames in green, Vintage Circle Wallpaper in green)
4 journaling cards from My Mind’s Eye (Daily Dose collection)
1 sheet of 7 stickers from My Mind’s Eye
1 mini file booklet set from Creek Bank Creations
1 set of Daiquiri Thickers letter stickers in green from American Crafts
4 unfolded Christmas cards
2 plain envelopes
A selection of ribbons, trims and notions, including:
red velvet ribbon, red rick-rack, pink & red dot ribbon, green & blue dot ribbon, snowflake ribbon, frost blue velvet rick-rack and frost blue buttons

The Father Christmas kit includes:
8 sheets of 12×12 cardstock – including tan, green, white, red and blue
1 sheet of 8.5×11 bling cardstock (red, green or dark pink)
1 sheet of 6×12 die cut cardstock in green scallop

23 sheets of patterned paper, including:
10 12×12 sheets from My Mind’s Eye (the Festive collection)
4 12×12 sheets from Sassafrass Lass
7 12×12 sheets from American Crafts
2 12×12 sheets from Hambly Screen Prints

as well as:
1 12×12 sheet of printed accents from My Mind’s Eye
2 12×12 sheets of printed gift boxes from My Mind’s Eye (use as an actual box or like patterned paper)
4 12×12 transparent overlays from Hambly Screen Prints (On Edge in silver, Woodgrain in gold, Urban Chic Frames in green, Vintage Circle Wallpaper in green)
4 journaling cards from My Mind’s Eye (Daily Dose collection)
1 sheet of 7 stickers from My Mind’s Eye
3 index pockets from Creek Bank Creations
1 set of Daiquiri Thickers letter stickers in green from American Crafts
4 unfolded Christmas cards
2 plain envelopes
A selection of ribbons, trims and notions, including:
red velvet ribbon, red rick-rack, pink & red dot ribbon, green & blue dot ribbon, snowflake ribbon, green velvet rick-rack and red buttons

These kits are designed to make a full album, up to 12×12 in size, throughout the Christmas season. You may want to add some additional cardstock in colours that match your Christmas. From there, you’ll just need your scissors, trimmer, adhesive and black pen and you’ll be set!

If you purchased the items in the kit individually, they would come to at least £42.65 before postage and packing.

Both kits are available in limited numbers for £36.50 + £3.50 postage and packing.

The Snowfall Kit
A kit of frosty blues
(Now sold out.)

The Father Christmas Kit
A kit of traditional reds
(Now sold out.)

Kits are ready to ship and will be sent within 24 hours of payment by Royal Mail first class to UK addresses. European orders welcome—an invoice for additional postage will be sent via paypal. The additional postage will be charged at actual cost. Your box will be shipped upon receipt of the additional postage costs. Orders from the rest of the world welcomed, but it’s probably not economical outside of Europe! Check Royal Mail for the price of posting a 1kg parcel to your address.

Any questions, just let me know! Many thanks.

xlovesx

ETA: Father Christmas kits are all spoken for now! There are still a handful of Snowfall kits available.

To everyone who has been by to shop today, thank you very much! I’ve just got to get your address on the box, and it will be with Royal Mail and on its way! Hurrah.

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