The countdown begins...

Hello there, I should put a little warning on this post, if you don't like to think about Christmas until December or at the earliest November then I think you should look away now! 

I've been getting excited about Christmas since about August and have been slowly stockpiling presents since then. I must admit I am usually not that organised and usually have a dream/nightmare in December where it's Christmas day and I haven't bought any presents so I have decided this year that I am going to be super organised and not have any shopping to do in December. This is a great plan in theory but no doubt I will still end up racing around like a luny on the 23rd of December trying to find something but I am trying to avoid that. I love Christmas but I hate Christmas shopping in December: crowded shops, longs queues at tills and anxiously waiting on Amazon orders to get here in time for Christmas are yuk and I promised myself I'm not doing any of that this year. Watch this space!

Anyway enough ranting. I just love Christmas and I love getting prepared so this year I was very good to myself and purchased this...

It's a Cath Kidston Christmas Organiser that I saw on Hookin with Laa Laa's blog and I knew instantly that I had to get it (well after a few days chirping away at D he told me just to buy it - I'm not a very spontaneous shopper, I don't like to waste money!). It's sooo lovely, I wonder why I never had a Christmas organiser before. It now lives beside my bed, ready and waiting for any Christmassy ideas that come in to my head. 

So anyway the main reason for this post is that I have completed a Christmassy make and I really wanted to share it before December. It's an Advent Calendar garland type thing. Basically I wanted to make an advent calendar that my little family can use every year and I wanted something different than the shop bought calendars. I got the idea from a book my husband borrowed from the library for me which suggested making 24 red felt pockets and numbering them 1-24 and hanging them up on a string and each day you would take one down to help you remember what day you are on. I thought it was a neat little idea and decided this was the project for me but I thought it needed a few tweaks and embellishments. So I made my 24 little pockets numbered 1-24 but I felt the numbers needed to be embroidered to the pocket to help them stay put and to make them look pretty and this is the finished result...

I also added a little jingle bell to the bottom for an extra Christmassy touch...

I also decided to pink the edges (is that the correct term?), what I mean is the straight cut edges looked a little boring so I used pinking shears to crimp the edges and I think it makes them look more festive. I didn't like the idea of just removing each pocket as the month progressed so I thought it would be nicer to turn them around after each day passed and have something on the back. So after a little searching on the internet I decided to put the words HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS on the back of the pockets so this will eventually be spelt out by Christmas day. I decided to separate the words with a little star button and some felt. This idea is my favourite and the fact I came up with it all by myself gave me the biggest thrill. This is by far my favourite pocket of the 24...

 This is how all the little pockets will look together...

 And this is how they will look when turned over...

I'm going to hang the little pockets on some twine with small clothes pegs and I might even wrap some fairy lights around the twine if it works. Oh my word, I am soooo excited... I don't want to wish my life away but I am really, really, REALLY looking forward to when I can get this out of it's little box...

I'm going to fill the little pockets with special advent things to do like decorate the tree will be on day 1 and other things like make gingerbread men (I have never made these before some recipe recommendations would be really useful, otherwise I'll probably just use the BBC recipe), sing christmas carols, make mulled wine. I might also pop in some little treats like gold coins and candy canes but I'm not sure what to put in for Little R as he isn't eating sweets yet... maybe some little boxes of raisins (or baby crack as my Aussie friend likes to call them) might do the trick.

I also have some news to explain my terrible blogging habits of late. I feel I must apologise for not commenting on all the wonderful blogs that I love, I do still love reading them but I just can't find the time to comment and as for actually writing a blog post well I am even worse at getting this done! And the reason... I am 24 weeks pregnant (baby is due at the end of January 2013). Working, looking after Little R (although I have to admit D is great help and lets me have little rests when they are much needed) and trying to get some craft done make it hard to keep up in the blogging world but I'm so glad other people do manage it because I do love reading everyone's crafty exploits. I think making this little advent calendar has excited me even more because I know/hope little R and his little sibling will get years of fun out of it. It's going to be a chaotic 2013 but we are up for the challenge!

Thanks as always for reading and hello and a big thank you to my new followers, I'm so delighted you want to see my little corner of bloggyland.