Christmas

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November 3, 2008

Christmas decorations

Posted by glanbrydan under Christmas, Glanbrydan business, make things, money saving | Tags: , , |
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I have talked and written about Christmas but in reality I have done very little about it. I want to have Christmas decoration at the farmers market on the stall. I would like to follow the home made theme so I have been considering if I can do anything with salt dough.

We have a string of wooden letters that spell out ‘Christmas’ on a bit of decorated string so I have tried to make a ‘Christmas’ in salt dough and push a skewer through the letters to make thread holes.

I’ve searched several sites on the Internet and it seems the dough is 2 to 1 flour and salt, made into a dough with water and a splash of lemon juice.

I had the end of a packet of plain flour so I used 180 grams of flour. 90 grams of salt, a spoon of lemon and then added spoons of water bringing the dough together with my hands, adding more water until I had a pliable dough that’s not sticky but molds easily into a ball. Kneed the dough until the texture changes to being a bit more elastic (a few minutes only) and then pop in a bag or airtight box in the fridge for 20 minutes or more.

I rolled the dough  to about a centimeter or half an inch thick, then used a sharp knife to cut out letters from templates and put them on a baking tray covered in foil. These then got skewered a couple of centimeters from the tops using a metal kebab skewer.

They sat in the bottom oven for about an hour before I turned them and put them back. If you have a cold kitchen cook them at a low heat about 50 degrees C or leave them in an airing cupboard overnight.

 

October 15, 2008

quince or crab apples? Getting ready for the festive season

Posted by glanbrydan under Christmas, money saving, seasonal | Tags: , |
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Today I checked on my leaf gift tags. They are being nicely pressed in a book by the sadly missed garden presenter, Geoff Hamilton. The book is from his ‘Cottage Gardens’ TV series, flicking through the pages I remembered using his ideas to transform a rectangle of grass into a pretty cottage garden some years ago, fond memories of all the work and delight I found in making a garden my own.

 

The leaf tags are experimental versions to which I added a few words to get some idea of the finished product but I’m concerned they are looking a bit bland, maybe they would look a bit more festive sprayed in gold or silver, perhaps even gilded a bit with a gold wax crayon. 

 

In addition to the leaf drying I’ve started drying a sliced up orange for Christmas decorations. These take a bit of time to dry out so I’ve popped the pieces onto a foil covered cake tin base which is on top of the wood-burner. I’ve done these before and they look great in a bowl with a few pine cones or on garlands with Cinnamon sticks and fir tree cuttings.

 

Half a kilo of either crab apples or quince fruit has come into my possession so I’m going to have a go at quince/crabapple cheese. The fruits were yellow like some crabapples and incredibly fragrant like quince but much smaller than I remember quince. Who will know? I’m pretty sure they are not poisonous though.

 

To make the Jelly I am using Fiona’s recipe on the Cottage Smallholder at http://www.cottagesmallholder.com/?p=102. The fruit has been gently cooking on the stove all afternoon and I’ve ladled it into the muslin cloth to strain for the night. My faithful muslin cloth has now strained many types of fruit and washes up well every time. I would not dare suggest replacing it.

 

October 1, 2008

Money saving and Christmas

Posted by glanbrydan under Christmas, money saving | Tags: , |
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A Christmas tree sapling from Germany

A Christmas tree sapling from Germany

 

 

I know it’s not Christmas yet but all the shops have a ‘seasonal display’ already. In our local Co-Op I spied wrapping paper, choc advent calendars, fancy biscuits and enormous tins of sweets. I have considered if we should

A – Start collecting Christmas goodies together now and dedicating a corner of a cupboard to them

Or

B – Just imagine that Christmas should really only stretch over a couple of weeks so we don’t need to hoard enough food to last out a siege from November to January

Then what about gifts for the people we love? Should we

A – Tell them our income will halve next year when Wilf gives up his job so we are going to spend half of what we normally do

Or

B – Look for gifts in the sale that make it seem we have spent much more than we have

Or

C – Cut down what we spend and try to make a few gifts

The options are endless and I do know that Christmas comes but once a year but the shops make it last for at least 3 months. Our children are grown up but I do remember sitting with the younger ones in front of a television a few weeks before Christmas and as every advert came on so they changed their minds about that special gift(s) they just couldn’t live without!

If I were a perfect housewife (ha ha) I would hand make our cards, decorations, gift paper and knit everybody a jumper to die for (or die being seen in?). But I’m not so I’m going to buy hand made cards for the family from a lady I know who does a very good job at a reasonable price. I’m going to send an email to everybody at work wishing them happy Christmas and I’m going to give the cost of the pack of cards to charity. Then I’ll buy a pack of charity cards to give to our friends.

I am thinking of making Christmas puddings as gifts for friends and wrapping them up in pretty bags. I am also considering infusing herbs into oil to be put into pretty containers. Wilf makes pickled onions so we could add a jar of those and make small gift boxes. Put those together with a bag of almonds or walnuts toasted with honey and spices then I think our little hampers sound rather nice.

 Maybe I’ll start knitting as well……….

I have started to think about other things I could make and I’m pressing a few leaves now to see if they will make gift tags…….I’ll keep you posted. I’m trying oak, rhododendron and lime tree to start