Boy It's Cold Outside!!

Well, another frosty morning yesterday had me hunting frantically through my drawers for my thermal leggings and shirts. It gets very cold at the market in winter and thermal undergarments, while not especially glamorous, are pretty much essential. The last few days have been quite sunny but bitingly cold and I'm now up to three layers of clothes and a sleeveless puffa jacket meaning that I resemble something along the lines of a Michelin man! Still, if it keeps me warm I don't really care how ridiculous I look. After 3 or 4 very quiet weeks at the market, this week has been a very good week. It seems that the people of Cornwall are now in Christmas present buying mode and quite frankly, it couldn't have come at a better time. I discovered yesterday that the water treatment system that we have in the loft, that makes the water we get from the borehole safe to drink, has stopped working and I am now having to boil all my drinking water before I drink it. It's not really such a hassle because most of it is used in tea or coffee so it's boiled anyway and I have just nipped out and bought some 5ltr bottles of water for actual drinking water for me and the dogs and cats. The problem is that it's going to cost at least £500 to replace the system so I'm going to have to wait until after Christmas to get it fixed. Never mind, in the greater scheme of things, it's a trifling matter and things could be a lot worse ..... gosh I'm philosophical today :-)

It's starting to feel quite festive at the market too and you can always tell when it's getting close to Christmas because one of the lovely ladies at the market suddenly turns into this mad, wreath-making lunatic who runs around the place armed with secateurs and bags of foliage constructing gorgeous wreathes form holly, ivy, tree branches and pretty much any other greenery she can get her hands on. By Christmas eve, her hands are chapped and sore and full of holes from being pricked by the vicious holly leaves and she is totally sick of the the sight of wreaths. Last year, she made almost 400 in the month before Christmas!!

She basically turns this 

This 

 And this

Into this

And then this 

All in about 10 minutes :-)

I've asked her for a wreath with carrots and sprouts and broccoli on it this year and I get the feeling she isn't quite sure if I'm joking or not ..... I'm not :-) I really want a quirky wreath this year and I can't think of anyone better to make it. 

Oooooo and guess what arrived in the post on Thursday morning, right before I left for the market ....... my printable fabric. I am so beyond excited to give it a go I can't tell you but so far, I have been utterly thwarted in my attempts to have a play with it. People kept buying loads of stuff from my market stall on Thursday and Friday and I had to spend both evenings frantically sewing like a mad woman to make more things to sell. I will be putting everything on hold on Monday, though, to print my first piece of fabric. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to it. I will of course, be posting pictures of whatever comes out of the printer ..... good or bad ..... hopefully good so fingers crossed :-)

Thrifty Thursday

Wow .... again, where has this week gone? The days are going by so fast and I have to confess to feeling rather left behind in the old Christmas decorations department at the moment because although I have my tree, I haven't decorated it yet because I promised my daughter she could help me decorate it when she gets back from Bristol. I always have a real Christmas tree. I love the smell of the pine and I always think they look fabulous. I bought my tree yesterday, basically because my local nursery only has a limited supply and I have learnt from past experience that if you leave it until the last minute all the nice ones have gone. 

A few years ago, I ended up with one of the last trees at the nursery. I had very little money that Christmas and things were very tight but lets face it Christmas isn't the same without a tree. Anyway, I managed to persuade the nursery owner that I would be doing him a favour taking it off his hands and I got it for a ridiculously cheap price. I was ecstatic but the poor tree was terribly bedraggled and very lopsided so I had to give it a haircut to make it even remotely resemble a Christmas tree. I was left with a whole pile of branches after the short, back and sides and wanted to do something with them rather than just throw them out. 

Each year, I also like to have a festive wreath on my front door but in the shops they are so expensive and that year I couldn't really afford one and I certainly couldn't justify wasting £10-£15 for something that will basically be compost by twelfth night. So, I this is how I came to use up the branches from my poor, bedraggled Christmas tree. I went to Trago Mills, my local fabulous buy-anything-really-cheaply-bargain shop and I bought a metal wreath base ...... I think it cost me about 25p. I went out into my field and scraped together some moss from the bank and wired it onto the wreath using some garden wire I had in my shed. I grabbed my scissors and managed to find some holly and some other greenery in the bushes down the edge of my field which I also wired onto the wreath to add a bit of texture and interest. A couple of pine cones and my wreath was complete. It was a huge success and I loved the fact that it had only cost me 25p.

Now, each year, I do exactly the same thing. When I get my Christmas tree home, I trim off 2 or 3 branches from the underside of the tree or from the back where is won't be seen and I use it to make the wreath that goes on my front door. I even use the same metal wreath base. On twelfth night, I take off all the moss and foliage and put them on the compost heap and put the base back in the box with my Christmas decorations ready for the next year.

Ta da ..... here is this years offering. The ribbon is left over from the chandelier crystals I customised a few weeks ago, the baubles and fake berries are things I have saved over the years and everything else is, once again, from my field. This year, I also bought another wreath to put on my gate from a friend nearby who makes them. I only put my gate and fence up this year and it was looking a bit bare and in desperate need of brightening up. Her wreaths are lovely and only £5 which was a total bargain and I always prefer to buy from local crafters if I possibly can. I will also be able to use the metal wreath base next year to create an extra wreath for my gate to match the one I do for the door :-)