Merry Christmas!

Thank you to all of you for following along with my little creative corner of the web, it is so gratifying to receive such lovely comments and to continue to grow my readership!

Wishing everyone a very merry Christmas and super New Year. I hope Santa brings a little bit of magic to your homes and that you enjoy this special time of year with family and friends.

I’ll be taking a wee break from the blog to have some family time but look forward to posting again in 2015 – keep up with me on Instagram until then…

Xxx

Finally Feeling Festive

Our whole family was struck down at the end of last week with a nasty stomach bug so apologies for a lack of posting but I was in no fit state to do anything other than sleep!

Thank goodness it didn’t arrive this week though as the forecast is for balmy summer weather and I have my fingers crossed for a stunner on Christmas Day.

The washi tree is finally complete! I started at the bottom with the trunk and worked my way up, then went on a mission to find something to jazz it up and make it feel a little more Christmas-y. I found these cute glittery (we all know I love a little bit of sparkle!) star decorations at Bed Bath and Table that I chopped up into individual stars (they were in lengths of three) which I then blue tacked on.

Axel has yet to remove any of the stars from the wall so I think we are winning!

Weekend Round-Up

I actually did a very poor job of taking photos to document the great time we had at the Christchurch Wine and Food Festival on Saturday!

This year we had tickets in the VIP area which meant we enjoyed a delicious lunch put together by celebrated Christchurch chef Jonny Schwass and his team, and we had the luxury of a bar area rather than having to queue for tastings… This culminated in far too much frivolity and pathetic photo taking – I had demolished half my lunch before I even thought of taking a snap with my iPhone!

The weather wasn’t fantastic (overcast and a little chilly) but we had a fab day anyway and then I even managed to soldier on into the city to try out one of the latest offerings on the restaurant / club scene, Engineers.

Engineers has brought the first roof top bar to Christchurch and it is pretty fly. I liked the industrial feel of the interior, the outdoors area was lit up with pretty lights and the DJ was spinning some good tunes. The food coming from the kitchen looked and smelt delicious so I would definitely head back to give that a try too.

Sunday saw us take Axel to Ballantynes for his first photo with Santa – he HATED it!! The look on his face when he was sat on Santa’s knee was priceless – pure shock, turning to horror – check out the ‘get me out of here!’ look below!!

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and enjoyed some festive fun along the way x

 

There Shall Be No Tree…

Well, no real one.

This year I have come to the decision (after much deliberation and angst) that there will be no Christmas tree standing proud and pretty at our home. Hurricane hands Axel will have a field day otherwise, and I’ll spend the whole time a) worrying about the tree collapsing on top of him and b) worrying about my beautiful decorations (especially my glass bauble from Harrods!) being ruined by saliva and small emerging teeth.

So instead of a gorgeous tree I am planning on moving the bar cart (which has also seems to be in the path of Hurricane Hands) and taking down our Lester Hall War Dog print to create room for a washi tape Christmas Tree.

Here is the space I have in mind in our dining area (all our living room walls are wood panelled so would be tricky to do it there) but as we have open plan living the tree will still have pride of place in our home.

 

And here is some inspiration for Washi Tape Christmas trees I found via Pinterest.

It might be the perfect excuse to get the felt ball garland I would love for Axel’s room so I can ‘decorate’ my tree!

Watch this space…

Stash

These Santa sacks from Henry and Co are a super cool place for the big guy in the red suit to stash all the treats for your little ones.

I have ordered Axel a pillowcase one as we always had pillowcase Santa sacks growing up. I’m pretty excited about starting festive traditions at our house this year – having a bubba definitely brings the excitement of Christmas flooding back!

 

Henry and Co. Santa Sacks

Click Monday

Helllloooo Monday! It’s a New Zealand online shoppers dream day today as the following retailers are offering amazing deals… Head on over to Click Monday to register to be in the know for further special sales.

Perfect opportunity to do some Christmas shopping I say – happy clicking!

 

image via Click Monday

Happy Holidays!

I hope everyone enjoyed a fabulous Christmas with your families and friends. We had a fantastic day filled with delicious food, hilarious family moments, and the rain managed to hold off until the afternoon so we were able to enjoy brunch outside in the morning (the rain has been hanging around since Christmas day which is making for frustrating summer holidays!).

Here are a few of my Instagram snaps from the last few days while I have been trying to avoid  cabin fever!

1. Delicious berry muffin from Cafe Metro Ferrymead

2. Bar cart vignette finally coming together

3. Chloe Attitudes – thanks Santa!

4. Beautiful glass, velvet embellished bauble that I picked up at Harrods when living in London

Merry Christmas To All!

image via

I love Christmas Eve! Even as an adult there is something so magical about going to bed with a sense of excitement regarding what the big day has in store…

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas with family and friends and that you share lots of laughter and special moments with your loved ones.

I will be taking a couple of days off blogging to recover from the festivities (mainly eating waaaaayyy too much!) but will be back on board before the New Year kicks in.

X C

Wrapping Style

I love giving gifts at Christmas and I especially love the sense of satisfaction once they are all wrapped up with special trimmings!

I went to my favourite inspiration source, Pinterest, for some modern gift wrapping ideas…

1. Brown paper with red trimmings

2. Simple newspaper and personalised tags with pretty ribbon

4. Modern black and white

5. Bright neons

Currently Coveting…

Snow globes are magical things that shouldn’t be restricted to children, Christmas decor, or tacky tourist outlets! And a snow globe to shake up and watch the swirling flakes settle on the bottom while dreaming about Parisian fashion houses is really taking things to the next level! This Miss Lanvin Snow Globe available at Net-A-Porter is pretty special…