december 1 ... finally!

I woke up this morning, put on a christmas record and cracked out the christmas tree. Finally! I'm a December 1 person. I wanted to do it before, but tradition was too overpowering so today it finally happened. Unfortunatley, they never look as lovely in a picture as they do in real life.

This is the tree ... there's a monstrous mirror that leans on that wall behind it, so it makes it a little confusing to look at ...

This is the'star', i have a thing for butterflies and birds. The tree is covered with them

A closer look at the deco's seeing you can barely see them in the main shot ... the apples remind me of a strawberry that is covered in red glitter my mum still has for the family tree. It was my favourite growing up and would be the first one i would search for to hang

These are my new additions which i made a couple of days ago. Bit of newspaper and some coloured paper and now i have MORE birds. I'm wrapping with newspaper again this year and wanted the tree to look a little less glittery. I made about 10 all in different colours

 

A tree ain't a tree without presents. I love using satin ribbons, feathers, fabric and sequins ...looks a treat with the newspaper - love the mix ... shame you can't see the sequins

 

These guys are on the dining room table.

I used them last year for my xmas dinner party, these big ones were the centre piece and then i had the smaller versions sitting at the top of each place setting in a row. (like they were pulling a sleigh)

The standing for the boys and sitting for the girls so each couple had the pair to take home.

Instead of using bon bons and paper hats i tied the napkins in string with these feathers attached and everyone had to then wear it around their heads like their adopted reindeer... it sounds silly out loud, but it looked rather fab and everyone got into it...even the gents.

I'm off, we have guests for dinner - the 'open plan kitchen' is a disgrace and it's bath weather.

24 days till christmas.........