Merry Christmas!

With only a few hours left until Christmas, it's pretty crazy here! I wanted to leave you with this image of some Christmas bush that one of my customers gave me - isn't it beautiful? I've never seen it before but apparently it's a native to NSW.

Anyway, I'm taking a bit of a break over Christmas and New Year, and closing Mr Sparrow until January 11th. I'll take a break from blogging, too, but will still post a few bits here and there, like my Christmas table (I'm about to dash over to mum and dad's to set it up now!) and maybe a few things from New Year's Eve, which we'll be spending in Dwellingup - I can't wait! Also, January 2nd is the party to celebrate Eko and Rick's wedding so I'm sure I'll have lots to report from that.

I hope you all have a fantastic Christmas and New Year and thank you for supporting the Sparrow over the last 18 months and for reading this little blog!

See you soon!

Wrapping time!

So...here is this year's Christmas wrapping! The top two photos are my wrapping and the other two are my friend Eko's - beautiful, no?

In keeping with my alpine theme, and my obsession with stamps, I've used my deer potato stamp on my wrapping, which is just basic kraft paper. The white ribbon is cotton herringbone, which I bought wholesale (along with the paper - one of the perks of being in this business!), and the green and white strip is washi tape (Japanese masking tape), which I bought online from here. I'm absolutely loving washi tape at the moment and bought some for Eko for Christmas, too!

The red ribbon on Eko's wrapping is also cotton herringbone and the little circles are made from pieces of felt and cotton with a hand-stitched letter - impressive! Inside my "A" package was a box with about six individually-wrapped presents, each with a little stamped number, which she did using these MUJI stamps (how anyone lives without these, I just don't know!).

We exchanged these presents on Sunday at our annual Christmas barbeque at the South Perth foreshore, which we all agree is our favourite part of Christmas! Afterwards, Eko, mum and I went to Carols by Candlelight, so it was a day full of Christmas spirit!

A is for Andreas

Andreas is my little nephew, who is coming up to 7 months and is just about the happiest little boy you can imagine. He lives in London and about two months ago had his Christening there. We were really sad to be missing it and wanted to get him a special present to make up for it. I read this post a while ago on inchmark journal and thought it would be really nice to give Andreas a collection of our favourite books to set him up for later in life. So James and I got together with my parents, my sister Kate and her husband Rob and each chose our favourite childhood book. I loved the idea of all the books being presented together in a special book bag and us writing little notes to Andreas inside the books, but because we live on the other side of the world to Andreas, we had to get a bit creative. Kate and Rob also live in London (and are good friends with James's sister Lisa and her husband Tucker) so we decided the best plan was for them to buy the books on our behalf, and then for us to each write a little note to Andreas on a sticker that could be stuck into the book we had chosen. And then I made this little book bag for all the books to go into...well, actually, I bought the bag, but I made the felt "A" and the apple and sewed them on. Now that Lisa, Tucker and Andreas are all here for Christmas we were able to give him the bag and the stickers the other day, and once they take them back to London and put them together with the books, the present will be complete! Here are the books we chose:

Me - There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly
James - Little Wheels, Big Wheels
Kate - The Elephant and the Bad Baby
Rob - What Do People Do All Day?
Mum - Winnie the Pooh: Complete Collection of Stories and Poems
Dad - The Little Engine That Could

Happy Christening, Andreas!

A little more Christmas cheer

This is the little Christmas display I have going at home at the moment - the wooden nativity set was a gift from my sister from Canada, the deer you might recognise as the O-Check ones, the nutcracker you may also recognise from here (yes, I decided to keep him!), the Santa hat I bought in New York about seven years ago and insist on wearing every Christmas morning, and the little wooden candle holder I bought in Germany back in 1997 (unfortunately only a couple of years ago that little bit on the top broke off). They all look cute together, don't you think?

On the matter of the candle holder, I have a fantastic DIY tip to share for anyone who has trouble finding candles to fit sticks they have. The holes on this holder are really narrow and I have always struggled to find candles to fit...so, here's my tip! Buy candles that are too small rather than too big, and then superglue a pushpin upside-down inside the hole of your candlestick, so the spike points up (if you can get one with a flat head it'll work best). Once the glue's dry, push your candle into the spike of the pin and it'll stay put! I got this idea from some zinc candlesticks I sell at the shop that don't have a hole at all but just a spike to push the candle onto..and I tried it with this candle holder of mine and it works a treat!

Sky Planter

Aren't these the coolest thing you've ever seen? I saw them a while ago on a blog (I forget which one) and thought, "Wow, that's amazing, but you probably can't get them in Australia"...then I found out one of my suppliers is distributing them here! Actually, they're not from very far away as it turns out - the amazing Sky Planter is the work of New Zealand company BOSKKE. Founders Jake and Patrick Morris grew up in Morris & James, widely regarded as New Zealand's most iconic ceramics brand. They have now set out on their own to build BOSKKE into a leader in innovative gardening products. No longer satisfied with having plants relegated to the remote corners of a room, designer Patrick Morris has elevated them into stunning interior features.

Now, if you're like me, you'll be wondering how the hell it's possible to hang a plant upside down! Well, I set up an example one for the shop yesterday and all my questions were answered. Basically there are three important parts - a reservoir system, which sits at the bottom of the pot (which then becomes the top) and feeds water gradually to the plant's roots; a mesh collar, which fits around the stem of the plant and holds the soil in place; and a locking disc, which fits into the top (bottom) of the pot and holds in the plant and soil. It's actually very simple, but looks pretty impressive!

And the most exciting part? They have just arrived on Mr Sparrow's doorstep! At the moment I only have the extra-small size (which is perfect for growing herbs in your kitchen), but other sizes will be here next year. These little ones are only $39.95 and would make a great Christmas present if you're stuck for ideas. Check out the BOSKKE website for more photos and information and pop into Mr Sparrow to see one in action!

Trimming the tree

We bought our tree on the weekend but only just got around to decorating it last night. I insist on getting a real tree each year - I just love the smell of them and it wouldn't feel like Christmas without one. We have a total mish-mash of ornaments but I love them because they all have meaning. A lot of them belonged to my grandmother (including the birds, which are my favourite), others were made by me when I was younger, others were bought by James and I when we had our first Christmas together, and others were given to us - like the one with a photo of our little nephew, which is a new addition this year! Instead of a star on top, we have Daikon Man (as we call him - I think his actual name is Aokubi Daikon), who we bought in Japan a few years ago and who does a wonderful job of clinging to the top branches!

I think I'll have to do some wrapping tonight, because what's a tree without presents under it?

An alpine Christmas

OK, here's another example of me being "the spirit of Christmas" - I try and have a theme for Christmas each year, which will extend to my cards, crackers, wrapping and the Christmas table. Nerdy, I know, but I love it! I'll show you my wrapping and table a bit later, but here are this year's cards and crackers. The theme for this year is "alpine", inspired by O-Check's fantastic kitsch deer (which I'm selling at Mr Sparrow - that's him in the bottom photos). I'm creating a little alpine scene for the Christmas table, involving the deer and a homemade snow dome inspired by these...and I'm using the deer motif across my cards and wrapping. The other thing I'm using a lot of are stamps! I got these fantastic stamps from MUJI in Berlin earlier this year, which I'm using on my crackers, and I've channeled my inner child (never far away!) by making a potato stamp of a deer. I'm using the stamp on my wrapping and also on my cards, which are a snowdome design (the ones you see here are the first two I made, so are a bit rough!). I was really pleased with how well the potato stamp worked - I haven't made one in such a long time and wasn't sure it would be that successful but now I'm going to use them for everything! The paper I've used on the cards and for the tags on the crackers (made using my tag punch) is a mix of Japanese origami paper and wrapping paper bought in Berlin. In my crackers this year I put Lindt Christmas chocolates (shaped like Babushkas - so cute!), little proverbs that I stamped out, homemade personalised paper hats, temporary tattoos, a little gift each, and of course cracker snaps! The hardest thing is finding a little present for each person that's small enough to fit inside a toilet roll! Anyway, I hope this has inspired some crafty Christmas spirit in you!