Christmas Countdown Day 4

Christmas Countdown Day 4

God Jul

Opps! I was so busy yesterday with wrapping presents and preparing for my real life Christmas, I completely forgot to post my Christmas Countdown yesterday. So I will be posting two today instead!

I have been trying to learn the words to a couple of well known Christmas carols in another language recently. Don't ask me why, it's just something I felt like doing. I ended up choosing Swedish (hence the title above) and the two carols I have been learning to sing in Swedish are;  Stilla Natt 

(Silent Night) and O Helga Natt (O Holy Night).

Now, I won't offend your ears by recording myself singing, I have found some beautiful examples of these songs, sung in Swedish, on You Tube, and have posted them below. I hope you enjoy them. 

O Helga Natt sung by Jussi Bjorling

Stilla Natt sung by Sissel

Christmas Countdown Day 3

Christmas Countdown Day 3

Micro Christmas Trees

I have seen some great little micro Christmas village buildings appearing on a few blogs in recent weeks, and the idea of micro Christmas miniatures caught my imagination. I wanted some very small decorations for part of the Christmas makeover of The Swan Inn, but nothing too complex. I looked at the tiny villages and thought what they could do with were some tiny trees, and then I thought of tiny Christmas trees! So, lacking the skill to create tiny model buildings, here is my humble offering to you; the Micro Christmas Tree!

It really couldn't be simpler! Take a suitably coloured pipe cleaner, I think they are called something else these days, but I'll stick to what I know from Blue Peter! gently trim the pipe cleaner all around at one end, shaping it into a little point, taking care not to trim too much off! Once you have the desired size and shape, carefully snip off the amount of the pipe cleaner you need. carefully remove any lose fluff from the bottom end, and using a suitably sized bead, gently fit the bottom of the pipe cleaner into the hole in the bead. You can glue it if you wish to.

And here are some I made earlier!! I have put them on top of a doll's house book shelf so you get a sense of the scale. You could add a small star shaped sequin if you have them (mine's a little large!) or maybe use a little white paint to add a snow effect. You can see they really are very easy to make and are quite effective too. If you don't have beads, why not use some rolled up coloured paper, or Fimo/Sculpy? If you have them you could even use tiny micro beads to decorate the trees!

I hope you have fun making some!! ;o)

Christmas Countdown Day 2

Christmas Countdown Day 2

Holly

Who knows how far back in history it was that holly was first used to decorate homes, or adorn the body. We know very little about the Early Pagans and what they used to worship, but it seems likely that holly along with other evergreens such as ivy and mistletoe may have been thought to have a certain magical quality when most other trees and plants had shed their leaves for the winter. Perhaps evergreens had the power to ward off evil spirits, or bring good fortune.

The Romans were certainly fond of this prickly plant, it was used for offerings during the feast of Saturnalia, to the god Saturn, whose festival fell soon after the winter solstice, and is probably the origin of the Christmas Day festivities we know today.

Early Christians used cryptic symbols to display their faith, and it may well have been from them that Holly became associated with the blood of Christ and it's prickles, perhaps, with the crown of thorns. That there was an abundance of holly around during the holy Christmastide in Northern Europe meant that it soon became a part of the festival. The carol The Holly and the Ivy uses various parts of the holly plant to tell the story of Christ. 

Holly was certainly used at Christmas time from the medieval period right through until the modern age. It has been somewhat upstaged by the fancy Christmas tree, but its glossy green leaves and bright red berries still add great cheer during the festive season.

As part of my Christmas Project at The Swan Inn I wanted to make some miniature holly. I was lucky to find a decorative paper cutter with small holly leaves, usually used in card making. The leaves were roughly about the right size. As you can see in the picture above, I stuck the leaves to small wires, just as I had done when making the wisteria earlier this year. I then made tiny red berries from Sculpy and baked them, before adding to the holly branches using Tacky Glue.

If you would like a touch of holly in your dolls house, and don't have the time to make your own, this delightful little holly wreath is available from Bluebellminiatures.co.uk for £5.00.

Happy Holly-days everyone!!! ;o)

Christmas Countdown!!!

Hello Everyone,

Welcome to this year's Christmas Countdown.

Actually, strictly speaking it is a count up! but that just sounds silly!!! Throughout December, up until Christmas I shall be posting little tit-bits for your delectation and delight, and hopefully spreading a little Christmas cheer along the way! Yes, my special Christmas Project at The Swan Inn does form part of the Christmas Countdown, so do keep a look out for future posts!

Christmas Post Number One

The Christmas Card

Small home made tokens of love had been sent at Christmas time for many years, but the first commercial Christmas card appeared in London in 1843. Sir Henry Cole is best known for his help in creating the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington after the Great Exhibition in 1851, however, he was a busy man long before this. In 1843 he felt he hadn't the time to write individual Christmas letters to his friends, and thought of having a Christmas greeting printed instead. He called on an artist friend of his, John Callcott Horsley, to create a suitable image to print with a simple Christmas greeting, which he would then be able to post.

The result can be seen above; a traditional British family enjoying a Christmas feast, and getting very 'merry' indeed in the central image, flanked on each side by ideals of charity, feeding the hungry and clothing the naked.  1000 of these lithograph cards were printed, and each then hand tinted. The cards were put on sale in London at a price of one shilling each (which was quite a sum of money!).

The idea caught on and soon Christmas cards were being mass produced, and became much more affordable; this, along with a cheaper postal rate introduced in Victoria's reign meant that soon almost everyone was able to send a small Christmas greeting during the festive season.

The designs on Christmas cards soon became sentimentalised to suit Victorian taste and sensibilities.  Children and animals became very popular, along with religious images and depictions of Father Christmas.

I love this Victorian card above, which captures the Victorian sentimentality and feeling for charity at Christmas. The Kindly Robin, generously gives the Beggar Bird and his wife a red berry in the spirit of Christmas, while the Kindly Robin's wife looks on with 'charitable' concern.

Seeing the Light! (...Well, almost!!)

Hello gentle readers! As part of my ongoing improvements to The Swan Inn interior. prior to it's Christmas makeover, I have been tackling the lights. This should have been fairly easy and straightforward as I had learnt many lessons from wiring up my Georgian House, and wanted to make this project easier to wire up. Tape wire and lamp adaptors were kept to a minimum, and I ran wires in channels routed out in floors, walls and ceilings to the back of the building, wherever this was possible. This did mean removing the large chunky plugs from each lamp, and replacing them with tiny Cir-Kit plugs, which fit into sockets designed to be pushed straight into tape wire. All of this was to be hidden behind The Swan, out of sight.

Well, I say that dolls house lighting systems must have been designed by one of Satan's own Hell Demons, to infuriate and frustrate to the highest degree, any poor sap who thinks it will be easy! Some of the lights worked first time; great! Some worked after some tweaking; OK! Some worked by checking connections and tightening brads etc, but some are refusing to work, even now!!

OK, I have run out of tiny plugs, that is true, as I lost one of the tiny metal pins, and think this last plug was faulty anyway, but even when the plug had been fitted the light wouldn't work! Currently the lights in all the major rooms are working, but the kitchen and landing remain unlit!

Here are some more pictures of the lights that work! There are also bulbs in the fires to make them glow, perfect for cold wintry nights!!!

I don't think you've seen the sitting room from this angle before, with the fireplace. This is where the recovered sofa and armchair will be going.

Time to Recover

Can it really be over half way through November already?! It will be Christmas before we know where we are! My last post was at Hallowe'en, but I have been very busy between then and now working on a special project for Christmas. Before I can finish my Christmas project, I need to get The Swan Inn knocked into shape, so have been working on all those jobs that have been put off over the summer months. First on the list was a little reupholstery work.

Do any of you remember this sofa? I was given it free by a good friend of mine (hi Dianne!) but I absolutely hate the covering fabric.

Here it is inside the pub's sitting room, looking rather out of place in my view. I did like the shape of the sofa and always intended to recover it, so that was the first job to do!

Fortunately, the sofa came apart quite easily and I was able to remove the old ugly fabric from any parts that would be seen. I kept the old fabric for use as templates when cutting the new fabric which was to replace it.

The new fabric has a much more 'country' style that I wanted in the pub sitting room. Most of the work was done simply by cutting and gluing, but the pleated pelmet skirting the bottom required more work to achieve, which included SEWING!!!! Yes dear readers, I picked up the dreaded needle at last! please don't look too closely at the ham fisted stitches along the hem! I also have to pin, iron and sew in the pleats. Now, it may not be as neat as the original cover, but I think it looks a lot more attractive now!

But the story doesn't just end there. I also made a wing-backed arm chair, this time completely from scratch, using MDF and some wooden dowel. I also made those stubby little legs on the front of the chair. It doesn't show too well in the photo, but there is some buttoning on the back seat of the chair too, which should have been simple, but cause me no end of problems!! Again, I am sure I could have bought something a lot better, but I am very pleased with this little chair, and the fact I made it all myself makes it even better!

And here they are both together. I decided I didn't want the foot stool in the end as there wouldn't be any room for it in the sitting room, so it never got recovered. Now, I think it would be nice to have some cushions on the sofa, but that may be pushing my sewing skills too far!! we shall see! I am sure you're all dying to see how this furniture looks in the pub sitting room, but I am afraid you'll just have to wait a little longer for that. I don't want to ruin any surprises! ;o)

Happy Hallowe'en!!!!

Hope you all have a happy Hallowe'en! I was trying to think about what I found scariest as a child, and remembered the old Public Information Broadcasts that used to be shown on TV when I was a kid, back in the 1790's and early 1980's. Being totally honest, I don't remember the Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water as a child, but it's certainly creepy, and David does remember it well!

I think the idea was to scare kids out of doing anything wrong, and it worked! for me anyway!!!

I do remember this next one. I couldn't go near an electricity sub station not far from my home, which used to hum and buzz in a very sinister way, I used to try and avoid going past it in case I ended up being zapped by evil electricity just like poor Jimmy!!!

Yes, it wasn't all Bagpuss and The Flumps on TV, they wanted us to live in mortal terror as well! Charlie was a slightly less scary character used to warn us of the dangers of strangers, matches and hot water.

Whatever you are doing to celebrate Hallowe'en remember to play SAFELY, or you may end up in your own Public Information Film!!!!! ;o)