Things your Kids can Make for Christmas

Christmas cards

 Use coloured card, and decorate with pictures from magazines or old Christmas cards, glitter and gel pens.

Gingerbread cookies

Use the recipe at the end of this post to make the biscuits, then decorate with icing and sweeties

 

Decorated candles

Glue ivy leaves, cloves, lace, sequins, pressed flowers, dried fruit and cinnamon sticks round the candles.

Place markers for the dinner table

 Cut rectangles from card and decorate the same as for the cards

Wreath for the front door

 Wreaths can be as simple or as difficult as you want. Bend an old coathanger into shape and tie on bits of greenery and small tree decorations. Finish with a big red bow or a tartan ribbon.

Christmas cake

Make a cake from scratch, or decorate a shop-bought one. Stick on decorations with blobs of icing, or draw a Christmas scene with icing pens. Colour-in a wide paper border and use a pin to secure it round the cake.

Dough-craft decorations for the tree

2 cups plain flour, 1 cup salt, .75 cup water, 10ml cooking oil. Use cookie cutters to make shapes, and bake at 80ºC (175º) overnight or microwave on LOW for 10 seconds at a time until dry.  Paint and varnish.

Peppermint Creams

One egg white, 250g icing sugar and a few drops of peppermint essence – yummy!

Mulled wine spices in muslin

 Mix cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar in a bowl. Tie in pieces of muslin or pour into tiny jars. Give as presents.

 

‘Snowy’ fir cones for the tree

 Paint fir cone tips with white paint and glitter. 

Country-style gingham hearts

Use red or green fabric to make tiny hearts. Stuff with off-cuts of material or bits of wool. Add a hanging loop and a bow. Use gingham and string for a country look.

 

Table decorations

Melt the bottom of a candle, and stick it onto a plate or bowl, or use plasticine to keep it secure. Pile oranges, lemons, ivy, holly, nuts and fir cones round the edge. Spray some of the nuts or fruit gold for a really special effect, and add some tiny bits of tinsel.

Use salt dough to make candle holders

Candle holders from fir cones or dough

Use the dough recipe and model tiny fir cones and leaves. Bake as before. Or cut a circle of card and glue cones, leaves, tiny presents etc round. Use red and green for a traditional look, or purple and silver for modern madness!

Advent calendar

A hanging with pockets, a pile of tiny presents, envelopes to open – all make great advent calendars.

Chocolate truffles

225g digestive biscuits(crushed), 115g butter, 1 large tin condensed milk, 4 tablespoons coconut, 4 tablespoons cocoa  powder. Melt the butter, and add the other ingredients. Cool. Shape into balls, and roll in coconut, cocoa, chocolate vermicelli or nuts

Tiny fabric stockings for the tree

Use Christmas fabric if you can find it, or bright red material. Cut out stocking shapes, add a white lacy top, and sew on a hanging loop of red ribbon. If you’ve made it big enough, it will hold a tube of Smarties!

Marzipan fruits for presents

Shape coloured marzipan into fruit shapes and paint with food colouring. Use cloves for stalks. Decorate gift boxes and give as presents.

Christmas puddings

Advanced cooking for the adventurous! Microwave recipes will get the job done in half the time. Don’t add traditional silver coins in case someone chokes.

Painted glass tea-light holders

Use tiny glass jars and paint with glass paints. Draw your design on paper and hold it behind the glass, and trace over it. – simple!

Gingerbread house

Use the gingerbread recipe to make a house. Decorate with icing snow and lots of sweets!

Printed wrapping paper

Use plain brown wrapping paper or jewel coloured tissue. Cut a design from a potato, print leaves, or just use gold/silver gel pens and draw a repeat design on. Little swirls or stars repeated all over look great – or write your own special Christmas message.

Collaged and printed gift tags

Use a template to cut out gift tags from thin card. Glue on pictures from magazines, bits of holly, ivy leaves, gold foil, pieces from old Christmas cards etc. Add a piece of hairy garden twine or some embroidery thread to attach it to the present.

  

Menu for the dinner table

Use your computer to print out the Christmas Day menu, then decorate with glitter and glue.

Knitted Christmas stocking

Look on the internet for a pattern, or go through Granny’s workbooks. No patience for knitting? Sew a huge stocking shape and appliqué Christmas shapes. Don’t forget to add your own name so Santa leaves the right presents.

Painted Christmas plates, bowls and glasses

Use plain white crockery, and paint with ceramic paints from craft shops. Bake in the oven to harden, and use to serve Christmas snacks.  Use glass paint outliner tubes to draw onto little bowls for nuts and nibbles.

Gingerbread Recipe

340 g plain flour

1 teaspoon ground  cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

85g brown sugar

pinch of ground cloves

115g butter

1 egg

4 tablespoons clear honey

Grease a baking sheet, and set the oven to 190ºC. Melt the butter, sugar and honey together. Beat the egg. Sift the dry ingredients together. Mix everything together, and leave for 30 minutes. Roll out, and cut into shapes. Poke holes in the tops for the hanging ribbon to go through.Bake for 15 minutes. Decorate. Hang up with very narrow red ribbon.  

This contains lots of ideas – search the internet or in books for more ideas, and detailed instructions.

A Kentish Hedgerow Harvest

Today we went on a walk around the village of Chartham, in Kent, UK. It is a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, which was quite apparent today ! Susan Hibberd was collecting ingredients for some more recipes taken from her book The Butterfly Book of Kentish Recipes.

available now from www.amazon.co.uk 

We took some bowls with us, as we were on the look-out for blackberries. However, we seem to have jumped the gun a bit, and many of the blackberry bushes are still in flower, or have the fruits just forming. We did find some different fruits, though...

Gorgeous ripe elderberries hanging in bunches. The tree is very invasive, and you wouldn't want it in your garden, but the berries are rich in vitamin C and make a great jelly, with or without apples.

Elderberries. You can just see a few rose hips poking through the shiny black of the berries. These will be heated to release the juice, strained, mixed with apple juice and made into jelly.

Sloe bushes have nasty prickles, so be careful how you pick them.

Some gorgeous sloes, just crying out to be mixed with sugar and soaked in gin. These were so ripe they fell off the tree when we shook it.

See how the hop vine uses the hedge to support itself.

Here are some hops that have escaped from the hop fields and set themselves in a hedgerow.

  

Sweet chestnut. When the nut is ripe, it will fall to the floor, splitting the spiny casing. These are quite different from the horse chestnuts that are used as conkers.

Haws from the hawthorn, or may, tree. These can be added to hedegrow jelly, but have lots of pips so are unsuitable for jam.

Gorgeous ripe bullaces with a lovely bloom on them. We shook the tree and they just fell off !

 

Rose hips for jelly.

Rose hips from a different type of rose. These hips are larger. Rose hips have horrible large, hairy seeds that need to be removed,but once boiled and sieved, can be used to make syrup or jelly.

Jars of rosehip syrup ready to add to lemonade or pour over ice cream. A recipe for Rose Hip Jelly appears in The Butterfly Book of Kentish Recipes.

It's been a bad year for blackberries where we live in Kent. Here is a little bunch of blackberries, some ripe and some half ripe. The lack of rain means they are not plump and juicy like they should be at this time of year.

THESE ARE THINGS YOU SHOULD NOT EAT:

Horse chestnuts. The picture on the right shows the chestnuts on the tree, just beginning to split open. the ones on the left must have fallen quite recently, as they are still shiny. They quickly lose their shine once they are exposed to the air. Children tie the dried chestnuts to string and play 'conkers; with them, taking turns to hit each others' nut. The one that doesn't break is the winner. Apparently, soaking them in vinegar makes them harder.These chestnuts are quite different from sweet chestnuts and are poisonous.

A super formation of fungus. I don't know the type Never eat any fungus unless you know what it is.

These holly berries are on a variegated bush, and are quite spectacular. Great for decorating your home, especially at Christmas time, but don't eat them !

A fantastic result! Kentish Red Cherries scrumped from a roadside hedgerow. They are really tart and can't be eaten fresh, however, they are great for sauce or jam.

From late April onwards the foamy clusters of elderflowers dot the hedgerows. These can be used immediately to make fresh elderflower fritters using a light batter, or added to preserves. They make a great addition to gooseberry jam or jelly, giving it a really delicious and different taste.

In an abundant year, the flowers can be used to make elderflower cordial or elderflower wine, an old country favourite.

Check out some recipes that use these great Kentish ingredients in The Butterfly Book of Kentish Recipes. More information on this blog,or on www.amazon.co.uk 

Pastel 1960s Tupperware

Most of these photographs are my own, of items that I have scrounged, sourced, and even purchased. Some of the photos have been shamelessly stolen from ebay users, and I apologise if you spot your own photograph here. Please email us if you would like it removed.

Green and Yellow Wonderlier bowls with the famous Tupperware 'burp' seal.

Two round storage containers and a yellow jug with a flip lid. Each of the early seals had an imprint of a seal on them, which is a good way of telling if a seal is new or vintage. The jugs were also available in pastel blue and came in two sizes, for milk or cream (see below)

Super set of six pastel cereal bowls. So useful for so much more than cereals !

Yellow and blue freezer boxes.

Freezer boxes in a range of pastel colours.

 

Blue and clear containers for the kitchen cupboard.

The classic fridge box, updated many times, but still with the grate in the bottom which stops your veg from sitting in the collected water.

Super set of jug and sugar bowl. The sugar bowl has a narrow opening for use directly onto your food, and a large spout for use while cooking.

The green grated was an innovation, in that the grater sits on top of your bowl so that you can grate directly into it. The newer versions have metal graters.

Super Lettuce bowl, complete with plastic spike in the bottom.

These pastel tumblers have their own lid tidy.

The storage containers came in a range of heights. The flip-lid made it easy to pour out ingredients like sugar.

Dear little individual jelly pots. The base is removable as well as the lid. When serving, removing the base dispels the vacuum and helps the jelly to drop out easily.

Tupperware Key Rings

I admit that I have shamelessly borrowed these images from eBay. These key chains are not (sadly) mine - although I do have a small but growing collection. Aren't t

 

Fridge box (?) and a Heart container 

Two bowls with removable lids.

Two bowls

Another bowl

More hearts

 

Shape-O, left - a child's sorting toy.