Yes, indeed - I am in the mood for Christmas, and therefore I already finished my outdoor decorations. Not completely voluntarily, at least not the timing.
But let me start at the beginning. We found a letter in our garden from the neighbors who have their garden back to back to ours. They kindly asked to shorten our trees because they had grown very much. I found their way of contact slightly weird because they could've knocked on our door. As far as I remember neither hubby nor me are known for biting strangers… Anyway, their wish was our command and as we lacked a large ladder we asked the gardeners who had to repair our fence to do the trees as well. Shortly after we found another letter stating kind of: so far so good but there are still massive branches hanging over our fence, would you please be so kind… The gardeners had thought it would be better only to cut the heights in order to not disturb the neighbors and to avoid getting in their garden to cut the backsides of our trees. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, you know. Thus, we had no choice but to cut the overhanging branches ourselves.
And then suddenly our garden looked like an exploded forest - it was packed with twigs, sprigs and branches. As we don't own a chainsaw (no need for massacres, yet), I sorted out the fir-like green which I could use for Christmas and freed the rest from all the leaves which I stuffed into my recycling bin. Then it took me several days to shorten small twigs with shears to fit into our fireplace and to put thicker twigs into a vise and cut them with a hand saw into pieces. Wich left me with this at the end of October: a Christmas tree puzzle:
I took the whole greens and made three garlands, adorned them with some red balls and fixed them to our window sills. I planned to do that anyway but not that early. And as the front door could use some decoration as well, I quickly made a wreath for it.
Since we remodeled our front yard, it is rather minimalistic and thus the entrance area was in need of some color. I had a pile of presents in mind, and because they are outside I had to wrap the cartons rain-proof. My favorite online provider for everything only offered some gift-wrap-foil for 25 Euros which I didn't want to pay just for decorations without any further purpose. In our local hardware store I saw self adhesive foil which was cheaper but still I hesitated - after all, it was nothing essential, you know. And then I found plastic table cloths for next to nothing - Bingo! I double-layered them because they were slightly transparent and then I skewered the three parcels onto an old parasol stand and put the whole arrangement into a planter to prevent it from flying around when its windy. A pop of color, definitely.
If you don't buy but make everything yourself it takes some more time and therefore, I am already in the middle of my gift production for Christmas. Due to the fact that the receivers might read this I can only show my presents after giving them. But I can show what I won't use as a gift. My original plan was to sew some napkins and I wanted to try a hemming foot for the first time. That was easier said than done and moreover, the finished product was a bit too small for my liking. Now I will take them as hankies for myself - it's always good to have a backup solution :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment