Sufjan Stevens- Come On! Let's Boogey to the Elf Dance!

Not the best video, but best I could find :)

Happy Christmas and Holiday Season everyone!

Christmas Stocking fillers Eye ♥

This time next week S will be a few hours off finishing work for the year. I wish he were home for a couple of days before Xmas, but having Christmas Eve off is great. Like birthdays, I feel that Xmas Eve should be a holiday.

Anyhow, as we get closer to Christmas, and I await the opportunity to wrap and place pressies under the tree I am still browsing online some of the neat things around.
Here are some bits I come across in the past week that I would be happy for Santa to drop into our stockings.


Hector Serrano http://www.hectorserrano.com/
This designer has innovation. And fun. Check out his site for more great things, but here are a couple of my fav's.

Monster Hands Temporary Tattoos

Dress for Dinner Napkin

Gr0glmann's Lego Cufflinks  

This guy has a website apparently but I can't find it. However plenty of links (get it?) online for his mens jewellery and at his etsy store.

Lego Cufflinks

Grove Made do design and craftsmanship as it should be. This company have beautiful laser cut bamboo iPhone cases, and you can get  custom made cases too!   A thing of beauty.

Grove Bamboo iPhone 4 Case

Lifes A Stitch (haha - I love that name :) ) http://www.lifesastitch.com.au make probably the best toy food I have seen.  These 2 Aussie sisters make cool tactile playfood from fabrics such as wool & cotton. Well priced and great options such as Fish & Chips, Eco shopping bag, Fresh Fruit.

Roll Your Own Sushi

Julie Goodwins Xmas Gingerbread Men

I felt we needed some fun yummies to eat leading up to the big day (in less than 2 weeks!). And I saw Julie Goodwin (Masterchef) making these on telly the other morning, and who could go wrong with something called "Great Nan's Gingerbread Recipe"?

 I got D and cleaned his hands, stuck on his apron (getting time for a new bigger one Muma). It was fun making this with him but its 3 hours later and I have only just finished! Julie said the mix should make about 36 cookies, so I'm not sure how many I got but it is a lot more. Julie must have bigger cookie cutters than me. But I'm pleased to have so many, because most of the time I follow baking recipes I end up with a much smaller quantity than suggested. Which means everything is eaten within the same day :(

I did break to get D into bed for his afternoon nap and clean up a little. But the icing took me the longest. It's really a two person job. One to ice and one to stick on the fiddly little Cachous.

I was a bit sick of it by the time I got to the Angels, and didn't really know how to decorate them. So I went with green side ponytails and red shoes, which is quite 'Wizard of OZ' and not really 'O' Christ the Teenie Babe is born'...  anyhow thats fine by me and I'm sure the boys will be just has happy to eat them and the alien eyed Gingerbread men.

Pop-up Tree

I was going past Lincraft yesterday and saw they had 50% off all Christmasy stock so I went in and had a look around. Our new place is quite a bit bigger than our last, so our festive decoration collection needs to expand. I came across this box which the scanner said was $10, so I don't think it was included in the sale but it seemed perfect enough ( at that price) for the empty space beside the telly.

The box said 'Christmas Tree in a Box' 'Paper art by Sam Ita. "Hmmm" I wondered, is Sam Ita someone I should know about? What other things does Sam Ita do? So a quick google and I see that Sam Ita is a Pop-Up Artist, but that sounds like another name for a Flasher in the same way Housewives use to (before someone came up with the term SAHM) call themselves Domestic Executives.
Anyways... his website refers to him as an author, artist and 'paper engineer'. His website by his own account is never updated but he did have a post with a cool invite he designed "CAGE"  http://www.samita.us/index.html
I think we should have more Pop-up invites. Wedding pop up invites - cool!

So I made the tree last night in about 20 minutes while I watched the Amazing Race. I put it over in the corner by the T.V, only to realize that was a stupid thing to buy because D (who is near 2) would pull it to pieces in the morning. Our Xmas tree is bare for the first 2 feet whilst the carpet and garden are sprinkled with gold glitter stars and balls.

So highest place I could find was up with the china tea cups.

Christmas Goodies - Knitted food.

On the weekend I went to a community car boot sale which had some old ladies selling their hand knitted gifts. I thought these were quite amusing, reminding me of the knitted cake, sandwiches and tea sets that I had seen in a Christchurch art gallery a few years ago.

How much?
$5.00
Bargain!
They even let me take the paper plate they were displayed on.