Only a little handmade...

I haven't really done a lot of handmade this Christmas but did manage to sneak a few projects in.

Today the kids and I started off making some Christmas crackers (from my research for instructions for making them, it seems that this is largely a British/Australian/NZ thing?). Anyway, for those that don't know what they are, they are sort of like a party favour that we have at each place setting at the table. Inside is usually a party hat, a tacky joke and a crappy toy (depending on the $$ spent on them). This year I thought we'd make some as I'd been given some of the "popper" bits (they are like a little cap-gun thing on a strip of cardboard that you pull and it snaps and it makes a noise). Inside I put a little toy for everyone (in the kids ones I put a proper little toy they could use) and will probably hunt out some good jokes to slide in too.

First up I made a "test" one that the kids got to pull and check they would work. It was just a tube rolled up in tissue paper (I had a half tube on either side of the longer tube to form the shape nicely when I tied the ends and then slid them out).

I then moved on to decorating some tea towels (kitchen/dish towels if tea towels doesn't make sense lol). I had the kids each draw a simple picture. I then outlined it again with a fine black felt pen. Then sellotaped the drawing on the window. Over the top I sellotaped my cotton teatowel and traced the picture with a laundry marker. Unfortunately my photos don't really do them justice (Danielle's one was on a pale green cloth and Nathan's white). They came up really neat.