Beginning to look a bit like Christmas (Do-Vember #22)

Do-Vember

For most of the past many years, my holiday decorating rule has been to leave it all as late as possible. There were good reasons for this. We tried to keep Advent separate from Christmas, and it didn't help if we had too many Christmas things out too early. Later on, some years, we also put out decorations just before Christmas, but that was because people were busy or partly out of town, and we had to wait for everyone who wanted to help.

Today I put out a few holiday things. I think it's the earliest I've ever done this much decorating, ever. Again, there are reasons for this. We don't have too-excited small children anymore, but we do have adult children who have flown the nest and who will be in and out at various times over the next month. It just seemed like it would be nice to have a few warming-up-for-Christmas things around the house.

Decoration we bought at Ponytails' school craft sale, a few years ago (made by one of the students)

A basket of vintage Christmas carol books

Working on decorating the front hall. I made the candle jar decoration out of scavenged odds and ends, and put some bits of fake evergreen in the white goblets. I'm going to add some mini red balls or berries to the goblets, when I find some.

A basket of old favourite Christmas books, in a basket that was formerly a six-sectioned wine basket (posted about that here). After not using the basket since finding it in August, because I couldn't think of anything to put in the six sections, I removed the divider and now have a perfectly good plain basket.

Dewey and Chippie relaxing in front of the fireplace. (They won't stay there long if it gets too warm.)

Tips to keep your frugal food gifts from bombing

As you can see from one of last year's gift baskets, when we give food, we often give packaged treats rather than homemade: tea, coffee, apple butter, popcorn, chocolate, and things like pickled beets canned at a small vegetable market that only opens from spring through fall--so by Christmas, it's impossible to buy them. We like to be able to give an assortment of things, especially to family members who live alone and wouldn't really appreciate, say, a whole box of fudge.

But we have often given small homemade food gifts to friends, Sunday School teachers, and neighbors.  Some ideas we've tried (besides the obvious plates of cookies) are salad topper mixes (like trail mix except you sprinkle it on salads); Cider Beetles; homemade mixes for coffee and hot chocolate; peeled garlic cloves in a jar of honey; peeled and sliced ginger root in a jar of honey; herb mixes for salad dressing.  One year I made up bags of the dry ingredients for Beer Bread.  (I didn't include the beer.) We've given away jars of things we've canned ourselves: jam, apple butter, and, one year, pumpkin butter.  We have given (and received) special health-food items...those expensive natural sweeteners, organic nut butters, and other healthy-but-gourmet ingredients can make good (and still relatively frugal) gifts.  Ethnic groceries often have interesting possibilities too.

But not every food gift is a felicitous choice.  Here are a few tips, especially for giving homemade mixes, that may save time, embarrassment, and/or food waste.

1.  This should go without saying, but check carefully for allergies or other dietary requirements, especially if the gift is for someone you don't know well.  You don't want to be like Muffy's father, cheerfully bringing a ham to the (Jewish) Frenskys.

Even personal tastes and preferences can change from time to time. Several friends who used to be coffee drinkers now ask for herbal tea (one of those midlife things?), so I'm less likely to be making coffee mixes.

2.  Put best-before dates and storage instructions on mixes and baked goods.  Baking mixes that contain baking powder are said to lose quality after a certain time; brown sugar can also go lumpy and hard after awhile.  Also, please list the ingredients, if it's a mix:  see #1.  Surprises are not always welcome.

3.  Some homemade mixes come with baking or cooking directions that are too difficult for the recipients, require them to buy too many extra ingredients, or just make too much at once, like a salad dressing recipe that makes more than one person could eat in a month.  Look for instructions that give alternate amounts, or that suggest variations.  I have one soup mix recipe that calls for mixing the dry ingredients with sausage, onion, carrots, etc.; but I've made it up just with water or broth, and it's still pretty good.

4.  Some layers-in-a-jar ideas, like soup mixes, call for layering need-to-be-washed ingredients like beans, lentils, or brown rice directly with other ingredients.  If it's something that should be rinsed before cooking, then figure out an alternative, like putting the spices in a sandwich bag.

5.  Try not to give people things they already make themselves.  Somebody who makes a lot of jam may not appreciate a jar of yours--unless she gave all hers away as gifts.  So you never know.

BONUS UPDATE:  It's not Christmas yet, but I can post this here because my oldest won't see it--I'm pretty sure she's too busy studying for exams to be browsing through month-old blog posts.  So anyway...she asked me for a muffin pan to fill out some of her off-campus kitchen gear, and that was easy enough.  But I added some other things to make it a Coffee-and-a-Muffin Kit, and now it takes up the whole lid of a paper carton.  I made up four Ziploc bags full of dry ingredients for family-favourite muffins, plus cards with instructions for what else to add.  I added in a few sandwich-sized bags of chocolate chips, walnuts, cinnamon-plus-brown-sugar, and raisins.  There's also a small coffee can full of the Hillbilly Housewife's Vanilla Coffee Mix (figures, my university student is one of the few people left I can give coffee mix to), and a mug.  I'm not a fancy scrapbooker, but I managed to print out a label for the coffee, tags for the mixes, and a full-size label for the whole thing, using a photo I found online.  I tried to colour-co-ordinate the whole thing--mostly blues, blue for the tags, a blue coffee mug, and so on; and I found a big piece of clear basket wrap in our stash of recycled giftwrap.  In spite of the fact that it's sitting in the lid of a paper carton, I think it all looks pretty good.

P.S.  After I got the whole thing put together and then wrapped in a dollar-store plastic tablecloth (the only thing I could find that was big enough), I realized that I left out the package of walnuts.  So I'm going to wrap that up separately with a tag that says "oh, nuts."

Linked from Four Moms discuss Food for Gift Giving

Crochet Class #6: is it a hat, or a basket?

Most of what you need to know for this week's pattern was covered in the last class.  In our last real-life class, the girls worked on making a small flat circle (like the beginning of a coaster); but some of them found that difficult.  The shamrocks actually turned out to be easier for them; everyone completed at least one shamrock before the end of the class, and a couple of the girls said that they really liked making treble crochets. 

Well, this week we're going to go back to making those flat circles, and this time it will be easier because everybody's had a bit of practice--right?  Get your stitch markers ready!  (If you don't have split-ring markers, you can use things like earrings, paper clips, or bits of yarn to mark where you start each round.)

Today's Mini Hat pattern came from a holiday decoration, "Peppermint People,” in Crochet World Magazine, December 2005, by Angela Winger.  The designer's "snowman" person wears a flat-topped hat, boater-style, and that's the part of the pattern that we're using.

But not in snowman's-hat-black, please; black is one of the hardest colours to crochet with, since you can't easily see your stitches.  I'm thinking a lighter brown, and "straw" colour would be perfect.  Or any light colour is fine.  You will need a very small amount of a second colour for one row of trim.
What weight of yarn, and what size hook?  As written, you need a 4mm hook (F or G in American sizing) and worsted-weight yarn; in my own sample, that made a Moxie Girl-sized hat.   UPDATE:  I made another sample, using Red Heart Super Saver in variegated pinks and purples, and a 4mm hook; and it came out a little smaller than the first one--this one was more Barbie-sized.  So your mileage may vary quite a bit on these.

I made another hat, but I doubled the yarn (used two strands at a time) and used a larger, 6mm hook (that's a J hook for Americans), without making any changes to the pattern.  That made a hat that would fit a Ty Girlz doll or a Beanie Bopper.  The larger size also fits a cloth doll from Ten Thousand Villages.

I think if you wanted to make an even bigger hat, say for an 18-inch doll, you would need to change the pattern, rather than using heavier yarn with the original directions, so I'm not going to recommend that yet, unless you're already comfortable adapting patterns.  If you don't have a doll or critter small enough to wear the small-to-medium-sized hat, don't worry, because if you flip the hat upside down, it makes a perfect little basket.  Maybe for Easter, to hold a few foil-covered candies?  You'd just need to add a handle of some type.

I've copied out the pattern as printed in Crochet World, but with my "translations" below each row, in italics. 

HAT OR BASKET

Supplies needed: see notes above.  One strand of worsted-weight yarn, used with a 4mm hook (F or G, in American sizing); or two strands and a larger hook, for a larger hat; or you can experiment with heavier or lighter weight yarn for different effects.  Enough of the main colour to make the hat, plus small amount of a second colour for contrasting row.  Yarn needle, scissors, and stitch markers.

Stitches used:  Slip stitch (Sl st), Chain, (ch), Single Crochet (sc), Half Double Crochet (hdc)

Rnd. 1: With main colour, ch 2, 6 sc in 2nd ch from hook, do not join. (6 sc)

Chain 2 stitches. Make 6 single crochet stitches in the second chain stitch from the hook. Do not join with slip stitch—just keep going, and remember to count stitches.  The (6 sc) at the end means that you now have 6 single crochet stitches in the round.

Rnd 2: 2 sc in each sc around. (12 sc)

Work 2 single crochet stitches in each of the 6 single crochets that you made previously—this gives you 12 single crochet stitches. Do not join, just keep going.

Rnd 3: [Sc in next sc, 2 sc in next sc] 6 times. (18 sc)

In the first stitch, make one single crochet. In the next, make two. In the next, make one. In the next, make two, and so on around. Square brackets plus a number afterwards mean that you are to do something a certain number of times, across a row or a round.

Rnd 4: [Sc in each of next 2 sc, 2 sc in next sc] 6 times. (24 sc)

You are continuing to make the circle bigger. In the first stitch, make one single crochet. In the second, make one single crochet. In the third, make two. Repeat this pattern (one, one, two) all the way around.

Rnd 5: Working in back lps only, sc in each st around.

No increases on this round, but work only in the back loops to make a ridge.

Rnd 6: Sc in each sc around, change to contrasting colour in last sc.
No increases—just work around, and change colour at the end.  Don't cut the original yarn--you'll need it again in another row.

Rnd 7: Sc in each sc around change to main colour in last sc, fasten off trim colour.

Same as before—change back to original colour at the end.

Rnd 8: Repeat rnd 6.

Work around with original colour.

Rnd 9: Working in front lp only of each st, work 2 hdc [See notes below] in each st around, sl st in first hdc, fasten off.

This is how you make the brim, and you want to double the number of stitches. Hdc is half double crochet, and the only difference between it and single crochet is that you bring the yarn over the hook first before drawing up a loop, so that you have three loops on the hook. Draw the yarn back through all three loops at once to finish the stitch. Half double crochet gives you a nice solid stitch a bit bigger than single crochet. When turning rows made with hdc, chain 2 instead of chain 1.

If you don’t want to try the new stitch, you could do the brim in single crochet and then do a second round with no increases. Add a handle if you want it to be a basket.

That's enough to keep us busy for this class.  We are planning one more real-life class so that the girls can do an amigurumi animal or some other small project that they would like to finish off with.  Are you in?  Check back here...probably not in two weeks, since that's Easter weekend, but sometime next month.

(Hat photo found here)

Gift baskets and Christmas cheer at the Treehouse: photo post

Crocheted bells hung on the wall; Crayons added the angel.

Gift baskets for extended family members (who I hope aren't reading this before Christmas).  The baskets were picked up this week at the thrift store, along with most of the picks, pinecones, and other doodads.  The monkeys are handmade.

A bowlful of Christmas, to put on a table in the living room. The crystal bowl was a wedding gift. Mama Squirrel made the origami boxes from an old (thrifted) book of Christmas photos.  The ornaments and picks were all picked out of this week's thrift store boxful of stuff.

The four wooden apples on the stove came inside that red and green bucket that we used for one of the gift baskets. The brown angel box also came from the thrift store. The squirrel and acorn salt-and-peppers came from another thrift store several years ago--a gift for Mr. Fixit.

The dining room buffet, improved this week by finds from the thrift store--gold garland and ornaments, candle rings. The candle rings don't match but they're the same colours, so I'll live with that unless I can find something else.  Good Mousekeeping isn't keeping tabs here.

All photos by Mr. Fixit. Copyright 2011, Dewey's Treehouse.

Found at the thrift store: Mama Squirrel goes squirrelly with decorations and baskets

What did we bring home from the thrift store this week?

Quite a lot.  Some of it, I can't say, because it's almost Christmas.  Just say that I had my eyes open, looking out for certain peoples' particular reading interests.

And some of it, I can say, because it's almost Christmas. I earned a bit of pin money last week by sitting through a bunch of prototype commercials with four other ladies and discussing what we thought of them.  So I used some of that money to buy several nice baskets, and a whole boxful of trims, picks, bows and other holiday miscellany to dress up the baskets.  What we do with the baskets (most years) is fill them with food gifts and other small items, and those are our family gifts for a few of the relatives.

Mr. Fixit is going to take photos later today, so come on back and you can see what the filled baskets look like.

Funniest book I sorted yesterday:

Funny not because of the content, but because of the shape of the book.  If you can't see from the photo, the hardcover edition is a parallelogram.

When packaging (and love) make gifts special

Sometimes it's not so much what's in the gift as the concept behind it, and the way you present it.  Remember the Dollar Store Santa Dollies at Old Days Old Ways?  Even small, frugal or miscellaneous gifts become something special when the creative-giving muse is allowed to run free.

Valerie at Frugal Family Fun Blog has a perfect example of this: "Doll Bath Sets."  Anyone can hand a kid some soap, an empty shampoo bottle, and a washcloth, and say "here, go wash your doll."  But it takes imagination to put it together into more of a package deal.  Valerie is very, very good at this.

Another example: Family Fun Magazine's Hot Chocolate Cones.  Mostly hot chocolate mix with a few marshmallows and chocolate chips, but it's the shape of the package (cone-shaped clear bags) that turns it into something fun.

We've had a few successes along that line too:  last year's custom Sculpey repackaging, and the clothespin doll kits the girls got a few years ago.  Mama Squirrel has also posted gift basket ideas and other thoughts on gift-giving.  And don't forget our squirrel's tips on giving "thwifted" books.