DIY Christmas Gift Tags

For all you last minute gift wrappers out there, I thought I'd share the way I've made my gift tags this Christmas, in case you wanted to add a cute personal touch to your wrapping. I found this a really fun creative thing to do and it left me feeling very Christmassy. You just need old newspaper, watercolour paints, paper/ card (both in the colour you want the gift tags and white for backing) and a biro and a bit of glitter for the finishing touches. I drew simple, Christmas themed shapes on the back of a page of newspaper, cut them out and painted them with a wash of colour so that the print showed through. Then I stuck them on to the gift tags I'd cut out of brown paper backed with lined white paper and added the finishing touches- usually just a sprinkle of gold glitter, before hole punching them ready to be written and added to presents.

Do you get as into gift wrapping as I do? Merry Christmas eve eve, see you soon!

Eva xx

Doodle Mugs- DIY Christmas Gift Idea

Today I thought I'd share an idea for cheap and thoughtful Christmas gifts- decorating your own mugs. This could also be a fun activity to do with children- you could give the plain mugs and porcelain pens as a gift for them instead. I bought these plain white mugs from Wilko for just 75p each and a porcelain pen from Ebay here (you can also get a big set of different colours at much better value for money). On most of my mugs I created similar Christmassy designs- a set of baubles of varying sizes on varying length strings (an example can be seen in the photo above). I also personalised the designs for each recipient. Mistakes I made with the pen were easily cleared up with nail polish remover and cotton buds and the designs were set after being left to dry for a few hours and then baked in the oven for an hour and a half.

I'd love to know about any DIY gifts you're making this Christmas. See you soon!
Eva xx

Christmas Cookie Recipe

Lets talk about Christmas cookies! I made these ones when experimenting with this gingerbread man recipe. I didn't have any ginger or man shaped cutters so obviously I had to alter the recipe a good bit and I ended up with these 'Christmas flavour' cookies. I basically substituted ginger for mixed spice so these taste of Christmassy cinnamon and ginger goodness, they also have a lovely soft texture like the best kind of gingerbread.

Ingredients:
350g/12oz plain flour, plus extra for rolling out
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
3 tsp mixed spice
125g/4½oz butter
175g/6oz light soft brown sugar
1 free-range egg
4 tbsp golden syrup
Icing/ sprinkles if you want to decorate them

Method:

1. Mix together the flour, bicarbonate of soda and mixed spice. Add the butter and carry on until it looks like breadcrumbs. Now stir in the sugar.
2. Lightly beat the egg and golden syrup together, then add to the dry ingredients and mix until it clumps together. Then knead the dough briefly until it's smooth, wrap it in clingfilm and leave it in the fridge for 15 minutes.
3. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and line baking trays with greaseproof paper.
4. Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface, the cookies won't rise a great deal so roll it to maybe half the thickness you want the cookies. Then use cookie cutters to cut out whatever shapes you want- my hearts were more successful than my stars as the points on the stars were quick to over bake. Then place them on the baking tray, leaving a small gap between each cookie.
5. Bake until lightly golden-brown- this may take anything from 5 to 15 minutes depending on the size and thickness of your cookies, I'd give them 5 minutes and then see how close to done they are. 
6. When they're cool you can decorate them however you want- you can easily get them to look a lot more professional than mine if you invest in either squeezy icing or a piping bag and don't allow a six year old to help you! I think they would be nice if you made a thin icing sugar and water icing and used it to glaze them. Or you could pipe designs on them which would look cute if you wanted to give some away as a Christmas gift.

Please let me know if you make these I'd love to see a photo! What do you like to bake at Christmas? See you soon!

Eva xx

A Mini Beauty Christmas Wishlist

Today I thought I'd share a few things on my beauty wishlist at the moment (none of which I expect to actually receive for Christmas, in case you needed a disclaimer)

1. Nars Sheer Glow Foundation- because I haven't been able to justify buying it for myself when I already have about 5 foundations on the go, but who hasn't given it a good review?

2. Urban Decay Naked palette- because I told myself you only need one Naked palette when I bought the Naked 3 earlier this year, but I've changed my mind. Bronze toned neutrals are nothing like rose toned neutrals. Bronze toned neutrals are a necessity.

3. Zoeva Rose Golden Luxury Set- because while its time in the spotlight may have come and gone, but its still a beautiful brush set and I still don't own it. I'm just hoping someone buys me this at some point because I feel like I can't justify buying it for myself.

4. Nars Digital World Lip Pencil Coffret- because I love every shade and I always hear good things about Nars Lip Pencils.

Let me know what make up is on your Christmas wish list in the comments! See you soon!
Eva xx

Make and Do Gifts for Kids

Now, I don't pretend to be an expert on buying Christmas presents for children but I would like to share some ideas from the sort of thing I would like to get for my 6 year old sister (admittedly the only child I regularly buy gifts for). Children are generally thought of as very easy to buy for, but my sister is the youngest in our family by 8 years, and as the only member of the family anyone can buy toys for any more, tends to get pretty spoilt at Christmas. In recent years I've preferred to get her games and make and do type gifts as they result in something nice we can do together and are less likely to be forgotten than a toy in amongst the far too many she already owns. Today I thought I'd put together a few of the sort of things I would like to get her.

Firstly I think character board games are a great idea for children- they seem to have a Frozen version of every children's board game now and you can get them pretty cheap on Amazon. Me and my sister both love Adventure Time so I have bought her a few Adventure Time games in the past, these are fun, unusual and slightly ridiculous. I'd recommend the Everything Burrito game, which I bought her for her birthday, as a gift for any Adventure Time fan child or not, and I've already wrapped her Gassy Jake hot potato game for Christmas.

For the more creative kids there's a lot of 'make your own' kits on the market. I think its really important to consider the child's age- younger children really don't have the patience for crafts that take a long time or have to be done very precisely. One of my favourite crafts that can be done by children of all ages is the decoration of mugs or plates, you can buy kits for this or just get some porcelain pens or paints and plain white mugs or plates, this is something I remember really enjoying to do as a child.

My favourite DIY gift idea is a Science experiment kit I saw on Pinterest (though I can't find the page again to put a link in, sorry!). They had found a few household ingredient science experiments- Mentos in coke, that sort of thing- written them up a made them into a nice little booklet which could be personalised with the recipients name. They also included all the ingredients for the experiments they had found and presented them in a box together with the booklet. I think most children would love this sort of thing and it's a really thoughtful and inexpensive gift.

I hope you enjoyed my first Christmas themed post, let me know if you'd like to see another one! See you soon!
Eva xx