Gifts!

My favourite reading chair is now covered in a gorgeous red velvet (see the chair before here). It was my Christmas gift from Erich. The children bought me some wonderful books - my favourites are the ones written by Astrid Lindgren. Bottom right you can see the felt garlands I made and used to wrap around gifts, the christmas tree and beams in our flat. I love them and they were so very easy to make following these instructions by Liz. Christmas has passed and the days before New Year have me in a thinking, planning and mellow mood, waiting to jump into action in the New year. I have some plans and will be updating a list that has been neglected lately. I also have some news...my divorce was settled just before Christmas and Erich proposed immediatley afterwards so we are getting married in early 2008! I wish you all a Happy New Year, I´m sure 2008 is going to be fabulous!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

To all my blogging friends who have brightened this past year, I say Merry Christmas.

11 days and counting!

Are you in the Christmas spirit yet? Check out all these wonderful things to see and do. Amanda´s Christmas stockings, Bella Dia´s countdown to Christmas, Swedish cinnamon rolls, this beautiful photo, this bedroom, this group, December Views and the lovely Soft Trees.

Advent, Advent, ein Lichtlein brennt!

In Austria it´s tradition to have an Adventkranz with 4 candles which are lit, one after the other, on the last 4 Sundays before Christmas. We all went for a walk on Saturday and collected twigs, fir branches and dried leaves to make our own Kranz. With some sheets of newspaper and thin wire, it´s easy to form a ring and then you add your branches and leaves, wrapping the wire around as you go. This is our table centre-piece up to Christmas when it´s replaced with a large plate of Christmas biscuits. I always start baking at the beginning of December for our annual Christmas market. One of the favourites is Rasberry stars. Here´s the recipe.
I cut out stars and make holes in half of them with a small piece of plastic tube before baking. After the biscuits have cooled down, put a teaspoon of rasberry jam on a star and top with another star(with a hole in it). Put all the stars next to each other and sprinkle with icing sugar.