tiny happy

silent night

A few last-minute presents: miniature brooches. Made from some wool felt scraps, stray buttons and tiny safety pins I found lying around the house when I was sweeping the floor. Excellent.

And this is how I spent my Sunday morning: with sticky lemon icing and even stickier little hands helping, and sweets and boiling hot sugar syrup. Luckily I enlisted Tom's help with that bit. And voila- our first gingerbread house. It's a bit on the wonky side, and I wouldn't be surprised if the roof caved in, but there you go. I didn't bake it though- just assembling the pieces was quite enough fun.

Tomorrow morning we're travelling to Germany to spend Christmas with Tom's uncle and his family. And I think that now, finally, the picnic lunch has been made, the car is packed full of clothes and presents, the christmas cake has cooled and been wrapped in a tea towel, and the children are asleep. Silent night at last.

Wishing you a very happy Christmas time, from our family to yours. See you in the New Year. Peace. XXXX

princess-style

Back near the beginning of the year, I was given a box of very old linens- mostly single sheets made from fine linen and cotton, each embroidered with a family monogram and inset with crochet panels. They were quite stained with age and mildew, mostly along the lines where they'd been folded and kept in a cardboard box. Even the white linen-covered buttons were folded amongst the sheets. The Norwegian woman who so kindly gave them to me said they belonged to her family's estate and were made by her grandmother sometime in the early 1900's.

So gradually, whenever we had a sunny day, I soaked, washed and sun-bleached the bedding several times until it was white again. I gave a few sets of the linen away to friends, because it was so lovely, all fresh and white. And then when I saw the 'Linnanneitomekko' dress in Juju, I knew I had to use some of the antique linen and the buttons to make one for Keira.

I hope she'll like it - I've wrapped it up and placed it under the tree.

pepperkake

Thanks for joining in with the giveaway yesterday- I used the random number generator to pick Jen. So Jen, please send me your mailing address and i'll send them express mail.

I also promised a recipe for gingerbread cookies, or pepperkake. To be honest, I feel like a bit of a fraud because I'm no baker, and I'm not even Scandinavian. I think that Christmas baking recipes are probably the sort of thing you pass down in families. This recipe is the one I've used to bake a couple of batches of cookies now. I muddled it together from a plain gingerbread cookie recipe, and asked around to find out what the specific spices should be. Results varied! So the recipe is just how I like the cookies to taste. You could adjust the spices for a different intensity.
Also, it tends to be quite sticky, so lots of flour for sprinkling around while you're working with the dough is advised.

Pepperkake/Christmas spice cookies

3 cups plain flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp finely ground pepper
1 1/2 tsps baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 Tb ground ginger
1 Tb ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground/grated nutmeg

90 gms soft butter
3/4 cup soft brown sugar
1 egg

1/2 cup molasses or dark golden syrup
2 tsp vanilla extract
grated rind of one lemon

icing sugar and lemon juice for glaze/decoration.

In a small bowl, stir together the first group of dry ingredients.
In a large bowl, beat together the second group of ingredients until smooth. Next add the syrup, vanilla and lemon rind. Beat well. Gradually work in the dry ingredients until you have a stiff dough. Turn onto a floured surface and knead a couple of times (you will find the mixture is quite sticky) then wrap it in plastic and pop in the fridge for at least 2 hours.
When ready to bake, break off a piece of the dough (the rest keeps well in a covered container in the fridge for a week or so, if you don't want to use it all right away.)
Roll out the dough (it helps to put flour on the rolling pin, too), cut out shapes and use a flat knife to transfer them to a baking tray. I line mine with waxed baking paper first.
Bake at 180 degrees Celcius for about 5-10 minutes, depending on their thickness.
To make the white icing for decorating, mix some icing sugar with a few drops of lemon juice and mix to a smooth paste. Use a icing set to pipe a pattern on the cookies. (I make one using a triangle of waxed paper and sellotape. :)

for your tree- a giveaway

Thanks for your messages about my trip away- I've had a really fun time in London over the last few days. I forgot to take my camera which annoyed me greatly at first, but then I realised it was actually quite fun to be without the responsibility of taking pictures of everything. So I don't have any record of my trip. Except a few things I bought of course. I went to Liberty and spent ages looking at all the lovely things there. And had the essential cream tea with friends in the cafe on the top floor. The next day I walked through the city to the Tate Modern, the Christmas Market and a Spanish tapas bar to meet an old friend. And I visited Cloth House and restrained myself from buying everything. It really is a beautiful shop. I had coffee and fika at Nordic Bakery with the lovely Charlotte- the first time we've met in 'real life'.
The last thing I did before flying back to Norway was visit the supermarket and buy some 'home' foods- tea, crumpets, vegemite and cheese. Quite funny to return back here with a bagful of groceries (and fabrics), but it had to be done.

Before I left for London though, I visited our local second-hand shop and was totally overwhelmed by all the gorgeous Christmas things they had in there. Tons of vintage decorations and lights, and hand-stitched linens. Really beautiful old stuff. I bought some things for our wee tree but thought it would be nice to send a little package of Norwegian Christmas decorations to a reader, to share the love. And to say 'happy christmas' and thanks for reading.
Just leave a comment below and I'll draw a name tomorrow and send them off, anywhere in the world. In time for Christmas, I hope.

leaving town

I'm taking a short break from my blog while I head south to London. I'm looking forward to catching up with friends, visiting some cafes and galleries and breathing in the big city for a few days.

I'll be back next week with a pepperkake recipe, a christmas giveaway and (I promise!) some replies to emails. Take care. xx

ju ju

It was a very good mail day yesterday. I was lucky enough to score these fantastic cards from my friend Caireen in Scotland. Beautiful iced images of leaves and hydrangeas all packaged up beautifully in recycled bits and satin ribbon. Actually, if you're loking for ideas on wrapping your gifts and packages for Christmas, Caireen has been recording her inspiring ideas here on her blog.

Now this one is a secret, so sshhh... don't tell the small ones around here. These oobees are their Christmas gifts from me. But they were made by Leslie in Melbourne. We did a swap: two of my dolls for two of these beauties. They even have scarves to keep them warm in these polar conditions. I love them.

And here we have the beautiful book, 'Juju', which I'm very excited to own. A while ago, I had an email from Merruli asking if I'd like to do a swap (she correctly guessed that I might like this book, which I think can only be found in Finland.) So I made dolls for her daughters' Christmas presents, and she sent me Juju. I love the design-aesthetic of each page, and of course the projects are very happy indeed. Here are a few glimpses for you.

p.s. Keira has put in an order for a 'princesser' dress like the white one in the third picture down. Also, I need to learn Finnish.

iced

Yesterday there seemed to be a thick layer of ice over the existing snow, giving a still, iced appearance to the world. Minus seven on the thermometer, and the branches and leaves were smooth like glass, as if they could be shattered.
I did a small shop update, including these little 'foraging bags' for small ones and some other things, like a couple of my embroideries (new for me.) These wildflowers seem a long way away now.

I received some great mail, which I'll show you tomorrow. And had a walk in the ice-snow.
I hope you are keeping well and warm, wherever you are.

doves

Been thinking about doves this week, and finished this little free-form embroidery. And then happened upon an easy-to-do origami (kirigami) dove to fold from paper. Perfect for an origami novice like me. You can make your own following the little video here.
I liked the idea of making them from brown paper and string, like the one above- a sort of humble everyday dove. I thought would be nice to adorn christmas packages or cards.
Then I folded some using white paper the children had drawn on, and some from an old Norwegian magazine.

As you can see, I really got into the spirit of making these, and had enough for a little mobile. The children love mobiles, and so do I.

acquiring traditions

yesterday, we watched the sea freeze.

I think we're beginning to acquire some 'family traditions' since being here in Norway. It's hard to resist, being in a place like this, where tradition seems to be an important concept for most families. At first, I found the idea of the en-masse 'søndagstur' (sunday walk) in the country to be rather quaint and smugly self-righteous. It was just something about all those BMW S.U.Vs parked in the forest for their weekly meditation with nature. I wondered if they ever went walking on other days of the week. And yet, nearly every Sunday we've gone for a søndagstur ourselves, albeit without the flash car. And I really like it. I like seeing so many city-people strolling along with rosy cheeks, enjoying the forest and beaches. I'm sure it's a tradition we'll carry on when we return to NZ.

And another small tradition we've acquired: making Christmas pepperkake (gingerbread biscuits.) Such a good project for small and big hands alike, rolling out dough and cutting shapes. And the spicy smell through the house is the best part of all.

small hands

Tom and I made these origami paper wreaths (I had to enlist his help because I don't feel too comfortable with 'exact' crafts like this.) They turned out to be quite easy to make, thanks to Ali's great tutorial. For the larger decoration I recycled some Christmas advertising brochures, and for the smaller ones I cut into a vintage Norwegian magazine.

 

Today I was lucky to enough to be invited to spend the morning at Arlo's school, doing some Christmas crafts with a class of 6-7 year olds. I had baked a batch of salt dough ornaments, and those were the big hit- the children coated them in glue and glitter and sequins. I also brought along scraps of fabric and felt for making these, and white buttons to make cards a bit like these. I wish I had taken pictures of those small hands at work.
I love working with little ones- their creative energy is infectious!

Salt dough recipe:
(makes about 24 ornaments)

2 cups plain flour
1/2 cup salt
3/4 cup hot tap water
2 tsp vegetable oil

Stir together the flour and salt, add the oil then gradually mix in the hot water to form a dough. Knead well (adding more water if dough is crumbly, or more flour if too sticky) and then roll out to about 1/2 cm thickness. You can use a straw to punch a hole in the top of the shapes for hanging. Bake at about 100-150 degrees C for around 1 hour, or until hard.