Definitely almost the last post about Christmas

hristmas duties have been dragging on a little late this year, owing to one half of dans entire family going on a four week cruise over the period. Last weekend was the first time to see them since they got back , and the first opportunity to pass on their Christmas gifts. (I admit that if we were hyper organised we'd have had everything ready to give them before they left - but seriously, we'd barely even imagined Christmas was on the horizon that first weekend of December, never mind shopping for it!).

owever, this did present me with the ideal opportunity to snap the christmas wrapping for this year - because the pre-christmas wrapping was too close to the events to actually have time to think about that kind of thing. I'm obsessive about wrapping presents and it gets worse every year. This year saw the arrival of double sided tape (because selotape is ugly) and decorative pom poms.

nd now I get the chance to store a few links for my favourite homemade wrapping decorations for future use:
- A super quick pom pom tutorial (I kept mine loose and shaggy rather than trimmed)
- Quick paper flowers (easy even without the pro-scissors)
- German paper stars (which I stuck on all the gifts the year before)
- I made the labels up in Adobe illustrator using a tag template I'd made previously and some random eps images of russian ornamental designs I downloaded a while ago.

he presents included a second scarflet for Dan's mum (which I think she appreciated), and I'm now cranking out the third for myself. I really recommend this pattern. Although if your making a choice on yarn, my vote goes for Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran (red) rather than Rowan RYC Cashsoft Aran (purple). Not that I ever would have thought it possible, but the extra 2% cashmere in the Debbie Bliss seems to make a difference. It's less shiny looking and seems to have a better haze and touch. It also holds it's ply better when being worked making the stitching look neater (to me at least).