Christmas wrapping

Christmas is coming!

We've woken this morning to a very pretty wintry scene with clear blue skies and a dusting of snow on the hills and roofs.  I'm looking forward to making the Christmas pudding, following our traditional family recipe and, looking back to when I blogged about it last year, my tradition of being a week late in making it (apparently Stir Up Sunday was last week!).

Whilst the pudding is steaming I'll write our Christmas cards to family and friends who are overseas so I can get their parcels posted in time to meet the Royal Mail's recommended last posting dates.  I'm always surprised to find how early they are:

International Airmail

Monday 6 December South & Central America, Caribbean, Africa, Middle East, Asia, Far East (including Japan), Australia  and New Zealand

Friday 10 December Eastern Europe, USA and Canada

Monday 13 December Western Europe

UK

Wednesday 15 December Standard Parcels

Saturday 18 December Second Class

Tuesday 21 December First Class

I will, of course, post myfuroshiki orders as soon as I can.

Folksy festive sampler

Just heard that we're likely to have snow this week - definitely time to settle down inside, with a nice cup of something warm, for a browse through the folksy festive sampler.

Open publication - Free publishing - More artists

It's a wrap group!

"Let's be honest, wrapping gifts in paper, it’s all about the eye candy and not much about the environment. In the UK, we waste stacks of trees and resources with glitzy paper for a 20 second fix. It is estimated by Waste online that over Christmas as much as 83 square km of wrapping paper will end up in UK rubbish bins, enough to cover an area larger than Guernsey and the total waste wrapping paper the UK produces over Christmas could stretch to the moon if each sheet was laid end to end...." Birmingham Friends of the Earth.

So it's great to see that Mary Horesh from Birmingham Friends of the Earth is setting up a group called “Its a wrap” centering on alternative wrapping for Christmas.

She's looking for fellow crafters to come along and help make items such as material gift bags for bottles and CDs out of reclaimed material. See here for more info.

Her aim is that what's produced will be sold in aid of Birmingham Friends of the Earth at their annual Christmas Fair in Birmingham on the 19th December in Moseley. I'm sorry that I can't go along to see all of the goodness - but some myfuroshiki will be there!

Christmas is coming (2)

Only 8 weeks till Christmas - put like that it doesn't seem very far away at all! So, in an effort to be prepared, I've been busy listing some of our own design, handprinted, Christmas themed furoshiki.