He's put a great big smile on somebody's face

 Hopefully by now your Christmas shopping is all done and dusted, wrapped and sitting smugly under your Christmas tree. But if you're a bit stuck, or just looking for something else to make a present that little bit extra special then I might just be able to help you. These little cookie mix jars are really easy to make (if I can do it, anyone can!) and you should be able to find everything you need in the supermarket without too much difficulty. I gave these little beauties to two of my friends yesterday when we met up for our annual Christmas food and film day and they were the perfect present for our £5 price limit (it seems to be a recurring price limit for me this year!). 

The actual cookie mixture inside the jars didn't go in as neatly as it could have done, but I figured it was ok as it just proves I made them myself! Cleverly, I read some tips on making recipe jars after filling my own up and they suggested starting with the finest ingredients at the bottom of the jar and then putting any chocolate chips or similarly 'gappy' items at the top- as you can see, the sugar escaped through the gaps in between my chocolate chips, making the layers a bit messier and less defined. But the jars (which I found in Clas Ohlsen- definitely an extra bonus finding Christmassy jars when I was just on a hunt for plain ones!) and the ribbon hopefully made up for the way things were looking inside the jars!

I got the cookie cutters from Home Bargains, I found two separate packs, one white and one red, and decided to mix the colours up to jazz things up a little bit. 

If you fancy making one of these yourself, the recipe inside the jar was as follows:

125g caster sugar

100g soft light brown sugar

225g self raising flour

100g white chocolate chips

100g milk chocolate chips

For the label, you need to write instructions along the lines of:

Preheat oven to 180C

Add all ingredients from the jar, 1 egg and 125g butter to a bowl and mix well until all is combined

Form the mixture into small, slightly flattened balls and place on a baking tray

Bake in the oven for 7-10 minutes

Let me know if you give these a try! They're a great present all year round and you can fill them up with all sorts of different ingredients (my friend made me a brownie jar for my birthday earlier this year).

I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday: Wizzard

I won't ask for much this Christmas, I won't even wish for snow

Secret Santa is one of those activities I love and hate in almost equal measure. I work in a really small team which makes keeping Secret Santa an actual secret is near on impossible (although not quite as impossible as its proven to be in my house of three where it took approximately 3 seconds after drawing a name out to work out who everybody else was buying...). Being the person who organised it this year I tried to really implement a no cheating under any circumstances rule as last year the fun was spoilt by one of my co-workers who asked the person next to them what they'd want from their Secret Santa and after hearing that it was a nice and easy bottle of red wine ended up sat with the bag of names until she pulled out the wine drinker- sneaky! Funnily enough, I've ended up with that person pulling out my name this year. I'm really trying not to cheat and give any clues to try and make her work a bit harder this time (I know, I'm cruel!). In my eyes, Secret Santa isn't about buying the person what they think they want, the real fun is in giving them something unexpected that'll put a smile on their face, hence why I like the surprise element!

In case any of you have ended up with a name from Secret Santa who is equally as annoying as me and isn't giving any clues about what they might like (although if my Secret Santa was at all internet savvy she could probably gain a fair idea about what I might like from this post!), I thought I'd put together a few ideas of cheap gifts that you could go looking for to save the inevitable panic buying that usually happens to me with Secret Santa presents!

1. The Doodle Notebook, 2. Fairisle Nail Wrap, 3. Christmas Socks, 4. Snowman Bath Bomb, 5. Fridge Magnet Scrabble, 6. Emergency Moustaches, 7. Dress-up Fridge Magnets, 8. Hey Girl notebook, 9. Woodland List Pad 

What ideas have you got in mind for your Secret Santa this year?

All I Want For Christmas Is You- Mariah Carey
(If this doesn't get you in the Christmas spirit, I don't know what will)

Listen to the wind blow, watch the sun rise

Lisette who writes a delightful little blog over at Lisette Loves coined a great little expression, NPA (nosy people's anonymous), in her post earlier today. Doesn't that sum up the world of blogging so well? We're all guilty of enjoying a sneaky little peek into other people's lives, so on that theme I thought I'd give you a look at some of the birthday presents my lovely friends gave me. They know me too well, and know how excited I get about new homey bits and bobs and so I was over the moon when I had the pleasure of unwrapping all of these beauties over the weekend. 

1. A girl can never have too many moustaches. They're a symbol of fun times during my uni days and will always make me smile.

2. Brownies in a jar- such a great idea... I'm dying to make them but can't bring myself to yet because the jar looks far too pretty! 

3. Wise, wise words. A very fitting gift for the girl who just forwent a trip to the gym in favour of coming home and eating approximately 1000 malteasers.

4. A frame made of a map of Merseyside to remind me of home. I decided Mama and Papa T were the most deserving people to be put in this frame. 

5. An incredible cushion in the same fabric as the basket and frame I posted about here. I'm loving having a few matchy matchy bits in amongst all of the other fabrics and colours in my room.

So there you have it fellow NPA's... a little insight into how lovely my friends are. I got some other fab bits and bobs too which I'm sure will appear as part of outfit posts and other things soon!

The Chain- Fleetwood Mac

Don't throw your fortune away

I arrived home after work today to the most lovely treat ever. I found out at the weekend that I'd won Linda from Hey! Homewrecker's Love Birds giveaway and today was the day that the little parcel dropped through my letterbox. Linda is the queen of all things crafty and this little Love Birds picture is just too gorgeous (as soon as I'd torn through the paper I was straight in there knocking a nail into the wall for it to hang on opposite my bed). Check out her blog, its full of incredible crafty bits and bobs and beautiful colours and fabrics. Plus, as if the parcel wasn't amazing enough enough already, she also included a note inside the cutest illustrated card too (made by her sister), how perfect are those foxes?! AMAZING! 

And onto another crafty lady, my buddy Charlie made me this pretty lining for a basket that I bought a few weeks ago. It originally came with a blue and white gingham lining which reminded me a little too much of my old primary school summer dress, so we marched down to the market to pick something a bit less uniform and a bit more Kaz friendly. That's where my input into the basket ended... I have absolutely no sewing skills whatsoever. I used to sneak my textiles work home for my Mum to add to every week and then sit there pretending to thread needles every week in lessons (actually... I probably didn't need to pretend, it takes me about an hour to thread one anyway!). Luckily, Charlie's a lot better with a sewing machine than I am so happily stepped in to make this for me. Now I have a pretty place to store my hairdryer, make up bags, and a frisbee (not quite sure how that ended up in there). 

Lucky for me, there was just enough fabric left over for me to pretend to be good at making things too. I'd bought a frame on mine and Michelle's unromantic Valentine's day in Ikea last week and decided I could turn it into something fun. And voila, one frame (made in much the same way as the noticeboard we made a few weeks ago), lots of buttons and a lot of superglue later, this creation was formed. I'm a bit too haphazard and DIY inept to keep up with Linda and Charlie's work, but I did myself proud here. Even if the heart is a bit wonky and uneven if you look at it too closely. 

Inhaler- Foals

Take me, take me, home, home

My flatmate and I finally decided last week to finally get round to putting up some sort of decoration in the living area. About time really as we've been living here for 7 months or so now. And so, after talking about it and talking about it for months on end, we took a trip to Dunelm for the final bits we needed to make a noticeboard for photos, shopping lists and all the other knick knacks that accumulate over time. 

I really don't know what took us so long, this pretty little noticeboard was so simple to make and has made such a difference to brightening up our big bare wall. If I didn't have so much other stuff up on my bedroom walls already I'd be making myself another... I say this, but I can guarantee I'll get bored in a few weeks and end up hammering a load more holes into my walls so I can have one of these beauties by my bed too. If you're looking for a cheap and cheerful present for somebody, then something like this is absolutely perfect- there are loads of similar things in shops and online that are all way more expensive (I'm talking from experience here having bought a similar noticeboard from Sass and Belle a year or so ago and as much as I love it, I am now wishing I'd just made my own).  

If you want to make one yourself all you need is: 

1 large photo frame/canvas

wadding (enough for a double layer if you're working with a chunky frame like ours from Ikea)

fabric (half a metre should be plenty for a similar sized frame to this one)

between 3/4 metres of ribbon

a staple gun

If you're using a frame, just remove the glass pane and then use the backing board as your base. Cut the wadding to the same size as the board/ canvas, using one or two layers depending on how thick your wadding is (tip: make sure you can still close the frame behind all the extra padding!). 

Then take your fabric and fit it around your base/canvas so you can then staple the edges of the material to the back of your base, making sure you pull the fabric tight so it fits snug against the wadding and doesn't hang loose.

Once you've secured the fabric to the board, work out where you want your criss crosses of ribbon to go, then cut each strip to size and staple the ends to the back of the board. Again, its really important to make sure these are nice and tight, otherwise you'll have trouble keeping your photos and notes in place.

If you're using a canvas, at you're all done and dusted now, if you use a frame like we did you now just need to pop it all back into place and secure the board into the frame. 

Then fix to your wall, take a step back and admire the pretty noticeboard you've just created!

It really is incredibly simple, we managed to complete ours in the time it took for this lemon drizzle cake to bake.

Home- Daughter

Our cheeks are nice and rosy, and comfy and cosy are we

On Friday, after what felt like the longest week in all eternity, I finally got to skip out of work shouting "ITS CHRISTMAAAAAAAS" in a Noddy Holder fashion. After one traumatic walk to the station whilst carrying about a zillion bags filled with my clothes and Christmas presents, followed by two hours sat next to the moaniest girl I've ever had the displeasure of sharing a train table with, then a quick run around Liverpool with Papa Smurf to pick up some Christmas presents for my Mum, I was finally home for the holidays. 

I'd mentioned to my Mum before I got home that I wanted to make some mince pies to stuff my face with give out to a few people, and explained that last year I'd made the mincemeat from scratch so would like to do the same again. My Mum, being a very tidy and house proud sort of person cowers in fear whenever she hears that I want to set foot in the kitchen as I can be a bit of a whirlwind (I'm not sure she's ever quite forgotten the time when my friend and I were about 16, drank loads of rum and then decided to bake... the result was a big sloppy pile of cake mixture all over my Mum's floor. And walls. And cupboards.). so I arrived home to find a little jar of mincemeat waiting on the kitchen counter. Clearly she had visions of raisins dotting the ceiling and orange peel covering the floor and decided she didn't want to be subjected to that kind of mess. I was a bit gutted as I'd wanted to try this mincemeat recipe  that Rachael posted on her lovely blog, Made up of little things but they still turned out pretty well in the end. I'll just have to make sure I get round to making some in my own kitchen next year so I can do it properly! 

If you want to cheat like me and whip up some semi-homemade mince pies whilst making a mess of somebody else's kitchen then I used this mince pie recipe from the BBC food website. Its still not too late to get some ready before Santa comes down your chimney tomorrow night! 

Are you hanging up your stocking on the wall?

My friends literally amaze me. Take one of my old friends from school for example. We set a £5 limit for Christmas presents this year to save a few pennies and give ourselves a bit of a challenge to see what we could actually come up with on such a small budget (A fiver really doesn't go very far these days it seems...). And voila, this is what £5 can get you if you think a little creatively. 

Such a simple idea spending £5 on chocolate but I know I'd never in a million years have thought to present it like this! If you're stuck for last minute ideas for a Secret Santa present or just are looking for a little stocking filler for somebody then give it a go and try your hand at one of these. Grab a selection box, a couple of candy canes, a jolly looking santa and some other delicious bits and bobs and you're sorted! I'd been adamant that I was going to make one for whoever I pulled out of the hat for Secret Santa in work, and then I pulled out the one person who doesn't like sweets and chocolate (crazy woman...) so had to go back to the drawing board on that one. 

I was given this back at the start of December and I'd been showing incredible willpower not digging into it all, instead just making full use of it as a cute little Christmas decoration. It lasted until I got back from my work Christmas dinner the other day when for some inexplicable reason I decided that a three course meal hadn't quite filled me up and so I NEEDED to munch on a box of Malteasers afterwards.