gift
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Handmade Christmas Gifts 2025
It is mid (dare I say, creeping into late) November, and I am like jolly old Father Christmas himself, feeling very busy, quite cheery, but also fairly stressed at the immensity of the task that I have set myself, making gifts for those I know and those I don’t. Why did I think it was
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Teachers Gifts 2024
I suffered a bout of illness, along with Russell, to start July this year. It’s a problematic bout of illness that has scuppered a number of plans that we held, none more important than our 10th wedding anniversary, which we didn’t celebrate with a gift or card passing between us, only some paracetamol and some
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Personalised Jigsaw Puzzles
Over the Christmas period I try each year to make as much of the family’s festive experience as personal and as meaningful as possible. For me this means bringing as much handmade and home created magic to the Christmas period as possible. I don’t mean to say that we avoid the commercialised trappings of the
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Wooden Bookmarks
For the upcoming holiday season I have made a large number of handmade wooden pencil bookmarks personalised and decorated with individual names. This fun little project took a lot longer than I had anticipated, but I am glad to have it finished before the end of November. These are simple wooden bookmarks, decorated with simple
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A T-shirt To Retire In
Last year, my seven year old learned about the stages of life at school, as he traced his own background and learned about childhood, teenage years, adulthood, and old age. One of the stages of life they covered was later life; specifically the link between retirement and old age. They learned about being ‘elderly’ and
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Family Gifts: Personalised Christmas Signs
This year I made a promise with my Ma: we would not buy each other Christmas presents. One of the kindest things we could do for each other was to release each of us from the obligation to spend money on each other when so many people are finding the cost of living so difficult