Tree time

Its nearly Christmas, which i dont think has escaped anyones notice, although I am feeling singularly unready for it. I think it is the snow, it has put me out of whack somehow. We braved the trip into town yesterday and I can imagine there were lots of unhappy retailers, the last saturday before Christmas and it was dead. Not completely deserted but people were few and far between and given the state of the roads hardly surprising but it just didnt feel like Christmas because of it.

However I have been sorting out Christmas trees, our tree in the living room looks much as it did last year but this year i did a little tree for the studio too (which will move inside just before Christmas day).

I got a bit excited about the idea of having this mini tree in the studio and so I decided to put handmade decorations on it. This is the tree I used to have as a teenager so it does have some bits (paper garlands, bead strings and a cute little string of brass bells) that I want to keep on it from then, but as far as baubles go I wanted to make my own. I have made blown glass baubles in the hot shop before but there is no way this little fella would hold that kind of weight so I made lampwork baubles. 

As I have had a (very very lovely) surprise early Christmas present this week in the form of a sandblaster, which my lovely Himself decided was too big to wrap up or hide anywhere, I had to include a little sandblasted  disc too.

And simply because I have one, and they are gorgeous I had to include this adorable little ceramic button by the terrific Tan of course.

Im thinking I may have started another little Christmas tradition and that it would be nice to make at least one new ornament for it each year and (hopefully) see my skills in this area improve or at the very least see how they evolve ! 

Now Im off to make some mince pies and hoping that the smell of them cooking wafting around the house will make me feel more Christmassy.