We love to decorate the house and being a family that never throws anything away, we have lots of favourites.  A few Christmases ago my sister and I decided to make some snowflakes.  It’s a very simple idea and you can get the patterns from the internet, we used http://highhopes.com/snowflakes.html and http://www.papersnowflakes.com/6sided.htm but you’ll soon find yourself making up new patterns.  While coming up with the design, think of what kind of shadow it will project, spikey edges and holes tend to work really well.

Now it’s time to decorate them.  Never ones to say no to glitter, we got out the PVA glue and soon we had some beautiful snowflakes twinkling away ready to hang up.

We found that if you use some cotton thread to hang the snowflakes, it will make them look like they are suspended in mid air and you can group them together in varying lengths, again, if you turn on the lights, you can see the shadows that it creates on the walls and as they are always moving, it creates a really pretty effect.

We weren’t the only ones who liked them!  The cats loved  them too! As you can see Mr Val saw it as his Christmas mission to grab a pawful and after Father Christmas gave him a tall scratching post, his task was a lot easier.

So you can reuse old print outs and start snipping away, you could even use old newspapers.  We do have a selection of glitters that you can find on the website.  In the meantime, have fun planning your Christmas decoration and we will write more soon about our Best of British food!

www.SantasElves.co.uk

The elves have been neglecting the blog for the last couple of years, we start off with good intentions, then things get busy and the next thing we know it’s January and we are off searching for new products!

So this year we are going to try and be a little more prepared  – we hope!

Everyone is tightening their belts and many shops and suppliers are increasing their prices – the Head Elf nearly keeled over when she found out that the delivery costs were going to be over £10 for 24 hour delivery, “oh”, said the helpful sales lady – “don’t forget there will also be an extra petrol charge too”!  Eeek, we really need to find some reindeer to help us out!

The adverts on the TV are starting now, the ones with the super expensive toy (that may or may not work) which could well be discarded for something more interesting.  In 5, 10, 20 years will they remember the toy – or would it be the memory of making decorations with Mum, or helping Grandma make the cake, or the time that Dad went to a Carol Service and boomed out the carols loudly while little sis ran up and down the aisles?

So while we are about providing the perfect Christmas present in the form of our pre-filled Christmas stockings, we also want to give you some ideas about things that can be made with very little outlay to create some Christmas memories that will last longer than any gift!

We are continuing to have lots of offers throughout the Christmas period, such as free decorations, a competition for an advent calendar filled with our pocket money toys, money off and free Christmas stockings, so sign up to our newsletter or follow our Twitter feed for more details.

This weekend the elves are going to be decorating Christmas cupcakes – watch this space!

More soon from the Santa’s Elves, I promise!

Despite popular belief, Elves spend most of the year preparing for Christmas.  In fact, come January, we are raring to go ready to trek around trade fairs and searching for the perfect gifts.  This year, I think that we have surpassed ourselves.  Over the next couple of months, I’ll be showcasing some of them including the Russian Doll Measuring Cups, the earphone tidies, make your own super cars and special cupcake lip balms.

In the mean time have you seen our new header?  That is us!  If you have purchased our Christmas stockings, you will see that each tag features an elf, so this year we asked Simon at Ceratopia to make a header for the www.santaselves.co.uk website revamp and he got us spot on – even down to our security pusscat who looks after the parcels before they are collected by Mr ParcelForce.

We also have a very special series of stockings that are almost finished, so keep your eyes peeled, as well as some stockings that tie in with Chocolate Week.

Crikey!  We have been so busy I don’t think that we know where November has gone let alone starting to open up our Advent Calendars

We have several new Christmas themed products including 40p Christmas pencils featuring Santa, Snowmen and Christmas Trees, 50p Shaped Christmas pencils, Christmas Activity Books as well as over 70 Christmas stockings!

Christmas Pencils

As a gift to our customers this year, every order over £50 gets free ParcelForce 48 hour delivery.  Visit the website www.santaselves.co.uk for more information and inspiration for your perfect Christmas gift at the perfect price!

I have taken a little time out to have a look at things to make  – in the past we have had some successes and failures in the Elf household.  The most beautiful and biggest failure was when we made dozens of snowflakes, glittered them up and hung them from the ceiling.  It looked so pretty as they twinkled and moved around, but it turned out that the glitter made Mama Elf’s asthma bad, so we had to take most of them down.  You can find lots of snowflake patterns here, you can make them out of coloured or even newspaper although if you have asthmatics, it is probably not good to decorate with glitter!

Here are some other crafty links that might inspire you!

PaperCraft Inspirations has so many free paper downloads with lots that are  Christmas themes with snowmen, polar bears, Christmas trees, holly, snowflakes – if you do a

Dress a paper bear

Martha Stewart has instructions on how to make elves with pinecone tummies although our tummies are full of candy canes, mince pies and chocolate cookies!

Mrs Beeton’s instructions for napkin folding

Make a Poinsettia Windmill

The air is starting to turn crisp and the shops are starting to bring out their Christmas products, even though we are in the Christmas biz, it is so exciting to see what other people are selling – not to mention mince pies!

We have had several customers ask us about contents for advent calendars and so we have put together a selection of small items that will hopefully fit into your advent calendar.  These can be found in our advent calendar section, as well as items such as small packs of cards, nail art, mini sticky splatters etc,  we have also included some of our retro sweets too – there is something for every palette with chews (black jacks, fruit salads, refreshers, drumsticks), lollies (double lolly, traditional fruit, traffic light), bubble gum (bubble gum balls and Anglo Bubbly), gobstoppers (in regular and huge sizes), gummy bears and jelly spiders, fizz whizz (space dust) and candy lipsticks, whistles and necklaces!

£25 Retro Sweet Christmas Stocking

 

After working throughout the first part of the year on our new range of pre-filled Christmas stockings, we now have the website fully updated with the 2009 range of Chritsmas stockings.  First of all, there is a lot in the news about the UK postal strikes, but there is nothing to worry about with any PartyToo.com or SantasElves.co.uk orders – we are sending everything using ParcelForce 48 hour delivery at no extra cost.

This year we are also offering free ParcelForce 48 hour delivery on all orders over £50 over the Christmas period.

Please visit our website and look at all of our new pre-filled Christmas stockings.  This year we have added more to all our ranges, so there is more choice and certainly something for everyone and every budget!

Stay tuned for more Christmas themed blog entries!

Christmas is often the time when you have people to stay, unfortunately as we elves are stuffing stockings up until the 22nd, by the time it comes to The Big Day, we are often shattered and a little on the anti-social side.

However, following on from my last post about the Perfect Christmas, here are some 1930′s suggestions on the perfect house guest

The Right People to Invite

• Cheerful People
• Lots of young people
• The guest with a car
• The Enterprising Girl
• The Elderly Woman who can tell fortunes
• The Elderly Man (if red-faced and jolly)
• The Handy Man (issue invitation early, as he is in great demand)
• Anybody good with children
• The Unselfish Friend

Sounds simple doesn’t it!

It seems like a good idea – that everyone’s names are put in a box and you pick one out who turns out to be the recipient of your gift.  It seems very considerate that you are given a budget, but then the politics sets in. Do you get a more expensive item if it is for a Big Wig, what happens if you don’t know them very well, or if would rather that you didn’t!  There are so many stumbling blocks to this Christmas event that most people end up with the staples – a plant, smellies, stationery or booze.

But never fear, we are here to help!  Our £5 or specialist stockings would be perfect for you.  You can get a nice gift that looks like you have spent ages choosing the contents, already wrapped and guaranteed to be different enough that you stand out and a great talking point.

The retro stockings can be used for the office clown or the young at heart and we have many ladies stockings in our specialist range (prices start at £7.99) that will make a welcome alternative.

If all else fails, we have the Retro Sweets stockings (£3 and £5) and sacks (£10), these are perfect because everyone remembers the sweets so you are already associating your gift with happy memories.

So don’t worry,  www.santaselves.co.uk has enough gifts to ensure that you won’t make a Secret Santa faux-pas,

I have just discovered this wonderful ‘Print a Day‘ website which has some printable Christmas tags – simply use some white card to make the tags sturdy.

I have many Christmas books, but my favourite by far is The Perfect Christmas by Rose Henniker Heator which was published in 1932.  While many of her suggestions maybe a little out dated, some are very useful.

She mentions that you should have essentials put away ready for Christmas – I have added my own comments on how these can be applied to the 21st century.

The Christmas Drawer

Every house should contain at least one drawer devoted to Christmas requirements

• Balls of coloured string (what a great alternative to curling ribbon that always seems to curl too much or too little – and it can be reused too!)
• Fancy Christmas paper for wrapping up parcels
• Gold braid for tying up special gifts (or for decoration of boxes or make Christmas crowns for children to wear)
• Luggage labels with holly pattern (alternative to tags)
• Blotting paper and a good supply of pens, ink and paper (how about going old school and write thank you letters rather than emailing them)
• Tissue paper (perfect to use when you run out of wrapping paper)
• Various sized cardboard boxes
• Sealing wax (this is making a resurgence as Lush are packing all of their parcels wrapped in paper and string and sealed with sealing wax – it makes the parcel look really special)
• Corrugated paper (great to make decorations out of)
• Ball of strong string (when the cats were kittens, we tied our Christmas tree to a light fitting so it didn’t topple over!)
• Sheets of brown paper (why not use this to wrap your presents – use coloured string to brighten it up or use rubber stamps or potato prints to decorate it)
• Large pair of scissors tied with red ribbon to prevent your family from annexing them (we are always losing our scissors)
• India rubber for rubbing out prices
• Little roll of cotton wool for precious parcels
• Your own visiting cards.

We also have some suggestions which include

• Glitter – for decorating cards and decorations
• Glue – Pritt stick for paper and Super Glue if a decoration needs to be mended
• Rubber stamps and ink – these are everywhere, you can find them in craft shops or ebay.  You can brighten up cards, envelopes, decorations and paper with some quick stamp designs
• Postage stamps – squirrelling away stamps throughout the year can spread the cost of cards
• Christmas card list/address book/CD back-up with your email address book

Finally, one tip I have isn’t necessarily for a drawer, but is essential for Christmas.  Use a spot of oil (vegetable, olive, almond etc) on a cotton wool ball or kitchen towel to remove the sticky residue from a sticker, price tag or even on your scissors stuck up from using sellotape.  As long as the surface isn’t porous you can completely remove any stickyness.