From me and mine to you and yours …

… I hope you have a lovely few days lined up full friends, family, food, pyjamas, movies, sweet treats, as little squabbling as possible and nothing too inappropriate is said after a drink or two. Happiest of holidays friends, and I hope you enjoy it whatever way you spend it xx

Knock-off Baileys two ways

A couple of weeks ago the lovely Sadhbh of Where Wishes Come From asked me to partake in her #CraftAdvent 2015. I of course couldn’t not. I asked if I could submit a [boozy] recipe instead and Sadhbh was all over it. I wanted to try making a dairy-free and egg-free version of Baileys and figured this was the perfect excuse opportunity. So with my grandmother’s recipe at hand, I created a vegan version of it and YOU GUYS. IT’S SO GUD. Obviously, it’s not the exact, exact same as Baileys, but it’s soooo close. If you’d like to see the full recipe, head over to Sadhbh’s blog post here! Includes a regular version and vegan. So. GUD

I’ll be enjoying a glass this evening as among all the craziness that’s happened over the past 2 weeks I’ve agreed to do a little something for TV. It might lead to more. I’m terrified within an inch of my life so I’ve agreed to do one segment, see whether I like it [or curl into a permanent fetal position] and take it from there. Things will be a lot less vague in the new year, I promise! But for now, bottoms up.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Christmas was a bit slow to arrive in our apartment. I don’t know about where you are, but we’ve had an incredibly mild winter so far this year [I still cycle to work in a tshirt every morning] and I’ve found it less than festive. Growing up in Canada I’m used to at least 4 feet of snow at Christmas, so if it’s warm at all, I ain’t in the mood. 

Slowly but surely over the course of this week, I finished decorating for Christmas. Woo! o/ I was very good this year and only bought 3 new decorations – the festive ceramic candle holder from Harvey Norman on our coffee table, a set of tiny pink baubles I spied in Lidl for next to nothing for our tree, and a giant nut shaped nutcracker I saw in Deborah Charity Shop during the summer which is also home on our coffee table. Note to self; buy nuts

Last year when we cruised around the Baltic Sea [pretentious wanker sentence alert], I picked up this bigature house in Tallinn, Estonia for my parents and got 4 miniature houses for us [as seen here]. My mom and I funnily enough came to the conclusion that we both preferred what the other had, so I swapped my teeny houses for their less tiny house. It’s the perfect size for a tealight and looks sooo festive on our shelves. 
I didn’t buy new decorations [except the teeny pink baubles] this year, so to mix up my old decorations I strung loads of similar baubles together with ribbon and hung them up in groups. I was going to repaint a load of our old decorations too but I never got around to it and they’re perfectly fine thanks to my previous updates. A couple of years ago I updated our baubles with paint and yarn, and last year updated some more with a Sharpie and a label maker, showing that you don’t need to buy new ornaments every year to change the look of your holiday decor. 

And if you’re extra cheeky this year, you could try making your own edible ornaments like I did the past 2 years, but didn’t this year because I got lazy. Make them and hold them over me, please. 

xx