What's a Pakkekalender?

The making and giving of a Pakkekalender is a tradition which comes from Denmark. It involves making a gift calendar in any form you like but there must be 24 different gifts (whether they be toys, books, little poems, sweets etc.) and you give the whole calendar to someone else on December 1st and they then receive 24 little gifts in the run up to Christmas. Such a sweet idea!

For the next 8 days or so I have the privilege of facilitating workshops for Tiger to tell people about Pakkekalenders and help them to make one. It's been so much fun so far and so wonderful seeing families make something together and how pleased everyone is with their finished product. 

I have been able to make my own Pakkekalender already which was so much fun and made me realise how much I miss making things. 



I choose a red, what and brown theme which was a real challenge for me as there were so many other colours to choose from but it made be really inventive in the different ways I could use the materials and I surprised myself with some of the ideas I came up with!

I would like to give this Pakkekalender away to someone on December 1st so if any of you like the design please let me know by November 22nd and I will fill it with presents tailored to you and send it off to you in time? Just e-mail me at tiddlybobs@gmail.com

And if you're dying of crafting envy and fancy coming along to a workshop to make your own, please find more information here.

Snowdrops and Daffodils, Butterflies and Bees...

My mammy, like most mothers in Ireland, is a tad obsessed with the Eurovision and particularly that 1970 gem of a song "All kinds of everything" as performed by the beautiful Dana. As soon as my nieces were able to sing she was teaching them the words and now they can sing it in their sleep! For ages, I've been trying to find her a gift related to this song but I couldn't find anything anywhere so, eventually, I decided to make it myself.


Using Photoshop (Oh yes, I've moved on from Microsoft paint!), I put together an image with the title as well as snowdrops, daffodils, butterflies and bees - that famous opening line! I then traced this template off the screen onto the fabric which was tricky but a bit of tape kept the fabric in place!



I then started sewing. I kept the stitches quite small and tight as I felt the small details of the images and font would be lost with longer stitches. I should have mentioned I know nothing about sewing and did not look up how to do any stitches before embarking not his project so I could very well be talking out of my arse!

But that was my plan and eventually I was left with this....


I then popped it into a frame from the awesome Oliver Bonas (sooooo addicted to that shop!) and wrapped it up using nature themed (obviously, I love a theme!) paper and ribbon.



This was in February. I managed to actually give it to my mammy in September. But it's the thought that counts right?