Crafty Weekend - Saturday (including making gingerbread!)

Saturday was a very productive day for me. I sent my husband out to go clay pigeon shooting with one of our friends giving me a few hours of peace.

This meant that I had time to make (or almost make) about 8 Christmas cards. Here are a few that I finished. They were unbelievably simple as I had the pictures in a big sheet from one of the pads of papers that I have had for a while and even the backgrounds are so simple but I think that they are really effective.

This is the state that my husband found me in when he got home - he couldn't believe the amount of stuff that I had out everywhere - but at least I knew where everything was (honest!)

I found quite a few images that I had stamped and coloured in last year so I have also cut the backgrounds for these - they are almost ready, I just need to stamp or print some words to put on them and then I can stick them all together. I feel so disorganised this year - I know I should have finished all of my Christmas cards weeks ago but at least I am getting some way to being done now. In my defence we have only received about 5 so far this year so we can't be too far behind everyone else!

I made this cracker box for one of my crafty friends and finished the gingerbread card - Woohoo!

I also finished my own copy of the Bake Off recipe book that we made for all of our friends. I added a little pouch to the back of mine to keep the original copies of some of the recipes in as they were so beautifully hand-written I couldn't bear to just bin them.

This neatly led me onto making some gingerbread men - one of the recipes that we made for the bake off - it's really easy but gingerbread is one of my favourite things in the world so it's always a treat. Here's a few photos of the process - if anyone would like the recipe and can't read it very clearly from the photo then please let me know!

Everything goes into the food processor:

Give it a little helping hand every now and again:

Then it's ready to be kneaded - just do this for a few minutes before refridgerating.

Once it's had it's chill out session then you can start rolling and cutting - this is the best bit and this time I even got to use all of my Christmassy shapes!

When they're cooked leave them to cool and then they are good for eating! The recipe makes quite a lot though so may not all in one sitting (last time I made them I do remember them all disappearing in one evening between four of us though!)

Decorate as you wish - my husband did this one as it was slightly burnt on the antlers - he was on oven checking duty at this point so this one is his fault! Still tasty though!