Christmas Inspirations

Make yourself a perfect Christmas when you buy Christmas Inspirations, which is full of magical ideas. Its authors, Rose Hammick and Charlotte Packer have all the credentials for writing such a book. Rose has worked with a number of interiors magazines as a photographic stylist and Charlotte is a writer.

Christmas evolves in every household as styles come and go. Some years sees the home decked in red and gold, the next might be just silver. With this duos' clever ideas, you can have change but not the expense. They look at four styles: traditional, Nordic, contemporary white and brights. You will find ideas for flower arrangements, advent calendars, tree decorations and what to do with Christmas cards. With the evocative photography, it is not long before you are inspired to find your scissors, get cutting and stitching.

The answer is to start early enough so that you can enjoy making the decorations. There is nothing worse than working on the table's centrepiece at midnight on Christmas Eve when the turkey needs stuffing too. That is a complete nightmare. Before you start, make sure you have all the right bits, the scissors and glue to hand. Involve your children as well and as an activity for a wet and windy afternoon, this could not be more fulfilling.

These are some of the ideas that we will be trying out. For an advent calendar, get some luggage labels and write the days on them. Wrap up a small present or chocolate in brightly coloured paper and then attach to the label so that you can still see the day. Then use some pretty ribbon so that the labels can be hung up, either on the back of a door or on cupboard handles.

Christmas is the time that you can fill your house up with even more candles and this simple idea costs nothing but is very effective. Find some shallow jam jars. Dress with gold crown around the top, which neatly disguises the fact that you are using jars and then pop in tea lights. Tree decorations can be made from felt. Cut out festive shapes, stick two pieces of different colours, back to back. Stitch around the decoration in a contrasting colour using tapestry wool and stick on some more felt spots or stars, if you feel like it. Use some bright coloured ribbon to tie onto the tree.

For placements at the table, collect up some corks to make nativity animals. Push matchsticks into the cork for legs, draw heads from stiff card and slide it into a cut in the cork and then stick on the name along the body. So easy and really fun.

As a present, you could give a bowl of decorative pears. Cut out a pear shape from dry floral foam, shove a small twig in the top and then stick cardamom pods all over it. You could run a line of these down the table as part of a centrepiece.

These are just a few ideas from a book that is full of inspiration that can transform your Christmas into something special and make you look like a star. Treat yourself now or give a copy to a friend for Christmas so that they can be well prepared next year.

Publication details:
127 pp. Photography by Jo Tyler. £14.99
Published by Ryland Peters & Small
ISBN 1841726826
2004

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