Christmassy Green And Gold Table Runner

 Hi Folks,

this year is the first year that my boyfriend and I don't spend Christmas Eve with our families but actually host them (at least some of them ;) ). I am pretty excited about that and of course I want to make them feel as cosy as possible. This includes a festive table in my opinion, therefore I decided to make a Christmassy table runner for a start. In case you need one too, this is how it goes... :)

What you'll need   

• green fabric (50cm x ca. 150cm)
• sewing machine
• needle and thread
• gold textile colour
• a piece of thin cardboard

How it works

Before I started to colour the table clothes I made a double hem on all sides. To do so, I folded in one cm on one side and immediately afterwards another cm so that the frayed edges of the fabric cannot be seen anymore and cannot fray any further. Then I fixed it with pins and repeated the whole procedure with the other three sides of the fabric.

Before I sewed the hem with the sewing machine I also tacked it.

Now the basic table runner is ready and you can start with the fun colouring part. :) For this reason I made a Christmas tree stencil with the help of a cookie cutter and a small piece of cardbord.

Then I put the stencil onto my fabric and painted it in with gold textile colour. Be careful not to use too much colour, otherwise the colour may get under your stencil and the Christmas tree may lose its form. Don't forget to put some paper or plastic under you table runner to prevent the colour from seeping through onto your table.

When the table runner is full with Christmas trees let it dry. To fix the colour you should iron it from the backside at a high temperature. Afterwards it should also be possible to wash it in the washing machine without any loss of colour. Done! :)

Happy Holiday Tunes

Hi there,

Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without all our favourite Christmas tunes! Currently my absolute favourite is "All that I want" from The Weepies but of course there are many, many other great songs. I made you a little collection of my all time-favourites and some new stuff I recently found. At the end of the list you'll also find some classic Austrian/German Christmas songs (sung by the Vienna Choir Boys among others ;) ). I hope you enjoy it! :) 

The whole playlist you'll find here.

Christmas Party Outfit Ideas

Day 3 of our advent calendar is going to show you two ways of dressing up for a Christmas party. No matter if you are invited to a classy christmas party with your co-workers or if you visit a Christmas market with your friends - these two outfits should give you some inspiration :)

I have created this classy Christmas party outfit on Polyvore - you can find the outfit details here. I saw this Hallhuber dress last weekend and i felt instantly in love with it. You can never go wrong with black and gold when it comes to classy Christmas party outfits!

And here is my sassy Christmas party outfit for you! Isn't this jumper too much fun? You can find all outfit details here.

Have a great day everyone!

Christmas Cookies Here We Come

Hi there!

Do you love Christmas cookies as much as I do? Well, I do (actually I love all kinds of cookies but at Christmas they always seem to taste best)! :) Therefore I'll show you a great cookie recipe I recently tried. These babies taste chocolaty, moist and crunchy all at the same time and the best thing is they are even (kind of) healthy. Almost no refined-sugar and glutenfree.
Yummy!!

What you'll need

• 3 1/4 cup almond flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
• 1/2 cup maple syrup
• 1/2 cup melted coconut oil
• 1 cup dark chocolate chips

How it works

Preheat your oven to 190°C and put some parchment paper on your baking sheet.
Combine the almond flour with a teaspoon of baking powder and a teaspoon of salt.

In another bowl combine the eggs, the vanilla sugar, the maple syrup and the melted coconut oil.

 Then mix up the wet with the dry ingredients and add the chocolate chips.

Take small portions of the dough and press them flat on your baking sheet (as thick as you like). Now you can cut out the cookies.

 Put them into the oven for 8 to 10 minutes. Done! :)

 

All images by Stefanie Reichl

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Hi Folks,

today we start our little Advent calender. Every day until Christmas we are going to post about festive clothes, Christmas party ideas, Christmas decoration, gift ideas and much more. We hope you'll enjoy it! :)

For those of you, who somehow overslept the official start of the Christmas season we'll bring you two DIY-ideas for a last-minute Advent wreath (Katja) and an Advent calender (Steffi) today. :)  

DIY 1: Last-Minute Advent Calender

What you'll need

• 24 envelopes
• felt ornaments
• glue
• thin cord
• 24 clothespins
• gold spray
• hammer and nails
• pen

How it works

Put your clothespins on a broad sheet of paper and spray-paint them from every side with your gold spray. The distance between the spray can and clothespins should be about 30cm.

While your now golden clothespins dry you can glue your felt ornaments onto your envelopes. I made my envelopes myself out of simple brown paper using this easy description by Emily from Design and Nonsense but of course you can also use purchased ones.

The calender numbers I simply wrote onto the envelopes into the down right corner.

Make knots into the ends of your cord and fix the cord with nails on your wall. Then you can hang up your envelopes. Now you've only got to fill the calender and you're done! Hope you'll have fun with it! :)

DIY 2: "Very british" advent wreath

What you'll need

• greenery wreath
• 4 red candles plus candle holder for wreaths 
• glue gun
• 4 tartan ribbons
• wire
• small red ornaments
• 4 pine cones
• 4 walnuts

I always buy a ready-made greenery wreath because I am too lazy to make my own (allthough I have TONS of coniferous trees in my garden and neighbourhood). But I always decorate them by myself.
And this is super easy :)

Start with the candles: put them on the candle holder for wreaths and plug them in the wreath. Fix the tartan ribbons with some wire directly under the candles. I also glued some star anise on the ribbons.

Then spray-paint your walnuts and pine cones and let them dry. With a hot glue gun you can fix the walnuts, pine cones and small red ornaments easily on your wreath.

All images by Stefanie Reichl and Katja Borlein