homemade christmas cheer

Each year I like to put a little homemade into Christmas where I can, often this is just in some form of baking, occasionally some sewing or making something else.

In our family each child has a sack under the tree where they get some small treats and goodies, books, games that sort of thing plus one main present from mum and dad.

This year we have gone with a bit if a theme for each child's sack.

Now I already showed you The Girl's sack present a washing clothes kit.

 B5 is getting a tool kit from Bunnings and to go with it VCH made a work bench out of stuff in the shed.

B1 stained it yesterday with some leftover stain from our table, and today he sprayed it with some clear gloss, this picture was taken before the gloss.

Here it is with the drawer out.

B4 is getting craft stuff including his own hot glue gun, so he will be doing the making!

B3 is getting  cooking stuff including a great cookbook and some lovely little gadgets I found at Kmart and some of the knives they used on Junior Master Chef.

Here is the apron I made him, being modelled by B4,
its a little too big for him but will be just right for B3.

The two older boys have missed out on something homemade this year, but at their age they are probably glad!

I wanted to make something for VCH and I saw this at gluesticks- a root beer sampler.

Now you can't even buy root beer in Australia but VCH does like his beer so I thought I might make one of these with beer.
I was contemplating going and seeing what individual bottles of beer I could buy in a bottle shop when I was flicking through a catalogue and saw I could buy a sample pack of 10 beers from around the world.
But I didn't want to just give him a box from the shop.

So I did this

 
I used a little wood crate I found at an op shop.
I painted the top strip with black chalkboard paint and then I wrote Bernie's Beer Sampler
(Bernie is my nickname for VCH, I am the only one in the world that calls him that!)

Now it has the homemade look.

I made these up for VCH brother and sister.
I got the idea from here.
I didn't make my own marshmallows though, they won't last long in our humidity before developing mould and I quite frankly couldn't be bothered!
 For one I am using a basket I found at the op shop, for the other a cut down box painted with chalkboard paint.

Here it is with the instructions added.

I will add a gingerbread (or ginger beer as my two youngest keep calling it) tree and wrap it up in cellophane before giving it to them.

For my older nieces I made these, to the original hot chocolate mix I made for the above I added malted milk powder, mini marshmallows, dark chocolate and white chocolate bits.

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