Snapshots - December 2016

 Welcome to December in photos! It's the end of the year, the start of summer, and the middle of Christmas. I'd been working on this crochet tree skirt, and as soon as I finished it I put the tree up. I got a white tree this year and I'm so glad I did! It's a full sized tree and I took it out of the box to have a look at it. My two little helpers materialised and were ever so fascinated... and I realised that it wouldn't even last an hour before it lay in tatters on the floor! Fortunately I was able to take just the top part of the tree and put it in the stand on top of the hall table. And there it has remained safe and unmolested by cats.

 I used all my pink ornaments and realised I needed more, many more. As always, when you go to the shops with a specific colour of ornament in mind you can't find anything, so I decided to crochet little ornament covers. They turned out really well. I will need to make a whole lot more whenever that time comes that I can have the full tree up!

 Pink, white and silver... my favourite Christmas (and any other time) colour combo!

 Another thing I love about Christmas is setting up little displays around the house. Whether temporary (until you eat the mince pies) or more permanent (with fairy lights for grey evenings).

 It is summer though, and there are lots of beautiful roses to photograph.

 The garden has been just gorgeous this month. The grass has grown in, and there are poppies, dahlias, lavatera and roses in shades of soft pink and lavender.

The lavender borders are full, framing the potager, glasshouse and flower gardens.

 This is a gorgeous cupcake made of soap which I gave as gifts to my workmates. It was coconut and lime flavour and smelled as good as it looked!

 After Christmas I spent a few days in Timaru catching up with family and friends. Then my holiday at home began! I've got so many fun projects lined up for myself starting with dyeing yarn. I tried three different coloured skeins and it will be fun to see how these work up. I also finished my Vanilla Latte socks, with my first batch of hand dyed yarn! I really enjoyed working on them and watching the colourway develop.

Here's a shot of the summer mantel, with a bit of Christmas mixed in. I later mixed in some Christmas lilies when they came into bloom... lovely!

 And this is my top nine photos from the year on Instagram. Happy new year to you all!

xxx