Christmas wishes from Decorator’s Notebook x

{via Jill Clark}

May your days be merry and bright!

All my love for a wonderful Christmas and a fantastic 2013

DN xxx

Free printable! 16 illustrated Christmas gift tags

It’s been brilliant having you all read my blog over the past year – it feels like last Christmas was only moments ago but so much has happened over the past year and 2013 is going to be the most exciting yet for Decorator’s Notebook. So to say thank you for reading I’ve been hard at work drawing a little present just for you!

{© Decorator’s Notebook / Photographs Joe John}

There are 16 different hand-drawn Christmas gift tag designs to print on any card you like. The PDF is free to download by clicking the link below… in return, please share an image and link via Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest by hitting one of the buttons at the bottom of the post. If you have your own blog please feel free to share it there too, but please post a link to Decorator’s Notebook rather than the PDF itself.

PLEASE SHARE THIS POST THEN CLICK TO DOWNLOAD PDF

Homemade clay Christmas decorations

Last year I made these snowflake decorations from air drying clay – this easy to use material was a revelation to me, so I wanted to share another lovely idea with you.

{via DillyPad}

You can buy DAS air drying clay in art shops or from Amazon. To make these tree decorations you could simply roll out small sausages of clay, lay on a strip of cotton lace trim and go over with a rolling pin to impress the pattern. Make a hole in the top with a darning needle and then lay out to dry.

I’d love to know if you try them…

Out of Office

Next week I’ll be here.

{The Developing Photographer}{Wolfy}

There is no mobile phone signal. There is no wi-fi. For the first week ever, there will be no posts.

Don’t take offense, but I’ll be trying not to miss you…

Love, DN x

Live like a cavegirl

Despite the whole London thing, I’m a proper country bumpkin at heart. While the other girls were dressing up as princesses, I was usually happier playing cavemen with my brother, smearing my face with mud, running around barefoot and cooking up delicious ‘meals’ from plants and berries foraged from the garden.

Twenty years on, not much has changed really – when it comes to holidays you can forget sun loungers and piña coladas, I’d much rather be somewhere like this:

Urnatur Woodhermitage is a collection of magical little huts and treehouses in a wooded clearing in rural Sweden. Visitors are encouraged to get back to nature (and back to basics) with almost everything built, cooked or crafted from the immediate surroundings.

I’d find it impossible to choose which one to stay in – reading the descriptions of the Hat Cabin, the Charcoaler’s Hut and the Little Treehouse, each one sounds even lovelier than the last.

Aspiring cavemen (and women) are welcomed – there are courses about gathering wild herbs and mushrooms from the forest, simple carpentry, haymaking and the intriguing sounding ‘fire & knife’.

{all Ulrika Krynitz / Urnatur}

By now you’re probably either recoiling at the idea of staying in an unheated, electricity-free shed for a holiday, or desperate to know when you can go. If you’re amongst the latter, Urnatur is open from April to October and you can book via the website. If you’ve been captured by the magic, check out these photos and videos Anthropologie took when they visited Urnatur to shoot one of their look books a couple of years ago.

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