Wish list: The Original Pop Up Shop

What do you do with an ice cream parlour in the depths of the British winter? Open a pop-up Christmas shop of course!

The Original Pop Up Shop is the brainchild of interiors stylist Louise Rastall and sees her family switch ice cream for icicles (boom boom) by turning their shop into a Christmas wonderland selling trees, wreaths and decorations. The latter are available online too. Here are a few of my favourites…

Felted acorn garland, £15.95

Isn’t it funny how you never seem to know how much you need a string of felt acorns until you see one?

Red robin linen napkins, £44/4

These napkins aren’t so overly Christmassy that you couldn’t use them at other times of year too (loving the simple bobble trim napkin ring idea too Louise!)

Baking tin candle holder, £6.30/2

The Scandi-style candle holders would look really pretty dotted down the centre of the Christmas dinner table.

Handmade with love gift tags, £2/8

Every year I decide I’m going to make all my Christmas presents by hand. Usually I fail miserably and there’s still no way I’ll manage to make them all but I have got a few craft projects on the go – these tags would be the perfect finishing touch.

If you’re in the Newark area you can find directions here or start filling your present sack online.

Christmas crafting: easy clay decorations

I asked my followers on Twitter whether it was too early to start blogging about Christmas.

And the answer was “no”… hooray!

I’m definitely going to try making some of these hanging decorations (designed by Sania Pell) this year. They’d be lovely on the tree, but would also make extra special gift tags… perhaps tied to a bottle of homemade sloe gin?

Apparently they’re really easy to make using air-drying clay. I hadn’t heard of it before but it’s inexpensive and widely available in art shops and on Amazon. All you have to do is roll and cut it out, then emboss it using rubber stamps while it’s still wet or print on letters with ink once it’s dried.

{all Sania Pell}

Finish the decorations off with a length of baker’s twine or (my favourite) a scrap of Liberty print fabric and voila! I’m off to order some magic clay now and will let you know how I get on. Now I’ve started on Christmas there will be no stopping me, so keep an eye on the Christmas category in the sidebar for lots more ideas in the run up to the big day!