Christmas Eve!

It's Christmas Eve! Which means there's only:

ONE

MORE

SLEEP!

Which also means it's time to share some last-minute Christmas treats and decorations I've made, because after tomorrow, it's too late! Life becomes about New Years Eve plans, and making "resolutions" for 2014. Lights start to come down; Christmas trees are packed away; recycling bins are full and await to be collected...

Anyway, here we go!

CHRISTMAS PUDDING POPS:

Inspired by various looking Christmas pudding-looking cake pops I've seen lately (which aren't actually made with Christmas pudding), I wanted to make some with Christmas pudding!

I used my cake pop tray to mould the Christmas pudding into shapes (which ended up being a waste of time because the chocolate didn't go on as smoothly as I had hoped!)

N.B. Christmas pudding is a lot heavier than chocolate sponge cake!

I used white chocolate ice magic for the 'sauce' part, but had to hold the fondant holly and red M 'n' Ms in place until it was set enough...

The Christmas pudding originated in England, and various 'charms' were often inserted into the mixture, granting particular luck to the one who found them in their serve of pudding. Sadly, these pudding pops don't have coins, rings, thimbles, anchors, or mini wishbones inside them, but really, everyone's a winner when Christmas pudding is served!

FABRIC CHRISTMAS WREATH:

Inspired by a friend's Christmas tinsel-like decoration made the same way, I wanted to make a  fabric Christmas wreath.

I bent and shaped a wire coat hanger to be as round as possible. I had green, red, and white strips of fabric ready to be tied onto the hanger. One by one, I tied them in knots around the wire. Of course, I had a pattern of how the fabric would be tied on (dark green, dark green, light green, light green, red/white), and eventually, eventually, it's finished and you can add a bow or hang a giant bauble in the middle of it with a rubber band, or just leave it as a plain wreath :)

I had also made mini fruit mince pies out of puff pastry and Robertson's Traditional Fruit Mince in a mini cupcake tray... I had put mini puff pastry stars on top of them, too... But, I forgot to take photos of them! I can tell you (unbiasedly, of course) that they were really tasty, especially still warm right out of the oven.

Hope you have a good night's sleep this Christmas Eve!! :)