Of Advent wreaths and photographic faux pas........

Hiya All
I am back again and this time it is courtesy of Frances from Buttercup Miniatures.  All I had said was that I loved her newly crocheted/designed Advent wreath and I received one in the post!  You see as you will all have now gathered.....I am always looking fowards with St. Hils......ie WHAT shall we do NEXT year for Advent........Christmas.................Mothering Sunday..............the list goes on.  I am always so keen that each year I do something just a "little different" from the year before so any ideas from my friends and St. Hils supporters are all warmly received.  So please DO feel free to let me know if you have any ideas for any of our future pages and I can asure you that I fully credit all contributions on my site.

So for NEXT year this lovely green crocheted Advent wreath will be my "little difference" when the children celebrate Advent. 

No prizes for working out WHO is in this photo below posing with the said wreath and it is..........

Gracie!  Well of course!  The wreath is made to either sit on a table or to be hung up.  Of course the white candles can be ANY colour but I actually very much love them as a plain white.  No photo is complete without at least ONE pet or member of the local wildlife so you cannot be surprised to see both Tinker the black cat and Syd the pigeon who is one of Homer's two pets who arrived with him when he came from Germany.  You will see that I have also borrowed a candlestick and white candle from the altar!  It is a good thing that I can "borrow" items within the church because nobody will ever see that the altar is temporarily mssing one candlestick and candle!   I HAD to add the candlestick with said candle in order to complete the Advent wreath...................and I think it looks quite good already!
I did have one devil of a job though trying to get our Grace to stand up.  It is great that she has got 14 joints but that becomes a nightmare when trying to stand her up as I have mentioned before on account of the joints at the knees and hips springing back and forcing her back into a kind of sitting position again.....arghhhhhhh  However we got there in the end.............as I am not one to give up that easily.

As per usual I was not happy to keep things that simple.  So I thought it would be a great idea to use some holly with berries which Catherine, my sister, of Dollshouse Heaven, let me borrow a couple of years ago now.  For some reason I STILL have it! 

So here you can see Tom has arrived and he thought it a great idea to use this holly as you can see..............

Gracie was NOT going to be out done here so she too decided to add some more holly with berries to the wreath to make it look pretty.............doesn't it look good now?  See a close up here for better detail of the wreath.............

You have now seen the best of the photos taken late this afternoon before the light became too low and dingy.  However I took one photo which I felt was not quite "good enough"..........see below if you can spot why?

It is poor Tom! I KNOW that boys can be a bit slap dash when dressing and making sure they always look decent but this is NOT a good show is it?  Tom's trousers have been the bane of my life for years!  I pose him in what I think is a perfect pose.  However when I check the photos on the computer a little later I am so annoyed because I missed the salient point of his trousers not being properly arranged!    I am sure that I can find a story for this but for once I really would rather not!
So I had to retake the photo as you can see further up.  Sadly the light was not quite so good outside by that point though. 

Now on a not completely different subject I must share with you the commission I have given my sister, Catherine of Dollshouse Heaven to make for me............ie.........fairy cakes to be brought to church by our Gracie!  Catherine was chatting to me yesterday about these said little cakes and she thought that we should re-name them "Gracie Cakes"!  What a GREAT idea! Gracie makes them of course so perhaps, just perhaps, she has a secret recipe for them which she will refuse to share with the children when asked.
Catherine has also emailed today and this is what she had to say..."Hi Sarah - I've had an idea for a theme for the Gracie Cakes - how about iced sponge drops with different sweets/chocolates on top? Just a thought."

.....And so...........I have thought............and I think my sister's idea is a brilliant one!  Catherine is also going to let me borrow a plain miniature cake tin too for Gracie to bring her cakes to church.  This gives Gracie scope to decorate the tin herself.  I am sure I can see her making her own little notice to stick to the tin in order to advertise her home made and original recipe "Gracie Cakes" to the other church Sunday School children.

Well folks that is all for now.  Don't forget to check out St. Hils in the next few days when our new Christmas page will be online alongside our daily Advent Calendar................................

Till the next time..........
PS - Andrew must think we will drown in Marks and Spencers "French Apple Tarts" as they are called in their bakery as well as their chilled apple and custard doughnuts.  You see - I saw some of both yesterday and today and went mad......................I daren't tell you HOW many of those yummy doughnuts are in our fridge at the moment...........if we aren't careful we will be having them for dinner...........  So if it is famine tomorrow I am all prepared...................talk about a siege like mentality .....lol