Christmas Crackers and a Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas period and all your handmade gifts were fully appreciated! 

As promised here are some snaps of my completed Christmas table set up for mine and my boyfriend's mini Christmas day (I'd never be allowed to get involved with my Mum's table plans back home!)

The fabric for the runner was a bargain from Ikea when I wasn't even looking for fabric and they also did matching paper napkins and wrapping paper which I also made full use of! I love using simple candles as a centre piece (I'm having a bit of a candle moment actually) but when it came to putting the table together I wished I had a bit of festive foliage, just some fir or holly, to lay around the bases of the candles to make it that little bit more interesting and Christmassy. I think I'm quite minimalist usually decoration-wise but I've definitely come round to thinking that Christmas is the one time you can go all out and throw decorations up everywhere (mainly after watching 'Jamie's Christmas With Bells On' I must admit).

The runner was very easy to make, simply cut a long strip and hem the edges although you could add some trim or fringing at each end or perhaps incorporate points at each end with a hanging tassel. I also made my own crackers which were also surprisingly straight forward and inexpensive.

First I filled a toilet roll tube with some sweeties, a joke, a little gift and a party hat (which I made from the same paper simply by folding up concertina style a long strip, cutting diagonally through the middle to create two strips with points and glueing together the ends).

Then I wrapped a piece of the Ikea wrapping paper around the tube ensuring the paper was long enough to stick out a few inches each end. Stick together with a small amount of Pritt Stick, just enough to hold it together. Don't use Sellotape as this will make your crackers impossible to pull, you need the paper to tear! I would recommend backing your paper with another piece or with some thin card so when you pull the crackers they hold some kind of shape and don't simply flop. 

I then slid a cracker snap (I bought mine from Hobby Craft) inside each tube, gathered the paper together at each end and tied with a small piece of thread. The thread can then be covered with whatever decoration you choose, I used these pre-tied red velveteen bows for a touch of the traditional.

And there we have it, inexpensive Christmas crackers to match your table colour scheme!