A Natural Midwinter

Happy new year!

I hope your Christmas break was full of fun and rest & you got the chance to tuck into plenty of delicious food.

I thought I'd share some of the ways I attempted to keep things simple again this year and try and be as conscious (and affordable!) as possible, without missing out on the fun and frivolity of the celebrations. 

Gifts for friends included simple cards with leaves cut from the garden. Some handmade soy candles made with recycled jars. I used orange, pine & cedar wood essential oils (which I had already and made the house smell amazing.) And finally, some homemade truffles, which if you fancied trying yourself I've written out the recipe below...

Christmas Truffles:

Ingredients:
100g dates
150g Dark Chocolate (at least 70%)
2 tbs Coconut oil
2tbs Chia seeds
1tbs Maple Syrup
100g chopped nuts

My method:
Soak the dates for up to 2hrs. Drain. Then mash until a smooth paste.
Break up & blitz the dark chocolate finely. 
Combine with all the remaining ingredients in a large bowl.
Take a good teaspoon of the mixture and roll between your palms into a truffle sized ball. 
Roll the truffle around a plate of chopped nuts.
Refrigerate for 2 hours.
 

I packaged them up in tissue paper and put them in these little craft boxes (£1 for 2 from The Works).

Bringing the outdoors in, is an age long tradition and reminder to people in the dark winter months, that Spring is not far away! I love the sentiment of this and do it all year round anyway.

So I put to use all the dried leaves and flowers I have collected throughout the year and made little wreaths & decorations for around the house as seen below.

I made the girls some new stockings using some simple cream fabric, then using a pencil, I wrote out their names and embroidered over it with some gold thread. I think they could probably do with lining, but I'll probably get my sister to do that!

Speaking of my sister... we spent Christmas day with her and the rest of the family down in Brighton. This was the gorgeous table setting they did for us. Simple foliage, linen napkins, gold sprayed oranges and candles. Lovely!

Those in between days were spent as they should be, lazy mornings, frosty walks, head in a new book & leftovers for tea.

Now that normality has resumed to some degree, like a lot of us these dark, cold days knock any sense of self-motivation right out the window and all I want to do is hunker down and get my knitting out.

Finding beauty in the bleakness can be a challenge - and especially when I've got my camera out. But I do find it, when I pause and observe and try not to race through the day.

Here are some of those moments when I stopped and took the time to look a bit closer.

And so, I look forward to the year ahead and all that it has in store... 

I have some thoughts about refocusing some of the work I do and doing more of certain things and less of others. So I thought it would be nice to hear from some of my readers. What do you like seeing on here? What makes you keep coming back to my blog... and what are you not so interested in too!

 Either comment below or email me your thoughts. I would LOVE to hear from you. x