Christmas in July!

You can imagine my excitement when I stumbled upon the Alpine Winter Festival that's being held during the winter months in Melbourne & Sydney. This festival combines an outdoor skating rink, a custom-built alpine ski lodge featuring open fires & serving winter delicacies from around the world, European live music, an alpine food market selling gluvog, punch & hot chocolate plus a St Morritz Bar serving 'alpine-inspired' cocktails! Heaven!

www.winterfestival.com.au/attractions

Christmas Biscuits

Melbournian Vicki Davis bakes some of the most amazing decorative biscuits I've ever seen. You'll often find her beautiful designs at cafes & food-stores across Australia. The biscuits featured here were part of her 2008 cafe range. Happily, I can report that her sweet treats do indeed taste as good as they look!

www.vickisbickies.com

Christmas Pears

'Retro Mama' is a blog & online business owned by a hugely creative US-based seamstress. How divine are these hand-made Christmas ornaments RM created for Christmas 2008? If you look to the right of her post you'll see you're able to purchase the pattern for this ornament & have a go yourself. I'm not much of a sewer but the cuteness of these pears is making me reconsider my aversion to any task involving a needle & thread!

retro-mama.blogspot.com/2008/10/and-then-there-were-three.html

Mozi Christmas

'Mozi' is a Melbourne-based design firm that incorporates their amazing graphic designs on a range of beautiful products. These gift ideas were from their 2009 range. 'Mozis' flagship store in Hawthorn is well worth a visit if you're in the area. They stock their own signature range as well as other pastel-inspired products from around the world! Can't wait to see what they have in store for Christmas 2010!

www.mozi.com.au

Snowflake biscuits

How amazing are these snowflake biscuit cutters? They would be so perfect to use to make gingerbread biscuits at Christmas-time! They're available from the Cox & Cox UK website (mentioned the other day) & were also spotted on my visit to US homewares store 'Sur La Table' in 2009. Stunning!

www.surlatable.com

St. Delia

Years back, I remember watching one of my favourite shows (The Vicar of Dibley) & laughing at how the lead character called UK food author Delia Smith "St. Delia". I guess the title is well-earned, considering Delia Smith has been writing about food for over 40 years. I've only seen Delia's book 'Happy Christmas' for sale once in an Australian bookstore & am now kicking myself that I didn't buy it! I'm sure it would have provided wisdom on how to prepare the most amazing Christmas feast with military precision. All hail, St Delia...

www.deliaonline.com

Pudding Charms

A supremely talented & very creative friend of mine, Lisa L (or L2 as she's known!) just referred me onto the awesome 'Cox & Cox' UK website. Check out these sterling silver pudding charms! I remember reading 'Nigella Christmas' 2 years ago, enchanted at Nigella's mention that she had antique pudding charms. I'd never heard of the tradition of putting charms in puddings before this. At Christmas-time, here in Melbourne, my mother-in-law puts gold coins in her puddings which I suppose follows the same school of thought. Wish they sold these cute charms here in Australia!

www.coxandcox.co.uk

Christmas Toadstool

How crazy is this Mushroom Pouf? I saw it for sale (online) at 'Anthropologie' (remember that amazing NYC store I mentioned I visited a little while back?). At 38cm tall I guarantee it's the largest toadstool you'll ever see! I think would make a great addition to some Christmas-time lounging around after a big lunch! Too darn cute!

www.anthropologie.com

German Christmas Gingerbread

I remember going to this restaurant called 'The Cuckoo' up in the Victorian mountains with my family when I was 6 years old. The thing that struck me the most about the place (apart from the fact they had a giant grill-plate to cook 30 pancakes at once on!) were these big gingerbread hearts they had for sale in their gift-shop. They were amazing - brightly coloured & beautifully decorated. No matter how much I begged, my mum wouldn't buy me one. As an adult I found out they're called 'Lebkuchen' (my husband's dad is German). Apparently they're a national specialty. Must remember to buy one at a Christmas market when I visit Germany for old times sake!

www.cakejournal.com/archives/how-to-make-soft-gingerbread-hearts

European Christmas Markets

I know I'm getting way ahead of myself but lately I've been looking into booking a trip to celebrate Christmas in Europe in 2011. It'll be the trip of a lifetime, so I'm busy putting the pennies away as we speak so I can afford to splurge when the occasion presents itself. For me, one of the highlights will be visiting the famous Christmas markets that seem to pop up in just about every European town during the festive season. The markets usually run from the last week in November right up until a few days before the big day. These images are from the Frankfurt & Stuttgart markets. Heaven!

http://www.frankfurt-tourismus.de/cms/tourismussuite/en/events_trade_fairs_messe_frankfurt/christmas_market_Frankfurt_xmas.html

Christmas Candy

It was in a Martha Stewart Christmas magazine about 7 years ago, that I first saw the idea of making lolly people & lolly animals. I couldn't get over how insanely cute they were! So simple yet so effective. Can you imagine how excited a child would be seeing these creations placed before them? I especially love the toadstools in this picture!

www.marthastewart.com

The Happy Elf

This cute Christmas elf is from 'Bla Bla' - a US-based company that designs amazing knitted children's goods. The company employs a team of Peruvian women (who are highly skilled in handicrafts) to manufacture the items. In return, Bla Bla provides them with a decent wage & ethical work conditions, so they can support their families. I think theirs is my favourite website of all time; the colours & items for sale are so whimsical! They make me smile....

www.blablakids.com

Christmas Fabric

Despite the recent boom in crafters out there, it's still pretty hard to find really beautiful Christmas fabric here in Australia. Most of the Christmas fabric I use at home or in my business, I import from the US. Having said that, I did stumble upon some great locally-made material the other day. This screen-printed Christmas fabric is from Sydney-based designer Kristen Doran. She's also created a make-at-home advent calendar kit. Her designs remind me a bit of the images in my 1918 book of Grimms' Fairytales.

kristendoran.bigcartel.com

Christmas Posters

When it comes to home-decorating, I love a good vintage poster & if it's Christmas-themed, then all the better! Here's a couple of my all-time favourites from a great overseas online store that I've ordered from before. I like how both posters depict the exact opposite of the traditional alpine scene one usually associates with Christmas.

www.allposters.com

OH.MY.GOODNESS....if only my family thought it acceptable to ONLY eat dessert on Christmas Day! I would head straight to 'Cannelle et Vanille's' blog for some sweet-toothed inspiration. I don't think I've come across a food blog that has been so sumptously photographed & put together. Food-publisher Donna Hay should seriously give these guys a job!


cannelle-vanille.blogspot.com

Christmas Cupcakes (Part 2)

'Hello Hanna' is the US-based design house responsible for creating these gorgeous, economical embossed cupcake stands. I think serving guests their own Christmas cupcake on their very own cupcake stand would be very impressive. In fact, I might bookmark this sudden flash of inspiration so I don't forget to do this at my family Christmas celebration this year!

www.hellohanna.com

Kirov Ballet's 'The Nutcracker'

OK. So I've been banging on about Ballet most of this year. I guess I'm newly-addicted. I went to see the Kirov Ballet's 'Nutcracker' screening today at Cinema Nova in Carlton. It was the most spectacular performance I've seen of this Christmas story so far. Lavish sets & amazing costumes. The snowflakes in 'Waltz of the snowflakes' were the best. Black tutus instead of the traditional white but heavily jeweled with glistening white snowballs. Wonder when the Russian Ballet plans to tour Australia again? Soon I hope....

www.kirov.com

Christmas Investment

At the start of 2010, I bought these antique Christmas decorations from a US collector. While collecting is (for me) more a weakness than a business venture, it's nice to know the things sitting in my house are an investment & are gaining in value!

channelnine.ninemsn.com.au/antiquesroadshow

I remember seeing this Dutch graphic designer's take on an "alternative" Christmas tree in a lifestyle magazine several years ago. By chance, I stumbled upon her site a few days ago. How cool is this idea? Great for people who are short on space! I also love the retro treasures for sale on her site. Think I'll buy a few things from her & get them posted to my uncle in Holland to keep for me until I see him next!

www.alltheluckintheworld.nl

Holiday Sweet Shoppe

What kind of an awesome mum creates a Holiday Sweet Shoppe for her daughter's 8th Birthday party? US-Based marketing manager Suzanne Hopkins, that's who! I saw this cute party idea on Suzanne's S.HOP TALK blog the other day & was enchanted. There was marshmallow toasting, gingerbread house decorating, story-telling & lolly skewer-making to be had. Wish I was 8 again!

shoptalkbuzz.blogspot.com

Christmas Shoes?

'The Red Shoes' ballet movie will be screening at 'The Astor' theatre in Melbourne from March 21st, 2010. Granted, it's not a Christmas movie, (anything but actually, as the protagonist ends up quite badly at the film's conclusion!) but I think Moira Shearer's outfit looks very festive. How much do the Red Pointe shoes stand out in contrast to the cream outfit? It's a really striking image...

www.astor-theatre.com

Home-made Christmas Garland

This glittery & very cute Christmas garland is care of 'A Field Journal' blogspot. The design is so simple yet effective. The online tutorial provided will come in very handy when my thoughts turn to organising a Christmas in July party here in Oz this year. Sometimes, in winter-time it snows up here at my place in the country. This glittery, snowy garland will be a little nod to that very cosy time of year I think!

afieldjournal.blogspot.com/2008/12/homemade-christmas-garland-tutorial.html

Rosanna Inc

A few years ago a chef buddy of mine put me onto Rosanna Inc. tableware. The US-based company also produces a gorgeous range of children's crockery. Their products are hard to come by in Australia but you can sometimes snap up their goodies (post-season) on E-Bay for a fraction of the price if you're lucky!

www.rosannainc.com

Christmas Records

I love Christmas LP's because they always seem to have such nostalgic & playful graphics on their covers. I've collected about 10 vintage Christmas records over the past 2 years, mostly from thrift stores across Victoria such as 'Vinnies'.

www.vinnies.org.au