A happy win, and the lead up to Christmas ...

Not so long ago my lovely friend Vicki sent me an urgent message - she asked me if I'd checked out the upcoming Small and Whitfield auction. There was a Masons Vista dinner set coming up and because she was going to the auction wanted to know if I'd like to bid?

Of course I would!!

This is the picture from the listing. Though I don't really need dinner plates, you can never have too many. But the serving dishes and salad/bread plates are what I was excited about.

Sweet Vicki managed to win the auction, and for the bargain price of $300.00. Doesn't sound like a bargain, but if you check out how much serving pieces and plates go for, you'll know why I was thrilled :-) Here is the state of my little cabinet in the dining room now:

I think I'm good for quite a while. The only thing I'd really run for is a lovely soup tureen, and maybe some coffee mugs. The mugs are hard to find!

For those of you that are my buddies on Facebook will have already seen all about this next thing, but I thought I'd share my baking in the lead up to Christmas. You all know I love my gingerbread ... and so do my family - but for different reasons. I tried a new and much more elaborate gingerbread house this year, and I'm thrilled with the results.

The house design has been around for a while and I'd seen a few on Pinterest, the templates can be found here. I also found a recipe for 'no spread' gingerbread on Pinterest, and let me tell you, it's my new favourite thing. Trimming gingerbread house pieces after baking is a bit of a pain, and with this recipe, I didn't have to do it at all!

Here are the pieces after baking:

It was like a delicious jigsaw puzzle.

Here is an in progress shot, I was super worried about the roof fitting.

The blobby bits on the back wall of the house are the supports I used to hold the string of battery operated LED lights in place. Once the icing was dry, I looped the lights over the supports and used more icing to anchor them. You can see the mansard roof in the background. I had to wait until it was super dry before I could attach the tower, and then carefully lift it in place.

And here is the finished article. I'm so pleased with how it looks. The trees in the foreground are icecream cones iced to look like fir trees. I can't even imagine what I'll work on next year - perhaps this one again with refinements ... who knows!

Camo loves to work alongside me with his own creation, and here he is:

The Ikea gingerbread houses are so much fun for little people to work on, and he has fun creating with the icing and sweets.

Last of all for today, I thought I'd share a couple of the mats I've made up during the last week or so:

I always have fun making them, the quilting is my favourite bit. I genuinely think I've made more than 100 of these over many years, and it always makes me laugh that I only have one of my own. I think I might have one left over this year, so if that's true, my personal collection of spiderweb mats will be two! Don't forget if you'd like to make one of these, there is a free tutorial at my website - feel free to download it.

Well, that's it for today, if I don't have an opportunity to get back before our big day, Merry Christmas from my family to yours! xox