It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

Hi guys,
The Christmas decorations are up and we are officially ready to enjoy my favourite time of the year! With just twelve days to go, we are breaking out the Christmas films, snuggling under our Christmas blankets and the seal on the Quality Street tin has been broken. The plan for tomorrow is to take a walk around the dinosaur park, make mince pies and then head to Waitrose to do the big Christmas shop. All normal routine is out of the window, and all things Christmas are the order of the next twelve days.

I love putting up our Christmas decorations and making the house look all festive. I love remembering where each ornament came from and the look on Wilbur's face when he first saw the tree was a picture. He can sit and look at it for an age, touching all the ornaments and watching the lights twinkle. It's awesome! And don't even get me started on how he feels about the bowls of sweets everywhere....


I finished wrapping all of our Christmas presents this afternoon and I have only 6 days left of work before I am very generously giving myself two weeks off: The stack of Christmas DVDs is primed and ready, and the board games have been dusted off. It really is the most wonderful time of the year!

How are your preparations for the big day coming on? Have you got your Christmas tree up yet? Don't forget to head over to my twitter page to enter my Christmas competition, in conjunction with Shelter and Monster Slippers: there are two pairs of slippers of your choice to be won! 

Love Tor x

Fabfrocks at Home: Stylized Christmas home envy!

Hi guys,
I'm a bit of an interiors obsessive: I love checking out other people's home decor, and am forever drooling over interiors blogs (I like to call it house porn!) And if there's one time it's especially nice to see what creative ideas people have for their homes it's Christmas. It's not just interior blogs jumping on this band wagons either: the big department stores are hopping all over it too!

I love checking out the photo shoots that the big department stores put out to promote their Christmas decorations and interior ranges. It used to be that preparing for Christmas meant putting up a Christmas tree. But now you can buy new Christmas throws and cushions, art work, kitchen utensils and even bedding. (Primark have some great Nordic reindeer-print bedding instore, and it's only £15) And I love it!

Here's some decorating inspiration gleamed from the stores you'll find on every highstreet:

Marks and Spencer

Next 

House of Fraser

How do you decorate your home for Christmas? Do you take interior inspiration from blogs and press images and go abit over the top (guilty as charged!) or do you think these things are going a bit too far?

I'll be showing you how we decorate our house for Christmas later in the month. But in the meantime, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Love Tor xx

PS - Don't forget to enter my Christmas giveaway: there is a great selection of little prizes to be won!! 

Christmas crafty Saturday: How to make Christmas stockings

Hi guys,
I love getting crafty, and Christmas is the perfect time to exercise my love of all thing craft with a real purpose. So I thought that every Saturday during December I would share one of my seasonal crafts with you guys.

I like to create my own little presents for people, as well as decorations for the house: this year, for the first time, I tried my hand at making a Christmas stocking. It turned out so well that I'm going to show you how I made it so that, if you're feeling so inclined, you can try your hand at making your own:

I kept this really simple and used just two different cotton fabrics, cut out a felt letter, and then ribbons and buttons for the trim. But obviously the only limit to what you can make is your imagination: use velvet, add flowers, diamante, write your name on it with fabric paint. It really is up to you!

You will need:
2 sheets A4 paper to cut the pattern
1/2 meter patterned fabric
1/2 meter plain coloured fabric
Coordinating cotton
Embellishments (I used felt, ribbon, and buttons)

1. Cut out a stocking template pattern onto your sheets of A4 paper: this will be the template you use to cut your fabric. I drew and redrew mine by hand until I had the shape I wanted.
2. Cut the template 4 times; twice on each of your fabrics. Remember to turn the template around when doing the back panel of the patterned fabric, so the pattern will still show when the stocking is assembled.
3. Place the fabric with the patttern to the inside and the lining to the outside and then stitch the four pieces of fabric together: I used a simple running stitch. If you want to create this even quicker, you could use a sewing machine. Turn inside out and voila: you have your very own simple-to-sew Christmas stocking!
4. Embellish away to your hearts content! And don't forget that if you want to hang your stocking you'll need to add a ribbon loop to the corner.

Obviously this one is entirely for my own satisfaction, as the baby will be far too young to appreciate Christmas or stockings. But he'll only get one first Christmas, and I intend to suck as much joy and fun out of it as possible!

So what do you think? Do you think you'll have a go at making your own? If you do, I would LOVE to see how it turns out; email me a picture!

Love Tor x

PS - Don't forget to enter my Christmas giveaway: there is a great selection of little prizes to be won!! 

Fabfrocks at Home: All decorated for Christmas!

Hi guys,
I love Christmas. Actually that's an understatement: I LOVE Christmas! So as soon as December 1st rolls around, I want my house decorated immediately. Because of course, why not maximise the amount of time you can spend looking at glittery decorations and twinkly lights, right? True to form, yesterday we built our grotto whilst listening to our specially crafted Christmas playlist. Here's how it looks:

-Nothing on my tree matches! It's a mish-mash of colours and styles: but that's because each bauble is special. My mum started it, buying my sisters and I special Christmas baubles to remember every year starting from when we were born. And now Mike and I pick up ornaments on our travels together: we have one to remind us of our wedding day, our honeymoon, even one that says "Our first Christmas together". I think it's a great tradition and makes putting up the tree even more special.


- I love poinsettias: they're so festive, and cheap too! This one cost me just £2.50 from Asda. It has pride of place in our fireplace, and the great thing is (if I remember to water it!) it will last for the whole of December!


- We picked up the nutcracker in Berlin last December. The 70s-style angel was a gift from my mum: something she and my dad have had since they got married. And it just wouldn't be Christmas without a plate full of candy canes to nibble on every time you walk past it!


-Our non-traditional Christmas wreath. I saw one just like this in a fancy design shop, but it was soo expensive. Luckily, my mum is a craft monster and a genius with a glue gun: she managed to replicate it completely for me. I think it looks amazing!


- This is our first year of having a proper fireplace for Christmas, and I love it! Our stockings are all hung up and ready in anticipation. Mike and I have Mickey and Minnie ones, brought in Florida. The baby has his own which I made myself: tutorial on how to make one to follow next weekend!


- Finally the focal point of any home at Christmas: the dining table. My centrepiece is an advent ring. The sweet cones are from Ikea: it's hard to fill them fast enough when Mike is around! We also have a full Christmas dinner service: you really can't avoid the fact that it's December in this house!

Have you put your Christmas tree up yet? How do you like to decorate for Christmas?

Love Tor x

PS - Don't forget to enter my Christmas giveaway: there is a great selection of little prizes to be won!! 

Fabfrocks at Home: Decorating for Christmas

Hi guys,
It's that time of the year again! When I look out my window I can see the soft glow of Christmas tree lights in almost every flat and house around me: people are preparing for the big day, and so are we. My Christmas tree has been up for weeks! I love Christmas and I love decorating my house for Christmas: it's a relaxing ritual that prepares you and your home for the craziness to come!

My tree isn't exactly traditional: it's more of an eclectic mish-mash of all the things I like: hence the lights shaped like rabbits (a steal at just £5 from a local carboot sale) the skull and deer baubles (both available from Paperchase) and the ice cream cone bauble from Harrods. I think it's more important that you love each bauble or that they mean something that that everything matches.


As well as decorating my tree I also decorate my table. I have a big red Christmas table cloth, an Advent ring as my centre piece, Christmas place mats, and even salt and pepper shakers shaped like Santa! In the kitchen I have a Christmas dinner service (covered in Polar bears) and two sets of Christmas mugs (you can pick up similar ones from Debenhams if you're feeling inspired!)
Finally in a new addition for this Christmas, I built a sleigh using a cardboard box and some red and silver wrapping paper. We're hosting Christmas for the first time this year, meaning 6 people will be squeezed into my two bedroom flat. As well as looking fantastic (and perfect for my nephew's first Christmas) it has a practical function too: it will keep all the presents organised and in one place, rather than spread all over the house when we're so space-restricted!

What have you done to your house for Christmas? Have you put your tree up yet? I'd love to hear if you have any great ideas on how to make a big festive impact on a low budget too!

Love Tor xx

Harrods Christmas World is open...and looking fantastic!

Hi guys,
Yesterday after my last LFW show of the season, I met Mike from his office, and he took me to Harrods. We had ice cream in the Harrods Ice cream parlour (best sundae I have ever eaten!) and then went for a walk around their Christmas World which, bizarrely, opened about a month ago.

I unashamedly love Christmas! I have loved it my whole life and I always get excited about it far too early: not normally this early, but I've just finished putting together the Christmas gift guide for work, which got me in the festive spirit. Plus, Christmas World is a tourist haven, and if you try to visit closer to Christmas it's like a very sparkly hell!

I am very lucky that Mike humoured me whilst I checked out every single bauble and tried to find the most expensive crackers (my best was £599 for a box of six) the took some photos:




The world is slightly smaller this year than last, and has been moved from its usual spot on the fourth floor to the second. It's been divided into three distinct zones and themes.

My favourite was the gingerbread Christmas, full of fifties-style pastel colours and decorations shaped like ice cream cones, candy canes, and gingerbread men of course! The other two zones were Winter Wonderland (lots of white and glitter) and Traditional Christmas (Victoriana in red, gold, and green). It's definitely worth a visit if you're in town and looking to get festive! The baubles start in price from about £4 each, which isn't cheap, but they make a lovely special memory or souvenier.

It's a bit too soon to be talking about Christmas proper, but if Harrods is a bit too rich for your purse then nearer the time I will be doing lots of Fabfrocks at Home features about Christmas on a budget: including how to make your own decorations!

Love, Tor xx