decorating Xmas tree, and more preparations (16 foto)

We have got an exclusive artsy reusable Christmas tree made of patches - High Eco Friendly! Each year we dress it up with cookies and candies. As the new year begins, it slowly gets rid of the decorations, which are being consumed :) after that we put it to the box to wait for the next year...

Here you see me in the process of a nail-work. My wife done the actual photos. These are rather staged photos.. but the process is real!

Some candies I prepared for this year's round.

This one is my entry to '52 weeks' contest by @wwwiebe
As you may see, the Xmas Tree is pretty big! Takes a load of sweets to go, hehe.

I thought it could look good in black-and-white mode, too.

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A few other Christmas preparations from the last week...

We decorated the windowsills, using maple leaves and chestnuts I collected in October, and some figurines. They will cherish our eyes in this way till March or April.

Gifts

Wrapping gifts in beautiful paper is exciting experience that always raises the Christmas mood! (Well, unwrapping gifts too!)

And I have a great stock of paper, as you can see. My baby tried to make gifts for all her classmates, I helped her with packaging!

Candles

I examined our stock - we still have more than a half of a x100 package of simple candles that we got from IKEA a few years ago.

Greeting cards! We love receiving postcards from friends, and remind friends of ourselves too. I have obtained 10 funny postcards with jokes about my city of St. Petersburg. For close relatives and godfather, my daughter and I made cards ourselves. I love mail art and DIY!

I am also a fan of Tristan Tzara's Method of Writing a Dadaist Poem, so...

the scissors and papers and glue is a way to go, to receive this creative and original result.

This is how the final card looks like. I afraid you dont get the titles in Russian, but believe me, they sound funny and controvercial! (and not 'greeting' at all). It doesnt contain very much of traditional Christmas style (tho it is all Red, haha!) -- I admit it. Each card is unique DIY masterpiece, its absolutely clear to the adressee that some sufficient lifetime was spent at creating it -- and nowadays, when everything is readymade cheap and can be consumed and passed by at the speed of 10,000 per second... this is what feels so peculiarly precious about such a gift.

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All the images taken with Canon 5D +50mm 1.4 (c) qwerrie
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