A Cracker

Last Christmas I gave you my heart made bon bons (christmas crackers). Buying the bon bons is usually my parent's department and ridiculously expensive! Since we were hosting I thought I would try my hand at making them. They were pretty RAG (rough as guts), but did the job well. So a new tradition has begun, I'm the new official bon bon maker!

To make the bon bons I borrowed an image off the net, that matched with our napkins and set about designing a template. Simple, print them out, roll them up, tie them off. No. I went through more than my fair share of prototypes. Obviously, you want them to rip easily. I had no scoring or perforating blades on my trimmer so I had to fold them by hand and then use a hole punch to weaken the paper, like I said RAG.

The fillings were fun. I personalised each one so that the recipient would actually want to take their little gift home with them. Kevin got a keyring with photos of Brian in it, Brian and his cousin Kirra got a little pair of shorts each, Mum got some Lush soap, Dad got a tea ball similar to this, Shane and Dallas got a small bottle of alcohol, Drew got lego, Kerri got a foot spa pack and I got a clear stamp.

Instead of the tacky jokes I did a lot of research and included a few facts on each piece of paper. I loved these the most. Because I made them I was able to make the facts more relevant to each reader. For example I compared the size of a particular Christmas tree to lengths of a football field for my footy loving nephew. I don't have access to the computer that has that file on it, so unfortunately I can't share them. Although here's a rough example from my "still suffering from baby brain" memory: "Erzgebirge (or Ore Mountains) in Germany was a popular area for mining. When the mineral deposits declined the miners turned to wood carving among other trades. It is here when the Christmas pyramid and nutcracker was born."

The trouble I have now is keeping up the cool gifts each year. I've picked up three of six so far. Obviously I can't say too much, but one may or may not be WAY too big! And yes, I did take an empty toilet roll shopping with me last year - I'm all class I tell you.